Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

backchannel.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

101–110 of 271 posts

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#101

Post by jgroch »

sunstone wrote: post #7

The West and China are playing a global chess game and have been for some time. An impoverished China was not in the West's interests and so they agreed to buy all kinds of lowish tech Chinese made goods. In return most jurisdictions enforced a balance of trade with China, with the exception of the US. On their end China insisted on joint ventures and technology transfer to the extent Western companies would comply.…

"It's a big boy's game for large nation states...."

The Koreans have a saying: "...like a shrimp between two whales...."

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#102

Post by erdevs »

hyh1048576 wrote: post #58
erdevs wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> > > As late as this past June, Uber was predicting it would pass its rival within a year. > This is simply not true. Yes it is true. Kalanick's investor updates from 24-12 months ago were all gung ho on China and how Uber was seeing as much or more success there as any Western country ever had. Their explicit goal was to outcompete Didi and become the #1 on-demand service in China ( on-demand generally... not just…

> What evidence have you that this is "simply not true." Some of these statements to investors have become public knowledge, which you'll see with a simple google search. I'm not saying Kalanick didn't say that, what I meant is it's not going to happen based on my observation. Sorry if it was misleading. > No. A peace treaty or truce means each side remains independent but they agree to stop warring with each other.…

Thanks for explaining / clarifying.

> I don't view this as a victory of Didi either, they simply defended their home turf.

I think this is where we disagree. It was definitely a victory for Didi. They beat Uber in China, which is the market they care most about.

Moreover, they have aligned themselves strategically. They now have a stake of Uber as well (don't forget Didi also invested $1B in Uber and as a result achieved information rights on Uber). They have partnerships with Grab in SE Asia and Ola in Inida. Lyft in the US. They continue to encircle Uber...

Whereas a year ago, an Uber investor could've reasonable thought Uber was on a path to domination worldwide... today it's clear that their potential is greatly diminished from those lofty possibilities. They are removed from China outright. They are being confronted by an opponent that has already beat them in SE Asia and perhaps in India. Who knows what is next in Europe and the US.

Didi has been absolutely brilliant here, and they deserve full credit for it.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#103

Post by neutronicus »

batbomb wrote: post #22
skynetv2 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> China ended up with last generate tech we are way past that point. China has leap frogged pretty much everyone else in every aspect. It took China less than a year to build the worlds fastest supercomputer (unclassified) after US placed restrictions on related technology exports to China. China was building components for supercomputers over the past decade, they would show case a network, a small processor, coolin…

Owning the fastest supercomputer in the world is mostly irrelevant these days, because the entire thing just gets partitioned into smaller chunks in actual use. It's just never in anyone's interest to run a job that utilizes all the resources. At the end of the day, most of these computers are just a pissing contest and are rarely cost effective, and are almost always a huge pain in the ass to use.

Says you. I have whole-system simulations that need running.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#104

Post by jgroch »

mmanfrin wrote: post #93
jackcosgrove wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the USA's ace in the hole for brewing civil unrest in other countries: Hollywood. (I'm being mordant here; not advocating for international psy-ops.) American media project a depiction of life that is very attractive by design, and this raises expectations among consumers of this media. If Chinese people were not aware of the lifestyles of westerners, the Chinese government would be under less pressure t…

I just saw the new Star Wars -- cofinanced by (e:) Alibaba films. In it, one of the moral cruxes of the main story was that the crew needed 'Unity'. I saw this as a subtle shift from american 'Freedom'. There's a point where some 'good guys' are being held prisoner. In any red-blooded American Hollywood Film, this would lead to 'GIVE US OUR FREEDOM' type resistance. In this movie, it led to 'WE NEED UNITY' resistance…

"Maybe I am reading too much in to it...."

No, i don't think that you're reading too much into it. In fact, i like your analysis. I'll have to rewatch it, again. LOL

especially concerning "unity" vs. "FREEDOMMM!"

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#105

Post by giardini »

morgante wrote: post #75
tiatia wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Tell them: Look, you can play around with your currency in whatever way you want. But if the trade balance is not balanced, we charge a 10% import tax. Per day. Cumulative. I think there are many countries that can produce cheap shoes, clothes and electronics. By now all this stuff can already be manufactured in the US again due to automation and robotics (see Adidas producing shoes in Germany AGAIN). This would be a…

And watch while we are plunged into a recession due to a huge disruption in global supply chains. Sorry, but complex problems don't have simple answers. Trump can't unilaterally force China to stop its protectionism, at least not without inflicting significant hurt on the American economy. How do you think people will react to a 10% increase in prices for almost all goods?

"And watch while we are plunged into a recession due to a huge disruption in global supply chains."

WHAT supply chain? There is NO supply chain anymore. JIT (Just-In-Time) inventory has been replaced by BLTN (Better-Late-Than-Never) and AGNM (Ain't-Got-No-More) inventory.

Went to a large box store on the weekend. They had empty containers marked "Display" on the shelves. Two different employees explained that I should put empty containers for the desired items in my cart and, upon checking out, they would retrieve a full container of each item "from the back". Both assured me all displayed items were available.

Got my display containers and proceeded to check out. Was informed that two of three displayed items were not available. I suggested to the clerk "So now you'll take these two items off display?" He replied "No, they'll probably be back in stock next week."

I left the store w/o purchasing anything and they'll never see me again.

We may be in a recession right now because we can't buy quality goods AT ALL! I've bought five new fingernail clippers in the last six months and, for God's sake, they won't cut my nails! They're all made in China.

Many, if not most Chinese goods, especially machine tools, remain as they were 14 years ago: low quality and every item different with no standardization. And they've driven many good US manufacturers out of business. Why? Because workers buy shitty tools for one-time use, bill the customer for the work and for the tools and then throw away the tools when they're done. Of course no one's considering the external factors here: cost of shitty tools in poor workmanship, longer production times and accidents.

"How do you think people will react to a 10% increase in prices for almost all goods?"

If it convinces American manufacturers to produce quality products then it's great news.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#106

Post by mladenkovacevic »

mmanfrin wrote: post #93
jackcosgrove wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Don't forget the USA's ace in the hole for brewing civil unrest in other countries: Hollywood. (I'm being mordant here; not advocating for international psy-ops.) American media project a depiction of life that is very attractive by design, and this raises expectations among consumers of this media. If Chinese people were not aware of the lifestyles of westerners, the Chinese government would be under less pressure t…

I just saw the new Star Wars -- cofinanced by (e:) Alibaba films. In it, one of the moral cruxes of the main story was that the crew needed 'Unity'. I saw this as a subtle shift from american 'Freedom'. There's a point where some 'good guys' are being held prisoner. In any red-blooded American Hollywood Film, this would lead to 'GIVE US OUR FREEDOM' type resistance. In this movie, it led to 'WE NEED UNITY' resistance…

Do you by any chance mean Star Trek and Alibaba films?

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#107

Post by School-Cotton »

jdietrich wrote: post #92
klodolph wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're looking at the PR, look at the actual technology. Anyone can build a big enough supercomputer if you throw enough money at the problem. This high level of spending is getting hard to justify, however, because most of the problems you want to solve can't be solved just by throwing another order of magnitude of computing power at the problem. Building a supercomputer becomes a bit of a boondoggle, a public-relat…

TSMC have two 16nm fabs and are building a 10nm fab.

TSMC fabs are mostly in Taiwan, not China.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#109

Post by danbruc »

I really dislike this tone of China acting fundamentally badly. It's their country, they can do whatever the heck they want. If they want a local replacement for everything already existing outside of Chine, so be it. If you just let established big players have all the cake, chances for success of local competitors become pretty slim.

Stealing trade secrets if of course not okay, but that is more of a theoretical argument, the west probably has his fingers equally deep in the Chinese cookie jar. If you make agreements and China later unilaterally breaks them, that is of course also not okay.

But investors don't seem to care, it's not that nobody knows what to expect, but the lure of huge profits seems to win again and again.

Re: When It Comes to China, Google’s Experience Still Says It All

#110

Post by sushid »

walrus01 wrote: post #56
optforfon wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. There are tons. Starbucks is everywhere, KFC, McDonalds, Walmart is doing okay along with Carrefour. Apple ofcourse is completely crushing the phone market (and it's not just so they can employ a few factories of manual laborers) Car comapnies do just fine. I'm sure there is a ton of industrial espionage and technology transfer from government to local companies (hard to explain some advances otherwise.. ), but…

Car companies do fine in weird ways: Buick is a super luxury prestigious brand in mainland China because 100 years ago, some of the first cars imported were Buicks... In the USA it's seen as your grandfather's land yacht.

It's also because companies can completely rebrand themselves when they go abroad (as do humans sometimes, go figure).

PBR is sold as a premium beer brand in China, and in Korea, VWs are considered luxurious. Pretty ironic, seeing as it's name literally means people's car in German.

Post reply on HN