641–645 of 645 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
that's comically* naive, and plainly false - China itself has already stated their objectives. * Actually, wilfully naive would be a better fit.
provide a direct quote, then.
https://jamestown.org/civil-military-fusion-and-the-plas-pur...
Now read, since you clearly haven't.
Domestically, we often put it this way: since it wasn’t made by God, we can definitely make it ourselves. It’s only a matter of time — if not this year, then next year; if we can’t do it next year, we’ll just keep going. This is how we approach everything. There is a small caveat, though. China was not actually that far behind in the semiconductor field in the past. The problem was that corruption and fraudulent proj…
It’s only a matter of time, but time matters, as they say. You should know that what China is doing was tried in the past. It is an old story. When the microchip was brand new (invented in the USA) the Soviets realized they needed the tech for military purposes. So they built a closed city devoted to silicon research called Zelenograd. It was staffed with very bright physicists and engineers. But Zelenograd didn't ma…
China is very good at industrialising stuff because they are very obedient and efficient on matters that are already known. Once the west has identified a worthwhile endeavor, they are quite quick at reproducing and churning out copies efficiently. Sometimes they improve on it slightly but their game is mostly about making it cheaper.
This can readily be seen in the smartphone market. They have all the industrial base, large supply of engineers and large amount of cash. Yet they are unable to make a truly defining product once you remove the price out of the equation. The first reason to buy a Chinese smartphone is lower price otherwise people still prefer to go with Apple, Google or Samsung. There are small details that make those devices generally just better; even when the Chinese manage to do better in a particular dimension, overall the western designed devices are just better. They have tried increasing price (at least MSRP, to make their devices look more expensive) but there is no way one would pay Apple/Samsung prices for their smartphone. I actually think this is why smartphone haven't trended down on price much lately, the Chinese are trying to capture the design/engineering part of the pie but with limited success. Meanwhile, since competiton has reduced, the major western player can feel content selling the same stuff without reducing price.
And yes the private sector is quite developed but to me it seems like it is largely devoted to fulfill western needs because that's were the real money is. When they manage to do something special, there is always an enormous western influence, either through education (chinese who studied abroad) or via direct involvement of western people inside their business.
For the big projects, they are relying a lot on technology transfer from the west, buying the IP with consulting from western companies and then copying what they learned at scale.
I think a lot of people still don't understand what a profond influence having a communist mindset has. It looks successfull to them because they manage to afford a good lifestyle thanks to their massive industries but that is downstream of all their copying/mimicking the western inventions.
Western societies should think about what they are doing when they transfer their knowledge to this country on the cheap, because it strenghten them and China isn't a nice player in general.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
The history of Soviet electronics manufacturing is fascinating, but there are some huge differences and I actually don't think the private sector is the largest. One is the pace and type of innovation. In the 70s and 80s the landscape was incredibly dynamic and technology went through several huge changes. If you wanted to run a clone of the US tech industry then, you would need a distributed, dynamic effort across m…
At the start of the microchip age, the US wasn't that far ahead. The techniques for manufacturing microchips weren't anything special and the Soviets could do so easily. The problem was the top-down mandate to clone, not lack of internal capability.
The reality is that the Soviets never really managed cutting-edge mass manufacturing. There are only a few countries that have: first Britain from the screw-cutting lathe in 1800, then the US, then later Japan, Germany, China, Taiwan and South Korea. In 225 years it's a fairly short list of countries, and most only made the list for a few decades!
The closest the Soviets ever came, of course, was aerospace, but to use that as an example of advanced manufacturing leadership would be a stretch. Sputnik was impressive, but advanced manufacturing it was certainly not; it was a simple sphere with a simple radio transmitter. Look at the tolerances, finishes, materials, manufacturing methods, etc of N1 vs Saturn V, Buran vs the Space Shuttle, TU-144 vs the Concorde.
[1] https://www.hrono.info/libris/stalin/13-18.php - fascinating speech by Stalin on industrialization in 1931
Earlier quoted context omitted.
At the start of the microchip age, the US wasn't that far ahead. The techniques for manufacturing microchips weren't anything special and the Soviets could do so easily. The problem was the top-down mandate to clone, not lack of internal capability.
I don't know when you want to define as the start of the microchip age (50s? 60s?) but the Soviets were always behind the Americans in advanced manufacturing. In 1931 Stalin said "We are 50–100 years behind the advanced countries" [1.] In WW2 the Soviets relied on the US for advanced machine tools and in 1943 Stalin said: "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of ma…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I don't know when you want to define as the start of the microchip age (50s? 60s?) but the Soviets were always behind the Americans in advanced manufacturing. In 1931 Stalin said "We are 50–100 years behind the advanced countries" [1.] In WW2 the Soviets relied on the US for advanced machine tools and in 1943 Stalin said: "The most important things in this war are the machines.... The United States is a country of ma…
Thanks for the excellent comment.