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China: the New Global High-Tech Power
Andy Tai writes "This three-part news.com special report shows how mainland China has become the focus of high tech business opportunities during the global recession. The article compares today's China to 19th Century America as "a booming nation starved for products and driven by a new generation of entrepreneurs", points out China's "sheer numbers and ambitious work ethic are producing thousands of engineers--and U.S. companies are recruiting the best of them," and concludes "that this may eventually be known as China's high-tech century. " Another good article looking at China's rise as a global power can be found here."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't their culture spend several thousands of years as the most advanced on Earth?
Friends don't let friends use multiple inheritance.
Sure, China has the largest potential market in the world for virtually any kind of product. They do have many people, but those people are going to have to acquire some disposable income before the potential market is realized for most of the things we want to sell them.
If cheap labor were the only factor in determining the relative economic strength of a nation-state, the Romans would never have built and sustained their empire. Ditto for the Venicians, French, English, and Americans.
China is not *the* place to be. Just ask the Falung Gong. Just ask anyone who gives a fuck about freedom of assembly, freedom of speech, due process, or basic fucking human rights of any kind in China.
And from a business perspective, lack of these things, particularly in a world economy dominated by post-industrial persuits that require human creativity and unfettered access to information, is the kiss of death.
Sure, China is booming. But recall the USSR. Right up to 1989/90, many experienced Sovietologists were still predicting that the Soviet Union would allow only moderate reforms, and would certainly be around for another 50 years. That's the problem with a government with limited transparency - you never really know with any certainty what's really going on with the economy (or anything else for that matter).
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The same reason hi-tech went to South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia. A minimum of infrastructure, enough education and cheap wages enforced by a repressive state. Boeing and Motorola love it.
. This sig unintentionally left blank. I meant to put something here, but I'm busy.
there's a reason for all these low scoring posts, it's because you guys don't know jack shit about china! hell, if you wanna brag about communism and how things are over there, why not actually GO there and see it for yourselves? on the surface it's not much different from the US, it's cot a capitolist economy, but the government IS corrupt and is practicly lead by the military. of all the people i've talked to in china, most of them get pissed when i refer to taiwan as a different country, sure they have thier bad parts, but that's ALL you people ever look at! GO TO CHINA! see the FSCKING place for yourselves and experience it before you babble on about all your bull shit! and to emphesise my point, i'll repeat my point, YOU PEOPLE KNOW SHIT ABOUT CHINA!
Same here. Perhaps the reason why this country is lagging behind so much is a lot of the stuff that guy listed. A lot of Americans come across as being arrogant little pricks that expect the world in return for what they do in *whatever* jobs they work. Furthermore they look at the rest of the world as being uncivilized if they don't have freedom of expression etc. Well America, have you looked at yourself recently? You may be a superpower, but you're certainly standing on _very_ shakey foundations.
Try this logic on for size.
China comes out of it's shell approx. every 500 years. When it comes out, it takes note of other civilazations, etc., and makes some changes to the furniture, and then it closes up again. These cycles are much too large to be noticed by countries, such as the US, where 'history' is measured in much smaller increments. China has been opening up for the last 50 years or so, and we're just now noticing the stirrings.
China will bypass the industrial revolution as we know it, and jump directly into the technological revolution (wireless, etc.). In the mean time, the US is dragging along (copper wires, etc.) and lacks the perspective to see things from the Chinese POV, which again, is to use a much wider lens when looking towards the horizon.
I'm not surprised Westerners think they way they do when they claim China isn't moving...to a small creature, like a flea, an elephant seems so large as to never move.
I've been working in Japan & Korea for the last 12 years (tech manufacturing)...waiting for things to pick up speed in China. I've got two more contract years to burn in Korea and then China will be ready for me...and I will be ready for China. I can't wait.
There is no reason to believe that this is inevitably a long-term state. The US is a mid-size country (by population), and food, geographic isolation, and natural resources are becoming less and less important. And other countries are becoming as attractive as the US for skilled international workers.
If the US continues to have a leadership role, it will be because it earns it. But that means that US politicians have to give up on their assumption that US predominance is a right that Americans are born with. Isolationist policies like those we have seen over the last few years will likely simply make the US less and less relevant to international affairs.
China is rife with corruption, compared to the US. It is inevitable that a country without a free press, without a *transparent* judiciary and decidion making process, and without guarantees of free speech and due process will suffer from corruption.
China can best be described today as a fascist country, with the state and big industry inextricably intertwined. It has a secret police (gestapo equivalent) which has wide reaching powers. Individuals who are critical can find themselves executed and their organs harvested for use by those in power. The government is undemocratic and power succession is typical of these regimes... it is shrouded in secrecy.
Until China develops modern government, with respect for human rights including free speech and property rights, enforced by a minimally corrupt judicial system, and watched over by a free press, it is doomed to the fate of all such systems... increasing corruption, militancy and aggressive foreign policy, and poor economic performance.
Capitalism, in many variants, has been proven to be the most efficient economic system yet tried. Capitalism requires property rights; it requires a low level of corruption; it requires transparency; it requires freedom.
China is experimenting with state controlled capitalism - i.e. fascism - as opposed to its own total command economy. It is doomed to ultimately fail as an economic system as long as unelected officials can arbitrarily change the rules to their personal enrichment, backed by the power of a police state.
The only good weather is bad weather.
A "high-tech economy" is just a nebulous thing out there in the world, and we're not supposed to think about how it comes about. The capitalist class only knows how to make stuff, to sell stuff, to keep all the proceeds, and to slough off all the expenses of the enterprise upon the public. When you spend your time privatizing profits while socializing your expenses, you are waaaaaay too busy to deal with irrelevant items like: "Gee, who will buy our stuff, the guys we laid off in America, or the guys we underpay in China?"
Having so stated my assumption, now I just gotta respond to your points under its perverse and wicked influence:
access to energy
Yes, this is pretty essential -- to production, of course (who cares what the customer does with the damned thing after the sale is made?). I wonder if local generation in China is being explored? -- it's an idea being toyed with in America.
fair judicial system
What the hell does that matter? Your factory is setup with Chinese "partners" who will inevitably be a part of whatever local government and "law enforcement" that exists. If shoes and clothing can be produced by a class of people with no recourse to "fair" judgment, then so can many other things that are produced by assembly line.
clean water
What the hell does that matter? People filter water in America; just filter in what you need in China. Whatever the workers drink is their own problem.
enough food for its people
What the hell does that matter? There will be plenty more Chinese coming in from the rural areas to get the chance to work in your factory for money, which they imagine will help lift them out of poverty and possible starvation. It won't, of course, but people have always shown hope in that regard since the Industrial Revolution.
uncorrupt governance
This is probably a factor, but a minor one at that. Bribery is just another line item in your budget. After all, this the standard way that the oil business is conducted.
educated people
What the hell does that matter? Your cheap labor is ideal for Taylorist work arrangements. And any cheap labor that you feel the need to educate for specific reasons (hey we need an electrical engineer for this factory), simply can be educated and returned to China at a cheaper cost than hiring a First World skilled person. Education is highly overrated; craftsman skills themselves have been long obsoleted by factories.
freedom of expression
Ju-das Priest, where do you get these silly ideas anyway? The shoes and clothes you are now wearing have in all probability been produced by people who do without hope, disposable income, fresh air, nourishing food, and job security. Freedom of expression is just another opportunity for the workers to make trouble for the capitalist class that owns the methods of manufacture. Since it is not only unnecessary but harmful to the process of maximizing profits, it must be absent.
(Thank you for your attention. I had as good a time responding to your posting as I can ever have with my clothes on.)
[also misbehaves on Kuro5hin as Peahippo]
Not even close, although the US has a lead in GDP it certainly isn't the sole superpower. The EU zone as a whole actually has a larger GDP. Japan has a comparable GDP even in prolonged recession.
The US superpower status is military. The EU could match the US in military power if they were prepared to devote the same insane proportion of their budgets to military hardware. However doing that would cost the courtries their welfare state services which seems a lot to give up just to build weapons for the sake of it.
The bellyaching of the US right about China has nothing to do with human rights. The US right never gave a hang about human rights abuses by Pinochet, Marcos or the House of Saud. What they are really upset about is demographics and economics. It is a lot easier for a backward country to grow at 15% as it catches up than it is for a developed country to sustain 4% growth. The only way that China can fail to overtake the US in terms of economic power is to have a civil war and be broken into pieces. Same goes for India.
Bush and the cronies who control him could not give a damn about human rights or the Falun Gong. Their speeches about human rights and democracy are as hypocritical as their speeches on corporate responsibility - one of the chief Enron scam artist who bilked his division out of $15 million in bonuses while reporting $500 million is phony profits is still secretary for the army. If you think that fine speeches about democracy are worth anything I have a lorry load of Florida chads to sell you.
Military power follows economic power. China with a population four or five times that of the US could if it chose sustain a military the same size should it choose to do so. The militarist faction of the right can only understand prestige and power and cannot imagine that any country that has the option of building a superpower status military would give up the opportunity.
Fortunately most nations don't have the same inferiority complex that drives the US right. China, Germany, France, Britain have all done the empire bit and don't need to do it again.
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Sure, we have a freer country than China, but the gap is not as great as some people would have you believe.
No, thats true, a lot of them went to Canada as well. Its been fairly well established that the North American free trade pact has benefitted Canada and Mexico moreso than the US.
If cheap labor were the only factor in determining the relative economic strength of a nation-state, the Romans would never have built
WHAT? Are you not familiar with the concept of slavery? The Romans didn't pay their workforce, they whipped them. The same can be said for the south in the US prior to the Civil War. Wow, you are demonstrating an astoundingly bad grasp of history here.
China is not *the* place to be. Just ask the Falung Gong.
The US is not *the* place to be. Just ask the Branch Davidians.
And from a business perspective, lack of these things, particularly in a world economy dominated by post-industrial persuits that require human creativity and unfettered access to information, is the kiss of death.
How do you presume to state that Chinese citizens cannot be creative? Microsoft does much of its research (some of which lead to MP4) in China. You're just in denial now, offering up ridiculous reasons why everywhere but the US must fail.
I disagree. Big Business wants tight governmental control over the people so their toes aren't stepped on, and loose control over themselves, so they can do what they please. This means that with the money they're making, they can afford to set governmental policy through bribery (even more easily than in North America) and the people, who are unable to assemble or speak out about the businesses fucking them over are going to be put to work.
You don't need people with freedom to have a strong economy. If you chain research scientists to their desks and demand that they work, you can squeeze enough work out of them to make it worth your while.
And don't forget the lesson of Hitler's Germany. He turned a broken state into a real world power, and he did it without the whole 'freedom' thing. Nazi Fascism isn't any prettier than Communism.
In the university where work as a research assistant, the majority of PhD students are from China and India. Chinese students invariably tend to be the best ones. It seems like by the time they come here they have already done A LOT of practical hitech research in their universities.
Because of this, (and because most of them don't mind being paid 2k$/month or less) a lot of departments actually prefer to hire Chinese students for tech projects.
Many of them will go back to China once their studies are over.
It is also worth considering that for each student that makes it to the US, maybe 100 will stay in China.
And, as the article says: "Hundreds of universities with strong tech departments have been created."
Is this enough to say that China is headed towards becoming the place where hi tech is conceived and grown ?
I think that, IF these government-funded policies will go on, it will be just a matter of time (maybe a couple of generations, maybe less
And btw, it seems to me that they are very inclined toward the sharing of knowledge and information,
giampy
We learn from history that we learn nothing from history - Tom Veneziano
Yeah they created the modern world, two THOUSAND years ago.
We're talking about the country that exists today. Now. The stability that made them the most advanced culture in the world also stopped their progression.
And I'm not talking about "Cool" or "Uncool". You're never going to be a world leader if your plan is to simply copy what the world leader has. You're just another follower then.
Democrats or Republicans. They are both taking us to the same place and they are not afraid of us anymore.
Y'know, it never ceases to amaze me how geeks who deride ignorant end-users and others who simply spit tech-buzzwords ape the same behavior when it comes to anything outside their immediate sphere of knowledge. I don't think I'm the first to posit that there's such a thing as a political geek, and I think I qualify, so it's roughly similar for me to read any post on China here as it is for anyone with computer literacy to wander the archives of "Computer Stupidities." (if that site is still extant) China does have an emerging middle class, but also a hyper-expanding upper class, and a stagnant and simply huge lower class-set. Disposable income--as well as power, water, most other basic amenities of life-- are present in China, and the country is simply Geared to modernize and make up for lost time. This is not to say China is a threat to the 'States. Hardly. That's like saying the U.S. was a threat to Britain as we caught up to, then surpassed, their pre-eminent place on the global stage. They don't want to f--- over the U.S., they want to be a peer of the U.S., to achieve for their citizenry the standards of living that are present in the most advanced states, because that is where China has historically been (for, oh, four-thousand contiguous years of recorded human history; I seriously think they're a great example of an actively evolving static governmental structure when viewing dynastic transtions and reigns) and it is where China wants to be again. Russia dropped the ball when the power void opened and there was no one to fill it except organized crime and those who retained power, influence or money. China's transition, while mired in rhetorical bs, is more gradual, allowing for systems of infrastructure to develop and take root. If y'all didn't know, recently China's wireless network supassed the U.S.'s usership. At least according to CCTV-9 and the economists (Westerners all, mind you) they brought on.
But what do I know. I'm just a poli sci major. Why trust me if you don't trust a coder on softwa--oh, wait, you do.
-An American living in a Chinese city that is neither the true boonies or a coastal town. --and, Yes, they Do exist. You can't fit 1.25-1.4 billion people in a country without having copius mid-sized cities. It ain't another world, just another part. *sighs*