Slashdot Mirror
China Plans to Surpass the U.S. in Nanotech Development
SoyChemist writes "Sociologists at the American Association for the Advancement of Science annual meeting have reported that China is making major investments in nanotechnology. Their aim is to 'leapfrog' past the United States in technological development by focusing on long-ranging scientific goals. So far, the Chinese government has poured about $400 million into the young field of research. Considering the low cost of equipment and labor over there, that is a very large sum of money, and China's investment is expected to 'rise considerably.'"
I see this being a place where the US will always lag behind due to conservative Christianity and the whole "don't play God" thing.
Not trying to troll, but this sort of research and development is going to happen regardless. Other countries will take up the slack and fill any gap we do not.
Last time China tried a great leap forward..didn't work out so well.
'Number-memorizing Chinese people.'-Anon
Looks like somebody wants more funding and is raising the China bogeyman to do it.
As someone who has actually worked with academics and entrepreneurs in this field, I call bullshit on this. No professional scientist or engineer I've met has spent a moment's thought on what any putative "don't play God" faction thinks, or even thinks he needs to. There's zero evidence that any such faction, should it even exist outside of your imagination, has ever had any significant effect on technological advancement in this country.
Furthermore, my experience suggests that the Chinese have a much more substantial and real cultural barrier to any kind of technological progress (which is, I think, one reason why a society civilized a thousand years before the West, and having had a far larger population for far longer, has nevertheless consistently lagged behind the West in terms of invention and innovation, at least on a per capita basis).
The problem is that the Confucian tradition strongly reinforcea an acceptance of existing heirarchy, and of paying the utmost respect to your elders and those better educated and more experienced than yourself. This is antithetical to innovation and invention. The only way you can invent something new is by doing something that older and wiser heads think is foolish. (If they didn't think it was dumb, they'd have done it themselves already.)
Consequently true innovation happens only in a culture that does not value established wisdom too much, which is willing to take some chances on a young, hot-headed, crazy contrarian way of thinking. China has a long and strong cultural tradition of valuing established wisdom, and I think that is a much more significant cultural barrier to innovation than any silly Chicken-Little faddish fear that evangelicals are going to rise up and smite researchers working on nanoscopic gears and motors because the latter weren't described in the Bible.
USA lacks national technological goals now and no matter how bright the minds, if they don't have a supporting environment then they will not reach their potential.
China is working as a nation whiich means they will get further with what they have.
Money and equipment don't make for winning. Here's the story of the 1996 Americas Cup: The US team had the might of Boeing (Crays etc) and fleets of white coats to do their math modelling etc. The kiwis had a corner in their warehouse with a couple of SGI workstations. The kiwis achieved more with their math modelling because the math guy was onsite and slept on the floor next to his computers. They used what equipment they had with maximum effectiveness.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"has nevertheless consistently lagged behind the West in terms of invention and innovation
Let's see - China had the sundial, sextant, gunpowder and circumnavigation of the planet under their belt long before the west stopped playing with dolls and you make a claim like that?
They were tossed back to the stone age during world war two, courtesy the Japanese, and basically left to rot by the West - they are just now regaining technical traction. The Chinese used to lead the planet in terms of innovation and they want that honor back. They will leapfrog the industrial revolution and plow headlong directly into the technological revolution while the rest of the world sits and watches.
Nano Tech will require bright minds and very highend industrial technology. Currently, the US leads China in both fields.
The problem with the "bright minds" that the US leads with is that America doesn't really produce them domestically any more. The US imports most of its bright minds nowadays and from where is it getting a lot of them? China.
Sure, some of those bright minds stay in America after they are sharpened in American universities and steeled in American corporations. . .but quite a few go home too. Think about it. . .you are a smart Chinese engineer with a great idea. Do you stay in America to develop your idea; hiring expensive, dumb-assed, lazy, and worthless trailer park punks to staff your fledgling company or do you go back to China to get the ball rolling? Tough decision, isn't it? Not!
Now, about that high end industrial technology. How far behind the US do you really think China is? (Keep in mind that most of the high tech goodies that Americans like to consume are produced in China). Do you think they are 25 to 30 years behind America? Wrong! Try 3 to 5 years behind - at the best! With a population way over a billion and a university system that is growing at warp speed, China is whittling that lead down fast.
Your national chauvinism likely blinds you to the fact, but China has, so far, reached all of the major technological milestones that they have set for themselves. Your comment about "low tech equipment" also suggests that you have not been there lately. Sure, there are still some places in the hinterlands where farmers continue to use water buffalo to prepare their rice fields, but the same is true for Japan. This is actually a good thing and means that China still has an opportunity to preserve some of their cultural heritage before it fades into history by turning some of these communities into domestic tourist destinations. The rest of China, however, is well into the process of becoming a 21st century megapower. You don't have to like that fact, but it is healthier to come to grips with it.
Islam was taken over by its own fundamentalists, too.
.sig, China wants the trappings of science, the technology. To really have the science, you need freedom of thought. The real question about China is whether they will grant sufficient freedom of thought for scientific leadership, and then find that they can't cram the genie back into the bottle.
We're following steps they have trod, about a thousand years later, with our Christian Fundamentalists.
But I still don't see China stepping into the leadership role, the way they're planning. Look at my
Back before the Iraq war, I suggested that Saddam had "his most loyal scientists" working feverishly on WMD. Had he had "his best scientists" working on them, they might have achieved something. I see something of the same quandary for China, as long as the Party insists on retaining absolute political power.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.