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China Lays Claim To Four Great New Inventions That Have Existed Elsewhere Before (bbc.com)

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the closer-look dept.

dryriver writes: The BBC has an interesting story about Chinese state media increasingly touting "4 Great New Inventions" in modern China that were not invented by Chinese inventors or in China at all. The original term "four new inventions" harks back to the "four great inventions" of ancient China -- papermaking, gunpowder, printing and the compass. The new claim, however, appears to be that China actually invented high-speed rail, mobile payment, e-commerce, and bike-sharing, which is not true at all -- all 4 were invented or pioneered in other countries, all of them decades ago. The provenance of the claim appears to be a Beijing Foreign Studies University survey from May 2017, which asked young people from 20 countries to list the technology they "most wanted to bring back" to their country from China. The respondents' top answers were high-speed rail, mobile payment, bike sharing, and e-commerce. Since then, Chinese media and officials have drawn on this to promote these technologies as China's "four new great inventions" in modern times.

China has certainly adopted these "4 great inventions" on a bombastic scale of late. China now has the world's largest high-speed rail network -- about 25,000 kilometres (15,500 miles) -- and aims to double it by 2030. China's total mobile payments in the first 10 months of 2017 stood at $12.7 trillion, the world's largest volume, according to China's Ministry of Industry and Information Technology. And with more than 700 million internet users, China is also the biggest and fastest growing e-commerce market in the world, according to a 2017 study by PricewaterhouseCoopers. In February, the vice minister of China's Ministry of Transport said that there are 400 million registered bike-sharing users and 23 million shared bikes in China. That much is true. But did these 4 great new inventions emerge from China itself? It would appear that that part is untrue.

13 of 193 comments (clear)

  1. 1984 by Atmchicago · · Score: 5, Insightful

    This is straight out of 1984.

    Everything melted into mist. Sometimes, indeed, you could put your finger on a definite lie. It was not true, for example, as was claimed in the Party history books, that the Party had invented aeroplanes. He remembered aeroplanes since his earliest childhood. But you could prove nothing.

    --

    You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.

    1. Re:1984 by ColdWetDog · · Score: 3, Funny

      Or Steve Jobs -

      "Good artists copy, great artists steal."

      China does seem to have a thing about Apple.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
    2. Re:1984 by AmiMoJo · · Score: 4, Insightful

      China's high speed rail isn't even innovative though. They imported all the technology from Japan, and tried to build their own but it proved too unreliable. They have some domestic models now, but much of the tech is still Japanese and some European, and their trains are not actually any better. They run a little faster than the Japanese ones, but the Japanese ones are only limited to that speed due to noise concerns.

      To be fair their did build the Shanghai maglev, which was quite impressive for the time. But for some reason they decided not to go with maglev technology for the nationwide networks, probably cost or reliability concerns. It's actually a little bit sad to ride it now, the cabin is worn and a little neglected it seems.

      The rate at which they built the network is incredible, but it's old established tech and really maglev is the only way it's going to get any faster now, which would mean ripping up all the track...

      --
      const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
      SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
  2. What a shame... by Bearhouse · · Score: 4, Insightful

    That the current leadership so desperately plays the "nationalist" card at every opportunity; China has invented many things in the past, (gunpowder...) but of course that was under different management.

    1. Re:What a shame... by 93+Escort+Wagon · · Score: 4, Funny

      If I remember my history correctly, World War Two was won largely on the efforts of five Allied prisoners of war operating as an underground sabotage group out of Luft-Stalag 13, right in the heart of Germany.

      --
      #DeleteChrome
  3. It doesn't really matter if they INVENTED them... by Mnemennth · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...they have the resources and the drive to perfect them and make them a part of daily life for their citizens, thereby changing the current paradigm and effectively OWNING the idea for the foreseeable future as they infect those around them with the same new minimum "standards of living".

    Gee, I wonder where they learned THAT from?!?

    mnem
    I am not my pants. No, I am not your pants either.

  4. Mass Surveillance, Reef Construction, MitE, by huckamania · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Bike sharing? Come on China. I know I want my country to import facial recognition technology so I can be tracked all day. I also think my country is falling behind in turning coral reefs into mini-military bases to secure oil rights. I also like how you've managed to build out an internet that allows Man in the Everywhere attacks.

    Don't be ashamed of who you are. Be proud of your accomplishments. You have a huge fan base in the 'I'm a citizen of the World but have yet to leave my own country' crowd.

  5. Think of it as splitting the difference. by hey! · · Score: 3

    How many companies (or countries) shoot themselves in the foot, denying themselves the benefit of an idea because it was "not invented here"?

    If vanity stands in the way of doing the sensible thing, you can either learn to be humble, or you can confabulate a rationalization. Maybe America should do the same thing; we can even claim it's our own idea.

    --
    Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
    1. Re:Think of it as splitting the difference. by hey! · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Japan is a counter-example. Nationalism never stopped them from adopting something foreign if they think it's good.

      Take ramen -- we think of it as quintessentially Japanese food, but in fact it's actually Chinese -- or at least the all-important noodle is. The Chinese in the 1500s developed an alkaline noodle that remains chewy in hot broth rather than falling apart. These only started to appear in Japan about a hundred years ago, and it was only about thirty years ago that it reached its current status as an iconic national dish.

      This is something I really admire about Japan: it's ability to adopt things from elsewhere and make them their own. Ramen are Japanese because the Japanese took Chinese lamian and transformed it into something new through their mania for refinement. It's a lesson other cultures could learn.

      --
      Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
  6. Just plain propaganda is all... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    During the Cold War, the USSR had stuff saying they invented all kinds of stuff. China is doing just the same. This is just repressive governments doing what they do best, which is historical revisionism.

    1. Re:Just plain propaganda is all... by ColdWetDog · · Score: 4, Funny

      I keep telling kids that taking drugs during school hours is a really bad idea.

      This is why.

      --
      Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
  7. But, to the citizens OF China by p51d007 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They will believe THEIR country invented it. Just as with any repressive non open government, the people only know, what they are told if they cannot seek information from outside of her country. I remember, after the collapse of the USSR, some reporter was asking a newly freed person that came to the USA about his experiences. He said when he went to an American supermarket for the first time, he knew that his government, had LIED about the United States, his entire life. North Korea, thinks their "leaders" are Gods, because they know NOTHING else. China is a more open place in places like Hong Kong, and areas around Peking/Beijing, but, they have state controlled media, limited access to news OUTSIDE of their country, so, it's understandable that many in their nation, would believe they invented a lot of things, which we know is incorrect.

  8. Bicycles by pz · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I've been to Shanghai recently. They have bicycle sharing on a scale that is vast. They are incredibly popular, to the point that there are large heaps of bikes --- heaps, not neat rows --- at the front gates of factories where workers have left them as they report in the mornings to their job. The bikes are everywhere. Two years ago, when I visited the same location, this was not the case.

    In my home town in the US, we have bike sharing as well. Nice neat rows of locking stands that are prissy in comparison. The stand across from our apartment seems to have a service truck pull up to it each week, so they appear to need frequent maintenance, too. With the Chinese version of the system, you scan a QR code on each bike and off you go. The bikes in China are basic, utilitarian kinds. Sure, you could steal one, disable the locking mechanism (a simple angle grinder would suffice) and try to keep it as personal property, but then you'd have to go to significant measures to prevent someone else from taking yours as a rental. The place is saturated with them, at least in the part of Shanghai where I was.

    Did they invent bike sharing? No, clearly not. But they figured out how to do it on such an immense scale that it has changed society there.

    --

    Put my fist through my alarm clock with its ding-dong death inside my ear. - The Blackjacks.