When I asked about the private owned cabs and jade shops, she told me bluntly that since they are not owned by the government they were lower quality.
This raised my eyebrows, as you can just can't equate a quality product with government.
Do you feel better about buying jewelry from an big established department store or from some guy on a street corner? In China, most of the big established department stores are government operated, and most of the private ones are little shops often operated by less than honest people. Speaking from personal experience, many of these private shops do sell fake or sub-standard goods.
Now take this from the Chinese perspective. Much like the former Soviet Union, China's nuclear weapons follow a first strike doctrine. China's weapons are, for the most part, un-hardened, land based, fixed sites. The result is that China's nuclear doctrine is fixated on striking first (which is fairly destabilizing). If someone else strikes China first, China has very few missiles left with which to retaliate. And this system is designed to stop a very few missiles.
Actually, out of the 5 major nuclear powers, China is the only one with a No First Strike policy. China's official nuclear doctrine is that China will only use nuclear weapons in retaliation. This doctrine, combined with Chinese economic priorities has led to a relatively small nuclear arsenal (Some estimates say China only has 20 ICBMs capable of hitting the US), with the idea being that the possibility of only a few cities being destroyed is enough to deter the USSR or the US from launching a first strike against China. The rest of your points are valid, the US ABM systems are designed to stop a very small number of ICBMs from China after a US first strike. They won't be effective against Russia, because no matter how successful a first strike against Russia is, the Russians will still have hundreds if not thousands of ICBMs left that will still overwhelm any missle defense system. This is why China was more upset about US withdrawal from the ABM treaty than Russia and some say that China will greatly increase the number of ICBMs in the coming years in order to overcome any ABM defenses that the US may deploy.
BTW, most of China's nuclear weapons are stored in extremely hardened locations, such as massive secret tunnel systems dug deep underneath mountain ranges. For more info on China's nuclear weapon systems, check fas.org or globalsecurity.com.
They don't always tell you that you're training your replacements.
A good friend of mine used to work as a IC designer for one of the large companies in Silicon Valley. Her group was given some ridiculous deadlines that were clearly impossible to meet. To "help" them speed up work on the project, the company brought in a bunch of engineers from one of its overseas sites. The foreign engineers spent several months here, working with my friend's group, getting up to speed on the project. My friends and her co-workers really went out of their way to help make these guys comfortable, taking them on shopping trips, inviting them over on holidays, etc. Little did they know they were training their own replacements. Shortly after the overseas engineers left, my friend's entire group was laid off and the project was moved to the overseas center.
What the Economist doesn't say is that nearly all of that $1.8 billion in aid that China receives is in the form of interest bearing loans with conditions attached. E.g. the EU/US/Japan gives China a $300 million loan at 5% interest with the condition that China makes a $1.5 billion order of Airbus/Boeing/Mitsubishi products. Most governments in the industrialized world categorizes such loans as aid to make themselves look altruistic and divert popular attention from the fact that these aid are really nothing more than government subsidies for the big and powerful corporations.
Nice article, thanks for the link. It looks like China is really planning for some great things in space, and not just a one-shot ego boost. Hopefully they'll make enough progress in a short time frame to really light a fire under NASA's ass!
China has purchased some technologies from Russia while developing the others in house. According to various web sites (space.com, spacedaily.com, etc), the Russians sold to China a bare bones Soyuz command/descent module with all equipments stripped out. The Shenzhou has generally the same configuration as the Soyuz, with a orbital module, a command/descent module, and a service module. However the Shenzhou is bigger than the Soyuz, and other than the command/descent module, has very different physical appearance. The Shenzhou service module has 4 main thrusters while the Soyuz service module has only 1 main thruster. The Shenzhou orbital module has its own solar panels and thrusters and is capable of operating and manuevering by itself after separating from rest of the craft (e.g. after the descent module has returned to Earth). On the other hand, the Soyuz orbital module has no independent power source or manuevering ability and is useless once separated from the descent module. So yes the Chinese are building from experiences learned from the Russia program and has made some significant improvements. When the Shenzhou do become fully operational (meaning not just lofting a single astronaut for one orbit in a test flight), it should be more capable than the Russian Soyuz and much cheaper than the American shuttle.
One of the technologies that China has purchased from Russia is the Soyuz docking system, so Shenzhou should have a compatible docking system with the ISS. However, the inclination of Shenzhou's orbit is different from the ISS orbit. The inclination of Shenzhou's orbit is determined by the locations of land-based tracking and command stations. For a rendezvous mission with ISS, China will need to build some new tracking stations. An even bigger obstacle is the issue of US permission for docking with the ISS. The US has put in place strict regulations against any sort of cooperation with China in terms of space technologies including bans on US companies launching commercial satellites on Chinese rockets, prohibitions of the sale of any item even remotely related to space industry (Macintosh laptops were banned from being exported to China for a while), and denying visas to Chinese space scientists to visit the United States for any purpose (including attending academic conferences). So it's very unlikely that the US will allow Shenzhou to rendezvous with the ISS while it still views China as its greatest potential enemy.
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Do you feel better about buying jewelry from an big established department store or from some guy on a street corner? In China, most of the big established department stores are government operated, and most of the private ones are little shops often operated by less than honest people. Speaking from personal experience, many of these private shops do sell fake or sub-standard goods.
Actually, out of the 5 major nuclear powers, China is the only one with a No First Strike policy. China's official nuclear doctrine is that China will only use nuclear weapons in retaliation. This doctrine, combined with Chinese economic priorities has led to a relatively small nuclear arsenal (Some estimates say China only has 20 ICBMs capable of hitting the US), with the idea being that the possibility of only a few cities being destroyed is enough to deter the USSR or the US from launching a first strike against China. The rest of your points are valid, the US ABM systems are designed to stop a very small number of ICBMs from China after a US first strike. They won't be effective against Russia, because no matter how successful a first strike against Russia is, the Russians will still have hundreds if not thousands of ICBMs left that will still overwhelm any missle defense system. This is why China was more upset about US withdrawal from the ABM treaty than Russia and some say that China will greatly increase the number of ICBMs in the coming years in order to overcome any ABM defenses that the US may deploy. BTW, most of China's nuclear weapons are stored in extremely hardened locations, such as massive secret tunnel systems dug deep underneath mountain ranges. For more info on China's nuclear weapon systems, check fas.org or globalsecurity.com.
They don't always tell you that you're training your replacements.
A good friend of mine used to work as a IC designer for one of the large companies in Silicon Valley. Her group was given some ridiculous deadlines that were clearly impossible to meet. To "help" them speed up work on the project, the company brought in a bunch of engineers from one of its overseas sites. The foreign engineers spent several months here, working with my friend's group, getting up to speed on the project. My friends and her co-workers really went out of their way to help make these guys comfortable, taking them on shopping trips, inviting them over on holidays, etc. Little did they know they were training their own replacements. Shortly after the overseas engineers left, my friend's entire group was laid off and the project was moved to the overseas center.
DVDs are released first in North America. Everyone else in the world has to wait 6-12 months.
In Asia, you can get DVDs for movies even BEFORE they hit the theaters (And the DVDs cost only $1-$2)!
What the Economist doesn't say is that nearly all of that $1.8 billion in aid that China receives is in the form of interest bearing loans with conditions attached. E.g. the EU/US/Japan gives China a $300 million loan at 5% interest with the condition that China makes a $1.5 billion order of Airbus/Boeing/Mitsubishi products. Most governments in the industrialized world categorizes such loans as aid to make themselves look altruistic and divert popular attention from the fact that these aid are really nothing more than government subsidies for the big and powerful corporations.
Nice article, thanks for the link. It looks like China is really planning for some great things in space, and not just a one-shot ego boost. Hopefully they'll make enough progress in a short time frame to really light a fire under NASA's ass!
China has purchased some technologies from Russia while developing the others in house. According to various web sites (space.com, spacedaily.com, etc), the Russians sold to China a bare bones Soyuz command/descent module with all equipments stripped out. The Shenzhou has generally the same configuration as the Soyuz, with a orbital module, a command/descent module, and a service module. However the Shenzhou is bigger than the Soyuz, and other than the command/descent module, has very different physical appearance. The Shenzhou service module has 4 main thrusters while the Soyuz service module has only 1 main thruster. The Shenzhou orbital module has its own solar panels and thrusters and is capable of operating and manuevering by itself after separating from rest of the craft (e.g. after the descent module has returned to Earth). On the other hand, the Soyuz orbital module has no independent power source or manuevering ability and is useless once separated from the descent module. So yes the Chinese are building from experiences learned from the Russia program and has made some significant improvements. When the Shenzhou do become fully operational (meaning not just lofting a single astronaut for one orbit in a test flight), it should be more capable than the Russian Soyuz and much cheaper than the American shuttle.
One of the technologies that China has purchased from Russia is the Soyuz docking system, so Shenzhou should have a compatible docking system with the ISS. However, the inclination of Shenzhou's orbit is different from the ISS orbit. The inclination of Shenzhou's orbit is determined by the locations of land-based tracking and command stations. For a rendezvous mission with ISS, China will need to build some new tracking stations. An even bigger obstacle is the issue of US permission for docking with the ISS. The US has put in place strict regulations against any sort of cooperation with China in terms of space technologies including bans on US companies launching commercial satellites on Chinese rockets, prohibitions of the sale of any item even remotely related to space industry (Macintosh laptops were banned from being exported to China for a while), and denying visas to Chinese space scientists to visit the United States for any purpose (including attending academic conferences). So it's very unlikely that the US will allow Shenzhou to rendezvous with the ISS while it still views China as its greatest potential enemy.