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S-192 t1_jadx3aq wrote

Reply to comment by deckardcain1 in The U.S. needs more than the CHIPS Act to stay ahead of China: MIT report by Vailhem

This just isn't the case. China's operating model (esp. with regard to R&D) has immense inertia thanks to its state-controlled mandates and investment decisions. They aren't the ones pushing the envelope here. They are, still, a mass production economy of low/medium tech. And even that they are losing an edge on, as more and more shifts to Vietnam and Mexico (which they are trying to get a slice of through direct and indirect (shell) company takeovers). For all the tech blueprints they're stealing, they still don't have the advanced fabrication facilities, the laser tech, or many of the raw capabilities and resources needed.

I'm trying to find the deck from a great JP Morgan analysis on this that I attended a while back, but suffice to say China's main threats are their military pressure on key regional allies/supply partnerships, and their constant theft of technology polluting the market with vastly inferior (but highly consumed) goods.

Economically and strategically are they a threat? Yes. Technologically? Not yet, and with less and less concern the more we re-shore and lock down this advanced stuff. Grinding simple laborers into dust for mass production only really helps them churn cheap and shitty plastic widgets that consumerist Americans gobble up via Amazon, Etsy, and eBay. Future tech (military, processing/computing/AI, energy, etc) will be governed by things China simply doesn't yet have an edge on.

This is great for the US and Europe, because as we monopolize the development of AI and true next-gen automation, we can re-shore production and 'buy American', as our robo army of crazy neural network 'brains' will increasingly provide for us. Our one hurdle (beyond pro-competitive AI rollout/availability) is then the supply chain partnerships we develop. Steel, etc we still rely on China, so we'd need to find a way to patch in a new middle man...which we're trying with Vietnam where possible.

Also, Mighty's response isn't the most useful. Patent spam isn't a great metric for true quality of invention. China can churn hundreds of thousands of throw-away patents while the US might only file for 1/4 as many but put forth far more meaningful/impactful innovations.

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0wed12 t1_jadymbu wrote

> They are, still, a mass production economy of low/medium tech

It was the case a decade ago, but not today, they are now a huge major hub for high end and deep tech industry.

Also the theft complain isn't so true anymore as some major peer reviewed reports pointed out that they are now the one publishing the most internationally cited studies.

https://www.science.org/content/article/china-rises-first-place-most-cited-papers

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S-192 t1_jae1cu3 wrote

Volume is still not necessarily the strongest indicator. It's difficult to see if this is a direct outcome of a 'more innovative economy' or if it's just the sheer volume. As we've seen in the US, academia is experiencing mass publication spam and cross-references between low-impact papers. It's entirely possible to see mass citation of a very meaningless paper.

As far as them being a major hub for high end/'deep tech', they just aren't to our level. I'm not sure how to quantify the gap other than in production numbers (and in the volume of business activity in adjacent/prerequisite supply chains) and they just aren't there yet with that stuff.

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sheeeeeez t1_jaenghx wrote

What's your opinion on their fast rising Electric Vehicles industry?

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0wed12 t1_jae69te wrote

I agree with you the quantity doesn't mean quality but that's why they use multiple methodology such as cited studies in others renowned journals, quotations in other research, impact factor of such study etc.

Bias still exist but this report is the most reliable to this date.

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rememberyoubreath t1_jae4se2 wrote

my knowledge about the geopolitics of the chinese market and its progress is limited, but learning chinese i can see how their writing system would be an advantage. it's so many things at once it's mind boggling and is the proof of cultural genius. they are constantly training on complex visual data.

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