I understand that denigrating a competitor is a defense mechanism to remove your unease, but really I would not bet against the Chinese.
They improved so much in the last three decades, taking advantage of western smugness, that the only question remaining is whether they will overtake USA or not.
Chinese engineer working in China here. You totally missed the point.
> bet against the Chinese
criticize the lack of innovation is not betting against anyone. it is obvious that China is not leading in anything that can potentially lead to the next industrial revolution.
as explained, no one is betting against China, but would you bet on China to be the next No.1 tech superpower? personally, I won't, my day to day life here tells me that it lacks literally all key ingredients required for such success.
not saying it is not doing okish, but doing ok including becoming the world's largest economy and tech investor is not that fancy when it is purely backed by a huge population size. On a per capita basis, R&D spending is extremely low, I couldn't name any single high tech company here that has a deep & healthy engineering culture.
> taking advantage of western smugness
the west has all the reasons to be "smugness", just look at the recent developments, reusable rockets, private trips to the space, the satellite internet constellation, ChatGPT, mRNA vaccine, the 100% remission rate for a certain type of colon cancer...the list goes really really long and I am just talking about progresses made in the last 3 years.
tell me what Chinese counterparts are? some cheap EV cars made with highly toxic materials? or maybe some mobile apps that popup ten ads for making each online order? or maybe you are talking about the so called online payment system that literally locked an entire generation of senior citizens out of real social life?
> They improved so much in the last three decades
I live & work in Shanghai, a typical match box sized apartment inside the outer ring road now costs 1 million USD when the average wage is $10k USD per annual. Simple maths tells me that one need to be keep working since the end of WWI non stop to buy such an apartment - assuming you don't need to pay tax and you don't eat, drink, buy cloth.
If you work harder to get yourself a fancy Chinese EV there, you can drive your "symbol of personal success" to a countryside, in just 2 hours, you can get to a fancy province called Anhui where you will be welcomed by millions of locals making $1k USD per annual. Don't get too shocked when you realize that those on $1k USD per annual is actually the lucky one, the pension rate is about $25 USD per month.
You need to be totally blind to call all these "improved so much".
It should be a self reevaluating moment rather than a "china bad" moment.
China went from agricultural an third world country to a main contributor in many domains and the manufacturer of all our tech gadgets, in the same time the west pretty much stagnated
> China went from agricultural an third world country to a main contributor in many domains and the manufacturer of all our tech gadgets, in the same time the west pretty much stagnated
check my reply above and then go and tell your "main contributor" story to those hundreds of millions Chinese pensioners on $25 USD per month.
below is the source of the mentioned $25 USD per month pension rate. It is from China's National People's Congress web site, I guess it can't be fake news, right?
No matter how you paint it, China is a backward & dirty poor developing 3rd world country with a huge economic, scientific & military capability gap with the west.
> to those hundreds of millions Chinese pensioners on $25 USD per month
There are almost 40m americans living under poverty, which is just about the same as china in term of percentage. The 25 usd a month figure seems to be for a social benefit system you don't even have equivalent for in the US
> China is a backward & dirty poor developing 3rd world country with a huge economic, scientific & military capability gap with the west.
Literally no one puts China in the third world country category. Nobody said there isn't a gap
> I guess it can't be fake news, right?
This isn't 4chan you can put that back in your clown bag
