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A Report Detailed the Tech Gap Between China and the US. Then It Disappeared. 85

Posted by msmash from the stranger-things dept.
schwit1 writes: China and the United States are in a race to develop the newest, hottest technologies of the 21st century as a technological decoupling looms. But the effects won't be felt equally -- according to a new report from one of China's most prestigious think tanks, a full-blown tech decoupling will be even worse for China in the end. The Peking University Institute of International and Strategic Studies (IISS) published its findings just days before the new year -- China's biggest holiday -- and the beginning of the 2022 Beijing Olympics. The introspective report clashed with the festive vibes spreading across the country, as it concluded China will come out worse than the U.S. as tech competitions continue to escalate between the two nations. "Both the U.S. and China will lose from 'decoupling,'" the researchers wrote. "And at this point, it looks like China's loss may be greater." The report was pulled from the internet within a few days of its publication, but by then, the text of the piece, titled, "U.S.-China Strategic Competition in Technology," had already circulated widely on the Chinese internet. The IISS didn't respond to Protocol's request for comment.
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A Report Detailed the Tech Gap Between China and the US. Then It Disappeared. More

A Report Detailed the Tech Gap Between China and the US. Then It Disappeared.

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  • Nobody snagged an archive.is link? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Arethan ( 223197 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @12:10PM (#62255783) Journal

    If someone here has one, kindly share it!

    • Re:Nobody snagged an archive.is link? (Score:4, Informative)

      by GameboyRMH ( 1153867 ) <gameboyrmh&gmail,com> on Thursday February 10, 2022 @01:56PM (#62256169) Journal

      Found the original Chinese text here:

      https://uscnpm.org/2022/02/06/... [uscnpm.org]

  • Does not make sense (Score:3)

    by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @12:14PM (#62255799)

    China has censorship. That means they had to get permission before publishing.

    • So what?
      Just as long you are not publishing information that makes the party look bad, it gets green-lighted as it will show Chinese superiority.

      If it has a military use, it might get blocked, but that will happen in the US as well.

      Truth be told if you are scientist and don't care about the politics, and are willing to keep your thoughts about politics to yourself, China is a good place to work.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        My point is that if the simplistic political explanation were true, it would not have been published in the first place, not removed later.

    • And America has speed limits on highways so 100% of cars drive at or below the marked speed right?

    • But not everyone agrees all the time. Obviously someone high up did not feel it should have been published.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        But not everyone agrees all the time. Obviously someone high up did not feel it should have been published.

        Probably. But that requires a more complex and detailed explanation as the one given.

    • China has censorship. That means they had to get permission before publishing.

      Not necessarily. A lot of themes are censored by default (e.g. Tibet, Tank Man [wikipedia.org] or Winnie the Pooh). However, many publications written in a technical or analytic fashion do get published or uploaded and only removed when some higher authority decides the material to be harmful to the national interest (in the one-party totalitarian sense of the word). This is how the world got to know of Covid-19 before the PRC acknowledged it had a full-blown epidemic in its hands. A couple of independent reports were "al

  • "Then it disappeared." (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Petersko ( 564140 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @12:28PM (#62255827)

    The report, or the group authored it?

  • One runs harder when they are behind the leader (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jellomizer ( 103300 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @12:32PM (#62255841)

    Americans are not as exceptional as they think they are.
    After WWII where Europe and Asia were in ruin, America became a major super power, with the exception of Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, our infrastructure was in place, and being a rather young country rather up to date and modern, with room to expand and grow, as well we were able to acquire a lot of extra brain power from our defeated enemies, as well from those who were trying to escape the troubles of their countries. America was the leader in Economic, Military, Science, Technology, Education, mostly due to luck of geography of being hard to hit 80 years ago,
    Shortly after that with the Cold War, a lot of countries either sided with us, and the USSR had acquired other nations to be their allies, then countries like China mostly tried to stay out of the spotlight, while they went over to communism, they weren't a strong ally with the USSR

    Nixon started trade relations with China, which got them onto the market, however they were behind, however a taste of capitalism and growing businesses and getting new stuff, was attractive, so they went of an economic growth kick. First by being a low cost alternative for manufacturing, then with that money, they were able to attract Scientist and Engineers to start improving what they have.

    While America had set the pace, we had the likes of Japan 40 years ago, race up behind us, and perhaps get ahead of us a few time, then fall back, now China has been upping its speed and perhaps going to pass the the United States. and Unlike Japan, which was a small country with limited resources, China has more people then the US, about the same amount of land and access to resource, They could indeed have a lead and keep it much longer then our previous rivals might had.

    • Re:One runs harder when they are behind the leader (Score:5, Insightful)

      by MightyMartian ( 840721 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @12:43PM (#62255865) Journal

      That may be, but China is heavily reliant on exporting for its economic success. It is still a long ways away from a self-supporting economic engine (to be honest, there are very few if any countries on the planet that can run on their own steam). But as the synopsis points out, while "decoupling" represents significant economic risks for both the US and China, it is China that is significantly more at risk if the US (and likely ultimately many developed countries) start to repatriate or pool together industrial and technical capacity. The skepticism amongst many Western governments over the value versus geopolitical costs of having offshored manufacturing to East Asia has grown greatly since the Clinton years of rapprochement with China. It has not brought the political liberalization that Clinton and other Western counterparts have hoped, but have simply given China a ready stream of cash to build up military capability, threaten its neighbors and effectively economically colonize countries as far as Africa and Latin America.

      Even worse, as supply chain disruptions due to the pandemic have revealed, this reliance on China and other Asian countries as the new "rust belt" for the West have created dangerous pinch points which, given the right combination of events, can wallop the West. It's inevitable at this point that many Western governments, the US included, are going to redirect a great deal of economic output into rebuilding industrial and manufacturing capacity that was left to rot because Asia could provide goods a lot cheaper.

      It's sad in a way. The dream of a integrated global economy, free trade that would create economic inter-reliance that would make major conflicts between major powers, was the post-war dream. But with Russia ready to pounce into Ukraine, threaten energy stability in Europe, China threatening Taiwan, the vision of an economically united world fades. Because the opposite of globalization isn't a good thing either, and is at least partially responsible for some of the most significant conflicts of the first half of the 20th century.

      • First you should think about why China became so powerful in the first place. Obviously because of cheap labor and thus it acting kinda like work factory for entire world. The thing is the world became so much dependent on it that it will lose more from cutting ties than China itself will. Like will people in US agree to work for as much compensation as average Chinese? NO! Would suits agree to let go of their margins by moving production from there? Even more definite NO!!! Nonetheless this whole situation

        • Like will people in US agree to work for as much compensation as average Chinese? NO!

          But what makes you think that the average middle-income Chinese of today will work for as LESS compensation as their parents or older relatives. You forget your economic history. The average American or English worker of the 19th century were also willing to work under what we now consider slave labor conditions. With economic progress comes rising expectations.

          • For sure it will raise but it still has long way to go especially considering the sheer number of people there. They'll become the sole serious world power long before that. Only way to beat their advantage is war and it's impractical in XXI century due to existence of nuclear weapons.

    • Not only was America 'able to acquire a lot of extra brain power from our defeated enemies' , America also had a one-way 'sharing' of aerodynamic, computing and atomic research with their allies. Thanks, America. Such a special relationship.

    • Americans are not as exceptional as they think they are.

      Sure, but China is not as exceptional as their government acts like it is. Their primary technical competence is in copying things. They're actually amazingly good at it. But they literally have a whole system of government dedicated to not threatening the established order, which makes them inferior at development and exploitation of new technologies, because new technologies frequently threaten the established order. It's not because Chinese people are dumber, it's because Chinese government is more afraid of change. The same sort of thing happens everywhere, what differs is the degree.

      • I never implied that China was exceptional. On paper, China should be able to completely obliterate the US economy in nearly every aspect. However it is a close #2 with us.

        You give the average guy a bike, they can compete in a race with an athlete who is running.
        if the athlete has a bike, they will be able to get some real speed.

        China has a lot of real advantages, however a lot of the aspects of their government is holding them back. However when competing against America, their advantages are seemingly

        • China has a lot of real advantages, however a lot of the aspects of their government is holding them back. However when competing against America, their advantages are seemingly better then the troubles with the government.

          Certainly they have taken advantage of our greed, which is less tempered by long-term planning for dominance than theirs. However, as stated in the report, they have more to lose than we do from trade withdrawal. We have suffered with job loss and decreasing quality of goods increasing waste and decreasing efficiency, and this has only resulted in an acceleration of the race to the bottom which is runaway capitalism.

          I'm not anticapitalist, I only believe that capitalism requires extensive regulation to be s

      • it's because Chinese government is more afraid of change.
        It is only afraid of change in the political system. (And they actually plan to change it, but they focus on economic change at the moment)
        Everything else is free and fair game.
        They do not like critics, because they like master plans. And changing a plan all the time because of critics makes the plan fail more often than less. And that produces a self fulfilling spiral or: we told you so.

        As long as you mind your own business - or as long as you are p

        • "As long as you mind your own business - or as long as you are part of the actively working party - a Chinese is as free as every westerner."

          If only you were smart enough to know what epic level of bullshit that statement is. As long as you don't expect freedom, you are free? That is absolutely not how freedom works.

          • You are free to do what you want as long as you obey the laws.

            And you have everything you need: so they are in a certain perspective more free than you.

            • You are free to do what you want as long as you obey the laws.

              Some of those laws are actively anti-freedom, and seem to serve no other purpose. We need automatic law expiry.

    • If you're at the point of the 'V', you get to pick where everyone's going - and you get to fly through smooth, undisturbed air.

      If you're not at the point of the "V", you just follow the leader - and you get to fly through air with wingtip vortices from the guy in front of you. Makes it a lot easier to coast, and eventually when the front runner gets tired, you could have a turn picking where everyone's going.

      Being the premier manufacturer and distributer of complete, integrated weapons systems on the pla

  • "A Report Detailed the Tech Gap Between..." (Score:3)

    by Glasswire ( 302197 ) on Thursday February 10, 2022 @12:52PM (#62255891) Homepage

    "China and the US. Then It Disappeared." The gap or the report?

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by znrt ( 2424692 )

      from the abstract:

      The report was pulled from the internet within a few days of its publication

      i would like to see the study, but the "findings" seem pretty bizarre. of course lack of cooperation harms everyone, but the cat is already out of the bag and china is very much capable now in terms of innovation, research and technology, surpassing the us in several areas.

      • I'll bite because its entirely possible I missed it. What technology is China leading innovation with? The best I've seen so far is that they are great at making copies of technology that is originally made elsewhere.

  • Hard to find any explanation on what that is and how it will affect China and the US...

    • Found it:

      Technological decoupling—broadly defined as the undoing of cross-border trade in high-tech goods and services—has been associated with concerns about intellectual property protection, data privacy, and national security concerns as well as a renewed attention to industrial policies.

      So taking the Huawei example, by banning their products there are cascading effects in China on education, experience, skilled developers, etc.

      The argument was basically that in light of these kinds of things, ultimately China would be hurt from the decoupling efforts more than the US would.

    • Concrete examples would be all the stories you have seen lately about subsidies for building semiconductor fabs in the US, or the US sanctions against Huawei that slashed its global year-on-year cellphone shipments by 41% in Q4 21.

      Actually here is a much, MUCH more wiki entry than anybody could provide offhand:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]

      It's strange to me that I don't see the connection being made beteween inflation and trade wars. We went over there to get stuff made for cheap, and as we re-t

      • It's strange to me that I don't see the connection being made beteween inflation and trade wars. We went over there to get stuff made for cheap, and as we re-trench, stuff will get more expensive.

        That hasn't happened yet, though. We know that because the corporations are raising prices, and reporting record profits. When they raise prices and don't have record profits, then we'll know that what you're talking about is happening.

        • Maybe it's good that certain stuff do get expensive. Then the focus will shift to making the stuff durable rather than as cheap as the dirt they soon wind up in. I'm not a great fan of pure capitalism, but there's bound to be a correction real soon. The US is still a great agricultural producer and the spare parts for existing machinery could be made elsewhere, if they aren't already. Just say good bye to the latest and greatest touch phone or gaming console. As a side benefit maybe this will postpone rollo

          • Maybe it's good that certain stuff do get expensive.

            Yes, prices and wages both need to rise. But no one is clear on how to rein in corporate greed without torches and pitchforks. Right now the largest corporations are posting record profits and blaming their rising prices on the pandemic. This is morally bankrupt by every measurement but capitalism isn't interested in morality.

            • Maybe it's time to get rid of corporations in the stock market sense of the term. I mean there's already an alternative besides communism, and it also begins with the letter c. The thing with corporations is that it's a "democracy" based on shares, rather than real people, so perpetuates the whole concept behind the rich (basically those who have the first mover advantage) becoming richer since they get a greater say in how the corporation operates.
  • ...they filled the gap during the night!

  • Something smells. No links to the paper yet...I suspect Slashdot is removing posts with the various archival links.

    • A link has been posted above. But the text is in Chinese. So I don't know if it's the real deal. In any case, this appears to have been intended for a local audience. Perhaps it's a leak of a confidential paper. Okay for lower party members to read, but not for general distribution through the mainland social media.

  • U.S.-China Strategic Competition in Technology: Analysis and Prospects.

    I have saved a PDF of the Google Translated version of the document (https://uscnpm.org/2022/02/06/pku-iiss-2022-report-tech-competition/). Original link to the Chinese language document was kindly posted earlier by GameboyRMH.

    The PDF is here:
    https://mega.nz/file/0pcAjRqL#0LM2aLhf3JFiEzWyMrKGAxPJbXoP-1VaPPc_iwn60gU

    It seems like a coherent analysis from the Chinese point of view. In that regard, it's quite illuminating.

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