How China Built Tech Prowess: Chemistry Classes and Research Labs (nytimes.com) 44
Stressing science education, China is outpacing other countries in research fields like battery chemistry, crucial to its lead in electric vehicles. From a report: China's domination of electric cars, which is threatening to start a trade war, was born decades ago in university laboratories in Texas, when researchers discovered how to make batteries with minerals that were abundant and cheap. Companies from China have recently built on those early discoveries, figuring out how to make the batteries hold a powerful charge and endure more than a decade of daily recharges. They are inexpensively and reliably manufacturing vast numbers of these batteries, producing most of the world's electric cars and many other clean energy systems.
Batteries are just one example of how China is catching up with -- or passing -- advanced industrial democracies in its technological and manufacturing sophistication. It is achieving many breakthroughs in a long list of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to drones to high-efficiency solar panels. Beijing's challenge to the technological leadership that the United States has held since World War II is evidenced in China's classrooms and corporate budgets, as well as in directives from the highest levels of the Communist Party.
A considerably larger share of Chinese students major in science, math and engineering than students in other big countries do. That share is rising further, even as overall higher education enrollment has increased more than tenfold since 2000. Spending on research and development has surged, tripling in the past decade and moving China into second place after the United States. Researchers in China lead the world in publishing widely cited papers in 52 of 64 critical technologies, recent calculations by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reveal.
Batteries are just one example of how China is catching up with -- or passing -- advanced industrial democracies in its technological and manufacturing sophistication. It is achieving many breakthroughs in a long list of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to drones to high-efficiency solar panels. Beijing's challenge to the technological leadership that the United States has held since World War II is evidenced in China's classrooms and corporate budgets, as well as in directives from the highest levels of the Communist Party.
A considerably larger share of Chinese students major in science, math and engineering than students in other big countries do. That share is rising further, even as overall higher education enrollment has increased more than tenfold since 2000. Spending on research and development has surged, tripling in the past decade and moving China into second place after the United States. Researchers in China lead the world in publishing widely cited papers in 52 of 64 critical technologies, recent calculations by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reveal.
The New York Times (Score:2, Insightful)
The New York Times wishing we could be more like China. Since it's pay walled I'm going to assume it's a propaganda piece.
Re:The New York Times (Score:5, Insightful)
Chinese student to attractive other person "Hey, wanna go on a date? I'm an engineering/physics/chemistry student." Sure!
American student to attractive other person "Hey, wanna go on a date? I'm an engineering/physics/chemistry student." Loser! Get an MBA!
Re:The New York Times (Score:5, Insightful)
By the same logic, lifting 100,000,000 people out of poverty in 40 years is also bad.
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How dare they manage to lift people out of poverty before American figures out how to do this?
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US poverty is deliberate. You can't afford to strike if you need every paycheck.
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Re:The New York Times (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh, and I never met anyone in China scared to talk politics. They all do it openly but don't seem to want to bother. It's only when you are standing on a soapbox with a bullhorn that there's a problem. And while I can't confirm it, the people are almost all pro-America but sad America is being mean to them.
There is about 1.4 billion problems with China. When the government is hellbent on making their peoples lives better and the population is 3-4 generations from middle class lethargy and they don't have a hundred years of protectionist regulation blocking progress, those 1.4 billion people will get smarter and richer. India won't be the same because they didn't have 40 years to beat their society into a semi-homogenous culture. Also, The top 30% of India's population openly hates and despises the bottom 70 and would have them recategorized as parasitic animals on the census if the could.
The US will soon be #2 but will sit around bragging about their former grandeur like the Brits have done for so long.
People are the most valuable resource on earth. China has four times as many as the US. And if any American is worth three Chinese people (as I've been sold), China still has a lot more resources and will eventually move into first place. Then they won't make a big deal of it because it doesn't matter who is in front, just that you're moving forward.
Re:The New York Times (Score:5, Insightful)
I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as "full spectrum dominance". That is not my term, it is theirs. "Full spectrum dominance" means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources.
& as Friedrich Nietzche so bluntly put it:
Under peaceful conditions, the warlike man attacks himself.
An interpretation being: "If the USA can't create even the illusion of a credible enemy against which to rally its troops & its public, it'll implode into civil war." There's already a book & TV series (The Handmaid's Tale) & movie (Civil War) out about that. The endless, intensive obsession with superheroes, whose maxim appears to be, "Violence in the answer. Now, what's the problem?" isn't helping either.
and "technology transfer" (Score:5, Informative)
Don't forget that, in order to set up a factory in china, you must have a chinese partner and transfer your technology to them. You have to literally give china all of your secrets to have a factory in there.
This isn't a problem per se, i suppose. The problem is the amount of companies happily doing it.
Re:and "technology transfer" (Score:5, Insightful)
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It's not a problem for an MBA, whose sole purpose in life is to reduce costs.
That's a really positive spin on it.
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Same as the US then. Look at Chinese factories in the US - they are all local partnerships. Technology transferred to local Americans working there.
The method might be a little different, but the outcome is the same.
Two advantages (Score:5, Informative)
China has at least 2 advantages over US companies.
First, the Chinese gov't heavily subsidizes certain industries. This has worked to win market share in just about every targeted field accept advanced semiconductors.
Second, dictators don't have to care as much about the side-effects of pollution, and battery manufacturing is highly polluting. Three-eyed people are threatened to STFU if they complain. The moral justification is that the few have to suffer for the benefit of the many (if story gets out).
There are other structural issues that help, but they are more nuanced than the above.
Re:Two advantages (Score:4, Informative)
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All countries subsidize certain industries. Corn for a US example.
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That's the US fault. They don't want to sell technology or anything of importance to China. All they want to sell is fucking corn, and other agricultural products.
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But China makes those solar panels, so no, we can't have that, regardless of the benefits it brings.
Honestly, we need to stop thinking about how to beat other countries down and focus on improving our own country.
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Ethanol... and that lovely HFCS to bring on the diabetes.
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So we get cheep corn, and China gets Jetsons tech.
Thank the Electoral College.
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You're the official Archie Bunker of Slashdot
Of course (Score:5, Interesting)
Maintaining that level is a different story. Russia couldn't, and I have serious doubts that China will be able to, either.
The other point is that it's not enough to reach that level of science and engineering. The society has to actually take advantage of the knowledge as well. That seems to require stuff like the rule of law, capitalism, societal buy-in, relatively free flow of knowledge, a highly motivated population, and a whole bunch of other ingredients. Russia failed miserably at that other stuff, and I'm worried that China's following that same path.
While I sound like a China-basher, I actually wish them well. I sincerely hope that they climb that mountain and do whatever is necessary for their society to actually advance. I just doubt that the emperor and the oligarchy will give up enough control to allow it, and the people won't demand it loudly enough. An oligarchy ALWAYS f*(s it up.
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"Russia managed it"
Not even close. Quick smoking that stuff!
Re: Of course (Score:3)
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China can't even manage their population levels.
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What are you talking about? Their one-child policy worked really well. Too well in fact. They'll probably come up with something similar in the other direction to stabilize the population.
Besides, it has no bearing on our competition with them. At the projected rates of decline, the Chinese working age population will fall to 375 million by 2100. If the US continues to grow at its current rates, we'll have 307 million within the working age group in 2100.
So if China somehow fails to catch up in a century or
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That's exactly what I mean. They're maybe three generations out from complete collapse.
Meanwhile in real world (Score:3, Informative)
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China's economy is collapsing ...
It sounds like the USA in the 1970s: Countries were becoming self-sufficient and the US monopoly was disappearing. Problem was, all the regulations to protect the middle class and US "way of life" meant corporations couldn't reduce costs, causing US factories to be bought by countries that were cost-effective. The US solved the contradiction by cancelling socialism (housing, healthcare, tertiary-level education), limiting audits of corporations, and giving money to rich people.
China will find answers t
some additional historical context is needed (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that for the past 30 years - China has employed a state sponsored systematic espionage campaign to siphon off as much tech/research/IP as they can from not just the US, but the west as a whole, plus Russia, and India with minimal repercussions. Skipping decades in development times, and trillions in development costs.... sending students to the west to get trained and bring the knowledge back home. Policies that result in forcing foreign companies to partner with indigenous ones to facilitate tech transfer, then kicking them out. Then you throw in the greedy, short sighted MBA's that offshored operations to China only to create equally footed competitors without additional overhead in the west that can out price them in a few years time. No one saw that coming, except for every worker that lost their job to it in the last 35 years.
The research paper count is a BS metric, as the system is so bad, that you can't trust research papers anymore - the article should note the ever increasing number of papers found to have outright fraud or misleading data (especially coming out of China - not to say the rest are immune from this). The increasing number of bogus papers making it through and getting published, then additional research being based on faulty data wasting decades and billions.
China is much like the USSR once was - lots of potential with a highly trained, hard working population - but a system of oppression and control, a culture of corruption and corner cutting that will erase 90+% of that potential.
Hope I'm wrong, would be nice if economic progress translated to cultural change and instead of adversarial positions - we get a more co-operative one. It's not a zero sum game. Would also be nice if decision makers, and policy makers in the west, Russia, India, the rest of the world had a view of 10+ years, and not next quarter, or next pay cheque. China had a publicized plan decades into the future, pursued it accordingly. Collectively, we sold out to it.
Re:some additional historical context is needed (Score:4, Insightful)
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the nefarious part isn't in relying on students, it's in the using of the students.
I'm all for students traveling, learning, returning home to better something. This wasn't done to play catch up in 10 years, what took others 60 years at the cost of those that took the time, effort and cost
Many cases have proven out to show that these students are then often planted, or recruited when they get jobs at corporations/institutions to then send back further intel.
If it was organic and natural, not nefarious - do
I know how they DIDN'T do it (Score:4, Insightful)
...saying math is racist and kids of color are too stupid to understand: https://earlymath.erikson.edu/... [erikson.edu] ...saying chemistry is racist: https://www.bbc.com/news/scien... [bbc.com]
In fact, all science is racist: https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]
Hell, saying linear thinking, the concept of cause an effect, and even hard work being good are "white culture"
https://x.com/ByronYork/status... [x.com]
(This was originally posted at The National Museum of African American History & Culture but was scrubbed after wide mockery.)
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We used to do better (Score:4, Insightful)
We have the best universities in STEM. We used to allow people with advanced degrees to pretty easily immigrate. We've made that harder by shrinking the pool of various visa types -- mostly as part of an anti-immigrant fever. And if the color of your skin is not white or you speak with an accent, there are lots of places you don't want to live.
A lot of our politicians reject science. Something like 1/3rd of congress is on record as climate change denial. Many reject the premise of evolution. When I was growing up being a rocket scientist or an atomic scientist was something people really looked up to. Even working in plastic was high prestige as we know from The Graduate. Politicians of course communicate their attitude to their constituents and are also a reflection of those views. Hence the life of a scientist is not as pleasant. After the soviets beat the US to space and after we ended the war in Japan by building a bomb, there was a huge rush based on national security to have more scientists.
Relative to other fields, science doesn't pay as well and the job security of a scientist has diminished.
And still they ... (Score:1)
... copy more western tech and invent nothing new. Even their military tech is western in origin.
What? Gender studies don't advance the economy? (Score:2)
No shit, Sherlock.