Can the US derail 2025?

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AndrewS

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The "markets entrench technological advantage" and the example that follows are meant as a critique of free-market "reformers" who advocate that China should pursue its comparative advantage in trade. I show that that's the most efficient way to be ensnared in the middle income trap. The real advice China should follow is subsidizing high-tech, protecting markets, stealing IP, coercing technology transfer; i.e., cheat 2 win! :D

If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

One of China's comparative advantages is very large numbers of engineers/scientists/graduates who typically earn a lot less than in Europe or North America.

That translates into low cost and faster results for R&D into new products/services
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
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And the US oil oligarchs are effectively government owned... Or perhaps more accurately, the US government is owned by big oil!

The US government is captive to corporate interests. It is a country where political corruption is institutionalized in the form of lobbying groups and political action committees.
In other countries things like that are illegal. Not necessarily advocacy groups, but directly funding politicians isn't allowed anywhere else I can remember.

Ever wonder why there are only two major parties in the US? You need to register in many, many constituencies to even run there. In a country as large as the US, this is basically impossible unless you have a huge organization with lots of money.
 

gelgoog

Brigadier
Registered Member
With regards to China's technological gap, it keeps decreasing as time goes by.
The latest policy in the US where Chinese investigators are being kicked out will only speed up something which was already in progress.
Many Chinese researchers are heading back home.
One example is semiconductors. There is potential for explosive growth in the area.
 

reservior dogs

Junior Member
Registered Member
The "markets entrench technological advantage" and the example that follows are meant as a critique of free-market "reformers" who advocate that China should pursue its comparative advantage in trade. I show that that's the most efficient way to be ensnared in the middle income trap. The real advice China should follow is subsidizing high-tech, protecting markets, stealing IP, coercing technology transfer; i.e., cheat 2 win! :D

If you're not cheating, you're not trying.

I think the comparative advantage theory still works. It is a recommendation based on a snapshot of the current landscape. Supposed I am illiterate, and there are only three jobs available, cleaning toilets, book keeping and CEO, based on my comparative advantage, I would have to do toilet cleaning. What the theory does not say is that I can go to night school and learn to read and write and apply for the job of book keeping. Once that is done, I can acquire other skills and become a CEO. At each snapshot, I should still be working a job based on my comparative advantage, but it is up to me to change my lot in life and change what my competitive advantages are.
 

reservior dogs

Junior Member
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One of China's comparative advantages is very large numbers of engineers/scientists/graduates who typically earn a lot less than in Europe or North America.

That translates into low cost and faster results for R&D into new products/services

Yes, in fact, if you look at engineers in United States, ethnic Chinese vastly over represent in engineering and under represent in other areas such as law. Something about the genetic cultural combination that made the Chinese excel in this area. So not only will there be a lot of engineers in China, there will be many very good ones that will solve problems that are tough nuts for others to crack. In time, it will usher in a techno-superstate. We already see glimpses of it here in this forum. The first ship born rail gun, the first quantum radar. We may even see a first (or very close neck to neck) working EM catapult on a carrier. If you look at how far behind they were in the nineties, it is not hard to imagine that they zoom past us in many areas in the not so distant future.
 

reservior dogs

Junior Member
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Yeah, in the US they don't even see cases of success in their own state sector when they are there.
One example is the USPS. It provides nationwide access to postal services at a low flat price. It is even a service which has a mandate enshrined in the US Constitution. There are lots of private US postal service competitors like UPS or FedEx but they typically only serve people in the main cities, those easiest to cover, which provide the most profit.

There is an obsession with so called "free market" or what I would rather call corporate obsessed people in the US. This is manifested in things like the Ayn Rand cult there.

If you talk with any socialist in Europe, they will typically agree that in cases where there is a natural monopoly you would be better served by a state owned enterprise. In the US people are so brainwashed they would rather surrender such services to companies like Comcast and then moan about lack of service and horribly high prices. In the UK there has been a popular backlash against the privatization of the rail and postal services for example.

The Chinese government takes things several steps above even most European governments in terms of state control of the economy, let alone the US, but from the results that has provided thus far I think there is plenty of evidence this has its own advantages. In a way, that is what the corporate overlords in places like the US dislike, a competitive system to theirs.

With regards to funding your own industry, and the fallacy of free trade, you only have to read Alexander Hamilton or Friedrich List to find a counter argument to that.
Even those in control of the US government seem not to believe it anymore, now that it no longer suits them, that's why you see them enacting tariffs.
This is clear evidence the US economy is losing out.

Yes, I think the free market has its place. In the U.S., private entities are more efficient in general. That is because the incentives are more perverse for some of the government own entities. If I run a government own corporation and don't try my best, the most I need to do is quit and find something else. What about the upside? there is no stock options, you just get a pat on the back. It may be a jumping board to other government jobs, but I will just get a pension.

In a Chinese state own enterprise, I get to profit from corruption provided that I perform well for the company. If I do really well, I get to run a bigger and more important company with more money to play with. I could get pulled in to run the government and become one of the politburo. If I run the company to the ground, my career in any part of China is over and I will get investigated for corruption and go to jail. The promotion process also make sure that only very capable people are running the large state enterprises.

The Saudis have their sovereign funds run by hired hands, that looks very similar to state enterprises, but they seem to do just fine.
 

Just4Fun

Junior Member
Registered Member
I kind of doubt it in the same way China can simply stock up large quantities of US chips somewhere.

You can cast doubt in whatever way you feel comfortable. The truth of matter is that everything I could contemplate here in my post is not too difficult for other people to figure out, unless you refuse to face reality. Furthermore, I believe Beijing's contingency plan for the rare earth game must contain more advanced , fine-tunable tools to catch and then punish the entities that deliberately abuse the terms and conditions of using China's rare earth. China will no longer tolerate those people who profit from using China's rare earth to make weapons, then use these weapons to harm China. Beijing has refrained itself for too long to tolerate the US selling weapons to Taiwan. The time finally comes for Beijing to make sure that every single gram of rare earth shipped out from China will not end up in any weapon sold to Taiwan, no matter who the weapon manufacturers are.

Don't underestimate the firing power of Beijing's rare earthing gun. It will not only cripple America's chip make business, but more significantly, it will damage America's military industry, which is arguably the biggest employer, the largest money maker and the only surviving manufacture job maker for the US. Without China's rare earth, the full spectrum of US military industry, from aircraft carrier, to jet fighter, to infrared night vision goggle, to smart bomb, will go slowdown at least, completely standstill at worst, resulting millions American workers to be underemployed, or totally unemployed, strangling US most lucrative business of arms sales, and increasing US national deficit significantly.

The US media has tossed Trump's Huawei ban as a nuclear weapon to hold China's rise. It turns out Trump's nuclear weapon is not only a bad joke for the US, but also a timely stimulant for China's high tech sector. Because of this ban, Huawei quickly released its first ever Ark OS as a response. When Huawei releases its Hongmeng OS later this fall, it will be the death knell for Microsoft and Google's business in China, if not their business all around the whole world. Only a fool trips over the same stone twice, right? Well, Google is that kind fool that fails twice in China all due to its own stupidity. It first voluntarily moved its server out from Beijing and relocated it in Hong gang because it hated China politically and overestimated its prowess, which caused its search engine business in Chinese. It now enthusiastically jumped out to ban Huawei from using its Android OS because it, again, hates China politically and overestimates its prowess, which will cause its smartphone business in Chinese market and beyond. You have yourself to blame, poor and stupid Google. Thank you, Trumpies, have done a great service to Made in China 2025.


Trump’s Huawei Threat Is the Nuclear Option to Halt China’s Rise
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Huawei may be building an Ark (OS) as it prepares for life after Android
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By an interesting contrast, China's rare earth gun is a real game changer. It can be tailored as a sharp snip rifle as well as a massive destruction weapon, with the on-off switch controlled by Beijing. If China did pull the trigger of its rare earth gun because of escalation of the ongoing US-China trade war, Washington will immediately feel the pinch pain. Even if China didn't fire its rare earth gun due to deescalation of the trade war, I am confident China will still phase in some rare earth export control measures, such holding the importer accountable, establishing unreliable entities list and applying long-arm jurisdiction, quietly to knock out US's arms sale to Taiwan. It may take some time for Beijing to accomplish it quietly, but China now certainly has this kind capacity to clamp dead all inflow of high tech weapons into Taiwan by targeting the individual military contractors that use Chinese rare earth to make crucial components for weapons sold to Taiwan.
 

CMP

Senior Member
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even if hongmeng can't have international success it has the potential to permit china under state rule to get rid of android and also windows, not a smal thing.
not only is it not a small thing, it is crucial for china to have control over the software that is the foundation of its computing ecosystem. server, mobile, super, pc, or otherwise
 

Just4Fun

Junior Member
Registered Member
even if hongmeng can't have international success it has the potential to permit china under state rule to get rid of android and also windows, not a smal thing.

Hongmeng will be a great international success story because the term of INTERNATIONAL is not exclusively applied to the Anglo-saxon Five-eye Spy countries. The countries engaged in the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are also international countries and Hongmeng will likely have high acceptance rates there. China is the dominant driving force of BRI. For people in BRI countries right now, having a tool to using Chinese to communicate with Chinese is just as popular as, in China during 1990s and 2000s, having a tool to using English to communicate with Westerners. Learning Chinese means better job opportunities in many places among BRI countries and Hongmeng is a good tool for people there to learn Chinese.
 
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