I don't think anyone disagrees that China will out pace the US in technology at some point within the next two generations. They will probably outpace the US in all business sectors. This has nothing to do with the failings of the American education system or ineptitude of our leadership. No matter what our policies, we are a natural disadvantage. China has more people. With more people comes more consumers, larger markets, and ultimately more innovators.
Ultimately though, this doesn't matter. As the world becomes more globalized it will matter less and less where companies physically exist. Global companies will still hire the best minds from wherever in the world they graduate from, and global companies/investment firms will still invest in the best of ideas.
Wrong. More people, more problems, the harder control will be. Think of a big company, like Microsoft.
I think the article is crap, written by someone with degrees, who value degrees and the article is based on the current education system.
> 1. China's leadership understands engineering
Hahaha. We need leaders and not Engineers, sure they need a minimum knowledge, but they don't need doctorate in Physics.
> 2. China's leadership wants to out-innovate the U.S.
That's my dream too and the dream of France, England and the whole world.
> 3. China's science and technical talent pool is vast
Again, he relies on the educational system. Who said China has a quality educational system and that the 350K engineers know really what they should know.
The US is, by and large, successful because we have the largest market in the world (forgetting for a moment the effects of WWII). We continue to be a success because we have a huge population of affluent people who can spend enormous amounts of money on consumer goods. The Chinese middle class is already larger than the entirety of the US population* and will continue to rise as the country increasingly becomes a first-world country.
There are of course issues with managing such a large population, but the chance of any sort of collapse is the figment, and hope, of our pride and does not reflect the realities of the situation.
* - Income of middle class in the US is higher, but cost of living is also substantially less in China.
>I don't think anyone disagrees that China will out pace the US in technology at some point within the next two generations
I disagree. There is a barrier to go from manufacturing to innovating, and it's one that China is not going to find easy to break through. There is a political, cultural, and social infrastructure in America that China simply does not have.
Innovators are people who typically want to be free. They solve problems because they don't like being constrained. A country like America accommodates innovators very well: we allow people to express their political opinions openly, accept or even celebrate people's eccentricities, and promote almost a true meritocracy. I don't see China reaching that level in two generations.
I think they're already starting to break through that barrier. Look at companies such as Huawei, TCL, Lenovo, and Haier who are competing at the global stage with many US tech firms. If you are limiting "technology" to what most of us do around here (software) then I might be able to concede the argument, but that is an incredibly narrow view.
edit
On innovators: I agree in the current climate the environment in the US is more conducive to raising people with the entrepeneural spirit, however China is rapidly changing. This is the time when the first batch of college grads have parents who had white collar jobs. They aspire to be more than their parents, and this desire/greed/ambition will inspire a new generation of business men and engineers. Their children will be even more so.
Point one is irrelevant. Lawyers make good politicians because law and creating policy are similar. JinTao's job is to be a politician provide leadership and design policy that is benefitial for the country and not be an engineer.
2. Everyone wants to out innovate us. If you innovate you can create wealth for your country. If your country cannot innovate then you are reliant on foreign direct investment and jobs from richer countries because your country cannot generate jobs and wealth itself. Innovation allows countries to control its own destiny.
3. I would agree that the pool is huge and advanced. Chinese students are well discipled and they have a lot of pressure to get advanced education, do well in school and get good jobs.The pool is so large that there are millions students with advance degrees that are unemployed living in slums near technological cities waiting for their big break because there are not enough jobs for them.
4. America is failing in science and math is a big worry. We need to create better incentives around these fields.
5. China is stealing our technology and improving on existing ones. If we don't change I see a lot of middle tier engineering jobs going to India and China.
China is good at copying technology and selling for cheaper or improving an already existing product, but real innovation, such as creating new technologies that create whole new indsutries still will be from americans.
Americans, culturally, are used to thinking outside the box, critically thinking and using their imagination in applying what they learn in new and intersting ways. Chinese work force are robotic and respect authority and have a big fear of losing face or failing.
What i am trying to say is America will come out with real innovation and china will copy it. China will also steal a lot of the low level to mid level engineering jobs, which contributes in building our middle class.
The best way we can combat this is be good parents and don't let our kids be self entitled lazy biatches and have them strive for higher education on the technical side. We should also make sure we support policies that provides an evironment that allows us to be competitve to with China and India in terms of value or put pressure on chinese and indian businesses or the countries to raise social standards of its people so the american worker is competitve.
China is good at copying technology and selling for cheaper or improving an already existing product, but real innovation, such as creating new technologies that create whole new indsutries still will be from americans.
This is exactly, to the letter, what America said about Japan, and it was completely wrong.
where did these industries get started software, personal computer, internet, airline, car, etc.
Americans were the ones that created these industries and created new technologies, new needs, and new jobs. We are wealthier that other countries not just because of WWII, but because of innovation and our ability to create new industries that creates jobs and wealth.
IE, personal computers create so many jobs that no one would have thought would have existed 80 years ago.
Americans are the ones that are the forerunners of innovation. We've have created so much.
I have to wonder if people who write articles like this have ever actually worked with a Chinese company. I know my company (nuclear reactor software) had a disastrous experience in partnering with Chinese programmers, and a friend of mine in manufacturing had similar stories.
It is true, though, that we have essentially sold our technological soul in exchange to the Chinese for a big contract (we're building some reactors there, but we're selling them a bunch of IP).
I think it's less likely that China will 'rule tech' and more likely that they'll simply stop depending on Western tech and become a self-contained market.
As someone born, raised and educated in China, I say this would never happen unless China can treat IP protection more seriously. Piracy has already destroyed the possibility of a strong music and movie industry. Non-existence of protection against superficial copycat behaviors is hurting not only foreign companies but also those few Chinese willing to innovate.
Another problem is that things rely too much on good will and efforts of the government. However, government funds are put into projects mostly to make government reports look good on paper and to allow government officials to get promoted to higher level positions. Some universities put Wi-Fi in some areas of the campus so that they can report they have campus Wi-Fi. Things look good and bright on paper. And that's because it is meant to be like that.
This article brings up none of the roadblocks that will prevent this.
1. So the ruling party is headed by engineers? So I assume the taxi cabs are driven by the blind, all the jockeys are tall, and the businesses are run by physicists. Not matching skilled workers with their work is a disadvantage.
2. The Chinese government (or any government) can't sit down and order up long term technological advancement. What government program did Gates or Jobs take part in?
3. All the top talent will emigrate. The real innovators would prefer not to be constrained by the local party official's rules.
4. Complacency is a huge issue for us, but thankfully we make a good destination for all those people from #3. The more the immigration door remains open the less we have to worry about this.
5. Low cost exporting is a house of cards. There is always a country that will do it cheaper/more exploitatively. Hard to have a long term strategy here. And you can't copy your way to first place. The copy can never be better than the original.
So the ruling party is headed by engineers? So I assume the taxi cabs are driven by the blind, all the jockeys are tall, and the businesses are run by physicists. Not matching skilled workers with their work is a disadvantage.?
Huh?
20% of all Forbes 500 CEO's are engineers same number as that of Management grads.
The Chinese government (or any government) can't sit down and order up long term technological advancement. What government program did Gates or Jobs take part in
huh? What did Gates and Jobs do? Did they invent transistors? You dont haven an iota of knowledge about technology. nor science.
While I wholeheartedly applaud all attempts at getting ANY government at all to spend more on science, technology and education, I am baffled at the constant American paranoia of its 'leadership' in science and math.
A couple of points:
1. It is OK for America to not "rule tech".
China has the most number of humans in the world. Statistically speaking, it shouldn't be surprising that they will eventually 'rule tech'.
American leadership in technology is an anomaly - it's representative of the historical advantages that the US has had and the deprivations of rest of the world. IOW, US is more like a one-eyed king in a country of the blind. As others pull themselves up, it's natural that this anomaly will be corrected somewhat.
"Furthermore, only 2% of all U.S. 9th-grade boys and 1% of girls will go on to attain an undergraduate science or engineering degree. In contrast to these troubling numbers, Mr. Chairman, 42% of all college undergraduates in China earn science or engineering degrees."
That's crazy. I wonder how many more undergraduates China has altogether.
To get into university in China is hard, but to finish it is easy, vice versa to Western countries. A Chinese boasting an engineering degree from a good university shows how well their parents got them to study for their Senior High School finishing certificate (Gaokao) when they were 18 yrs old.
Wow, this article is terrible. While its thesis (China will rule tech eventually may be correct), the arguments are very weak.
1) The US' :"Great Engineer" president (Herbert Hoover) was among its worst. While it is a low sample size, I'm not sure how much evidence there is that leaders with engineering degrees = better for society.
2) Everyone wants to out-innovate the US. Sheer R&D investment helps, but other factors play a large part.
3) Outright misleading. Bleum is hiring a US workforce to work in China (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178913/Chinese_outso...); of course the workforce is orders of magnitude smaller. (Hint: IQ tests are illegal to use for employment in the US).
The number of engineering degrees is also misleading, as the US typically has higher standards to get them than in China.
Besides, the US has a huge talent pool advantage in that it accepts highly skilled immigrants from all countries, something that occurs far less often in China.
4) This argument compares US high school to Chinese undergraduates. While the US certainly has its weak-spots with education for everyone, the top 10% (who probably matter the most) get an excellent education
5) The strongest argument. Tech transfers have been going on for more than a decade. It definitely helps China a lot (and helped the US massively in the early 1800s), but China still does have awhile to go.
20 comments
[ 3.0 ms ] story [ 62.9 ms ] threadUltimately though, this doesn't matter. As the world becomes more globalized it will matter less and less where companies physically exist. Global companies will still hire the best minds from wherever in the world they graduate from, and global companies/investment firms will still invest in the best of ideas.
Wrong. More people, more problems, the harder control will be. Think of a big company, like Microsoft.
I think the article is crap, written by someone with degrees, who value degrees and the article is based on the current education system.
> 1. China's leadership understands engineering
Hahaha. We need leaders and not Engineers, sure they need a minimum knowledge, but they don't need doctorate in Physics.
> 2. China's leadership wants to out-innovate the U.S.
That's my dream too and the dream of France, England and the whole world.
> 3. China's science and technical talent pool is vast
Again, he relies on the educational system. Who said China has a quality educational system and that the 350K engineers know really what they should know.
There are of course issues with managing such a large population, but the chance of any sort of collapse is the figment, and hope, of our pride and does not reflect the realities of the situation.
* - Income of middle class in the US is higher, but cost of living is also substantially less in China.
I disagree. There is a barrier to go from manufacturing to innovating, and it's one that China is not going to find easy to break through. There is a political, cultural, and social infrastructure in America that China simply does not have.
Innovators are people who typically want to be free. They solve problems because they don't like being constrained. A country like America accommodates innovators very well: we allow people to express their political opinions openly, accept or even celebrate people's eccentricities, and promote almost a true meritocracy. I don't see China reaching that level in two generations.
edit On innovators: I agree in the current climate the environment in the US is more conducive to raising people with the entrepeneural spirit, however China is rapidly changing. This is the time when the first batch of college grads have parents who had white collar jobs. They aspire to be more than their parents, and this desire/greed/ambition will inspire a new generation of business men and engineers. Their children will be even more so.
2. Everyone wants to out innovate us. If you innovate you can create wealth for your country. If your country cannot innovate then you are reliant on foreign direct investment and jobs from richer countries because your country cannot generate jobs and wealth itself. Innovation allows countries to control its own destiny.
3. I would agree that the pool is huge and advanced. Chinese students are well discipled and they have a lot of pressure to get advanced education, do well in school and get good jobs.The pool is so large that there are millions students with advance degrees that are unemployed living in slums near technological cities waiting for their big break because there are not enough jobs for them.
4. America is failing in science and math is a big worry. We need to create better incentives around these fields.
5. China is stealing our technology and improving on existing ones. If we don't change I see a lot of middle tier engineering jobs going to India and China.
China is good at copying technology and selling for cheaper or improving an already existing product, but real innovation, such as creating new technologies that create whole new indsutries still will be from americans.
Americans, culturally, are used to thinking outside the box, critically thinking and using their imagination in applying what they learn in new and intersting ways. Chinese work force are robotic and respect authority and have a big fear of losing face or failing.
What i am trying to say is America will come out with real innovation and china will copy it. China will also steal a lot of the low level to mid level engineering jobs, which contributes in building our middle class.
The best way we can combat this is be good parents and don't let our kids be self entitled lazy biatches and have them strive for higher education on the technical side. We should also make sure we support policies that provides an evironment that allows us to be competitve to with China and India in terms of value or put pressure on chinese and indian businesses or the countries to raise social standards of its people so the american worker is competitve.
This is exactly, to the letter, what America said about Japan, and it was completely wrong.
where did these industries get started software, personal computer, internet, airline, car, etc.
Americans were the ones that created these industries and created new technologies, new needs, and new jobs. We are wealthier that other countries not just because of WWII, but because of innovation and our ability to create new industries that creates jobs and wealth.
IE, personal computers create so many jobs that no one would have thought would have existed 80 years ago.
Americans are the ones that are the forerunners of innovation. We've have created so much.
Other Japanese inventions include: - pocket calculators - CDs - the Walkman - Camcorders - Blue lasers - Glass integrated circuits - Flash memory - The floppy disk - Flat panel displays - LCDs - Plasma screens
I think they're doing okay.
It is true, though, that we have essentially sold our technological soul in exchange to the Chinese for a big contract (we're building some reactors there, but we're selling them a bunch of IP).
I think it's less likely that China will 'rule tech' and more likely that they'll simply stop depending on Western tech and become a self-contained market.
Another problem is that things rely too much on good will and efforts of the government. However, government funds are put into projects mostly to make government reports look good on paper and to allow government officials to get promoted to higher level positions. Some universities put Wi-Fi in some areas of the campus so that they can report they have campus Wi-Fi. Things look good and bright on paper. And that's because it is meant to be like that.
1. So the ruling party is headed by engineers? So I assume the taxi cabs are driven by the blind, all the jockeys are tall, and the businesses are run by physicists. Not matching skilled workers with their work is a disadvantage.
2. The Chinese government (or any government) can't sit down and order up long term technological advancement. What government program did Gates or Jobs take part in?
3. All the top talent will emigrate. The real innovators would prefer not to be constrained by the local party official's rules.
4. Complacency is a huge issue for us, but thankfully we make a good destination for all those people from #3. The more the immigration door remains open the less we have to worry about this.
5. Low cost exporting is a house of cards. There is always a country that will do it cheaper/more exploitatively. Hard to have a long term strategy here. And you can't copy your way to first place. The copy can never be better than the original.
Huh? 20% of all Forbes 500 CEO's are engineers same number as that of Management grads.
The Chinese government (or any government) can't sit down and order up long term technological advancement. What government program did Gates or Jobs take part in
huh? What did Gates and Jobs do? Did they invent transistors? You dont haven an iota of knowledge about technology. nor science.
you seem to be an idiot.
A couple of points:
1. It is OK for America to not "rule tech".
China has the most number of humans in the world. Statistically speaking, it shouldn't be surprising that they will eventually 'rule tech'.
American leadership in technology is an anomaly - it's representative of the historical advantages that the US has had and the deprivations of rest of the world. IOW, US is more like a one-eyed king in a country of the blind. As others pull themselves up, it's natural that this anomaly will be corrected somewhat.
2. America is not really lagging anyway.
The world's top universities are American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Academic_Ranking_of_World_Unive...), most of the Nobel laureates have been American (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Nobel_laureates_by_coun...), most of the high-tech companies are American (I don't even care to list), and a lot of people who are technically savvy eventually become American anyway. From outside at least, the US looks like a giant chain reaction of innovation that has spun out of control!
I guess "America is doing great!" won't make as sensational a headline as this one.
That's crazy. I wonder how many more undergraduates China has altogether.
1) The US' :"Great Engineer" president (Herbert Hoover) was among its worst. While it is a low sample size, I'm not sure how much evidence there is that leaders with engineering degrees = better for society.
2) Everyone wants to out-innovate the US. Sheer R&D investment helps, but other factors play a large part.
3) Outright misleading. Bleum is hiring a US workforce to work in China (http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9178913/Chinese_outso...); of course the workforce is orders of magnitude smaller. (Hint: IQ tests are illegal to use for employment in the US).
The number of engineering degrees is also misleading, as the US typically has higher standards to get them than in China.
Besides, the US has a huge talent pool advantage in that it accepts highly skilled immigrants from all countries, something that occurs far less often in China.
4) This argument compares US high school to Chinese undergraduates. While the US certainly has its weak-spots with education for everyone, the top 10% (who probably matter the most) get an excellent education
5) The strongest argument. Tech transfers have been going on for more than a decade. It definitely helps China a lot (and helped the US massively in the early 1800s), but China still does have awhile to go.