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When Innovation, Too, Is Made in China

True, Chinese technology is improving greatly and it will catch up to Europe and Russia in 20-25 years. but Europe and Russia are still decades behind that of US. for example, F-22

The gaps between China & the EU, and China & the US on both civilian and millitary tech could be theoritically bridged at exponential catch-up speed, which could prove to be much faster than what it appears to be outright at the face value, provided sufficient finance (out of strong and much faster growing economy), a huge pool of high IQ talents, right govt policies and the urge to do so. China seems to have already had the right recipe.

Empirical examples are numerious: China's leap straight to mobile phone instead of fixed line first; China's seemingly leap straight to AESA radar, instead of maturing her PESA; China's leap straight to 5th gen fighter in the absence of 4.5 gen ones in the class of Rafale, TF...

Like it or not, the US is fastly on her way down vis-á-vis China, especially from mid term perspective.
 
True, Chinese technology is improving greatly and it will catch up to Europe and Russia in 20-25 years. but Europe and Russia are still decades behind that of US. for example, F-22

in some areas, particularly related to military tech, Europe is decades behind of the US for the reason that there is much less market demand to spur the development of their defense industry. Europe don't seek global military dominance as US do.

however when it comes to civilian industry, situation is quite different. Japan and Germany is more influential than the US. All of US' industries except aviation and IT are dying like what happened in UK decades ago cause it fail to compete with Japan, Germany, Korea, and China. Everyone knows Japanese car and German car are better than american cars. Russia is good at military industry for historical reason. In other areas, it make no difference from Brazil.
 
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That's an interesting point.

China has a pool of 1.2 billion people; does it really need foreign brains?

Is there anything special about foreign-educated scientists that cannot be provided by Chinese people themselves?

In any case, the biggest driver of innovation is good old fashioned human ego/greed. If China can convince its people that fabulous wealth lies at the end of the rainbow, innovation will flow.

I'm sort of agree with you in that there are lots talents in China. However, there are more such (foreign) talents in USA. A larger number only gives a better chance. But talents needs to be nurtured to grow. If 1.2 billion were illiterate, the chance of having talents would still be slim (not null).

Talents do not just arise from classrooms, they do more so from practice of their profession, by attempting to apply their knowledge, by coordinating with their colleagues in practice, by managing resources...

The reason that China is still behind in many areas (compared with EU and States) is basically that people don't have much chance to practice/experience, not that they are not smart/hardworking enough.

The very fact that the US lead in technologies will give practitioners a lot chance to practice/experience with first-rate people, first-rate ideas and first-rate equipments.

No question that China is catching up, but this is no one-jump business. It takes time.

the important part is this: as long as the US can print USD and people accept USD, then it will have an endless supply of cheap and highly skilled PhDs making less than garbagemen. Everyone that has a PhD in science/engineering from the US, knows that a PhD means you are making contributions hundreds of times your salary when you have the PhD: in effect, you are doing more for the degree, than the degree is doing for you. The pie in the sky prize, of course, is a stable job as a professor or company boss, but the majority are stuck as postdocs making near minimum wage while the hot jobs are mostly reserved for native born whites.

The real problem is, of course, cutting losses try to prevent people from leaving. A good way to start is to pay grad students more. Attracting PhDs back is more natural: the better China gets, the more they'll naturally come back. No amount of policy incentives can change that.

We must differentiate EDUCATION from JOB-TRAINING.

In general, education can elevate over-all qualities of people. It bestows fundamental knowledge of human achievements, provokes thoughts, imaginations and creativity. It therefore allows you to become highly adaptive to changing environment. Job-training is for you to fit in the current job market (which may/may not be fluid) and earn a living.

A typical example of lacking education but well job-trained is an Indian friend that I once met. He was good in performing his daily work, but he didn't know many basic knowledge (such as where China is!).

To be able to code in computer, you don't need to get PhD. High-school graduates who take some training courses will be enough... and they are actually faster in reflex than older people when coding/debugging code. But they will have problem in solving an engineering problem, for they lack the kind of education that brings them broadened knowledge.

PhD is more of an education than of job-training. PhD is not just meant for money.

We all see many rich people who are so ill educated. We also see many not so rich people who are well educated.

Not denying that money is important. Only sufficient on basic living, can people go for education. Thus, in a society, if PhD is cheaper than garbage collectors, why would people invest for PhD? If there is a singular case that a PhD is starved to death, it is more the problem of the PhD. But if a massive amount of PhDs are starved to death, yet those without PhD survive, will anyone go for PhD?
 
What fields exactly? I'd like to know..

In no field Russia can compete with China outside military industry. Actually even Singarpore is far more influential than Russia in terms of civilian tech. Russia makes no difference from Mexico and Brazil today, every east asia country has superior civilian tech and industry than Russia. Russia imports huge amount of digit machine tool, electric products, machinery, generation facility, ships, telecom equipment and service, etc from China every year, what they can export is oil, mine, lumber, gas, fish, and whores.
 
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Agreed. Apple may have not even designed the iPod. It came up with the specifications, and let the specific design (such as where to put the wires, what circuits to use, what materials) be given to Chinese companies. Foxxcon, despite its many faults, is indeed a leading contract manufacturer. Every single american brand is not actually american, it is designed and manufacturered by a Chinese company, to outside specifications (and no more, so you get what you pay for), then the label is slapped on.

In fact, you can see many "outsourced design" companies where you give them the specs and they'll give you a product back.

http://www.altadox.com/

Gpit: I don't know much about computers, but in chemistry, materials science, chemical engineering, etc. a PhD is recommended for understanding and being able to advance the most cutting edge technology in the field. Things like ion beam welding (Qinghua university), superconductors, homogenous catalysts, single crystal alloys, piezoelectric ceramics, etc. are not understandable to a deep level without a PhD doing research in these fields.
 
Agreed. Apple may have not even designed the iPod. It came up with the specifications, and let the specific design (such as where to put the wires, what circuits to use, what materials) be given to Chinese companies. Foxxcon, despite its many faults, is indeed a leading contract manufacturer. Every single american brand is not actually american, it is designed and manufacturered by a Chinese company, to outside specifications (and no more, so you get what you pay for), then the label is slapped on.

In fact, you can see many "outsourced design" companies where you give them the specs and they'll give you a product back.

China Electronic Contract Manufacturing - Altadox Electronic Contract Manufacturer
That is an absurd argument and it reveals that you do not know what you are talking about regarding contracted, or 'outsourcing' manufacturing, or even manufacturing in general. By your argument, a house constructed by Mexican illegal immigrant labor is not built by an American company but by Mexico? Give me a break. Apple did not 'designed' the iPod...:rolleyes:...The only Apple product I own is a first generation Nano and it sits empty in a hardware miscellaneous box in my basement but I can see the ridiculousness in what you just said. This is truly a desperate attempt to attribute technology 'greatness' to China when it is undeserved.
 
In no field Russia can compete with China outside military industry. Actually even Singarpore is far more influential than Russia in terms of civilian tech. Russia makes no difference from Mexico and Brazil today, every east asia country has superior civilian tech and industry than Russia. Russia imports huge amount of digit machine tool, electric products, machinery, generation facility, ships, telecom equipment and service, etc from China every year, what they can export is oil, mine, lumber, gas, fish, and whores.

Wow that's a bit too strong my friend, Russia still has a very strong education system and has produced many world leading scientists, I'm just saying, give respect where it is due.:D
 
That is an absurd argument and it reveals that you do not know what you are talking about regarding contracted, or 'outsourcing' manufacturing, or even manufacturing in general. By your argument, a house constructed by Mexican illegal immigrant labor is not built by an American company but by Mexico? Give me a break. Apple did not 'designed' the iPod...:rolleyes:...The only Apple product I own is a first generation Nano and it sits empty in a hardware miscellaneous box in my basement but I can see the ridiculousness in what you just said. This is truly a desperate attempt to attribute technology 'greatness' to China when it is undeserved.

Foxconn and mexican illegal immigrant labor are oranges and apples.
Foxconn is even larger than apple and microsoft in terms of revenue.

Foxconn is one of the high-tech companies that have the biggest number of patents in the world and it features state-of-the-art management. Apple design it but have limited knowledge on how to make it, its Foxconn's manufacture tech make apple's design true.
 
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Wow that's a bit too strong my friend, Russia still has a very strong education system and has produced many world leading scientists, I'm just saying, give respect where it is due.:D

Agreed. Russia of course is stronger than Mexico, much stronger. Furthermore, Scuthan's last frase (i.e. "w****") was alsmo a bit ovet the top. Yet I agree with Scuthan that China has a overwhelming lead over Russian on most civilian tech across the board, which could make a huge difference in the millitary powess in the long haul.
 
Agreed. Apple may have not even designed the iPod. It came up with the specifications, and let the specific design (such as where to put the wires, what circuits to use, what materials) be given to Chinese companies. Foxxcon, despite its many faults, is indeed a leading contract manufacturer. Every single american brand is not actually american, it is designed and manufacturered by a Chinese company, to outside specifications (and no more, so you get what you pay for), then the label is slapped on.

In fact, you can see many "outsourced design" companies where you give them the specs and they'll give you a product back.

China Electronic Contract Manufacturing - Altadox Electronic Contract Manufacturer

Hmmm that might be the case for a generic mp3 player, you tell the manufacturer how big the display an flash memory should be and they can make one for you, but for something like a macbook pro it is apple who designs it and comes up with the intellectual capital, this is not something that any manufacturers can do.
 
Personally, I feel China’s growth is fascinating; however, attributing innovation to Chinese society is not apt. China has very less threshold for risk. A society that cannot take risk cannot be innovative. Moreover, people should remember that innovation and advancement in technology are different
 
Let's give credit where credit is due.

America still leads in high-tech innovation. Apple products are designed by Apple engineers; the manufacturer is only following specs laid out by designers.

A lot of it is due to a fundamental aspect of American culture: that even a garbageman's daughter can make millions if she comes up with a valuable innovation.

Personally, I feel China’s growth is fascinating; however, attributing innovation to Chinese society is not apt. China has very less threshold for risk. A society that cannot take risk cannot be innovative. Moreover, people should remember that innovation and advancement in technology are different

That's a good point. Americans almost revel in risk.
It is encouraged by the society.
Cowardice is considered a greater sin than failure.

Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
 
That's an interesting point.

China has a pool of 1.2 billion people; does it really need foreign brains?

Is there anything special about foreign-educated scientists that cannot be provided by Chinese people themselves?

In any case, the biggest driver of innovation is good old fashioned human ego/greed. If China can convince its people that fabulous wealth lies at the end of the rainbow, innovation will flow.

Innovation requires lateral thinking. A 1.2 billion people conditioned to think similar will lack diversity. US is innovative more because it has diverse people than it has super intelligent people
 
Innovation requires lateral thinking. A 1.2 billion people conditioned to think similar will lack diversity. US is innovative more because it has diverse people than it has super intelligent people

True.
With a very liberal immigration policy and rich economy, America effectively has a resource pool of 7 billion people.
 

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