When Innovation, Too, Is Made in China

[topjumper]

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

About this risk thing I'm afraid you are over generalizing, as long as there is adequate risk/reward ratio people will take their chances, many private entrepreneurs in china are some of the most reckless guys I've met, this is not a trait of a one particular country, rather it is a trait of a country that practise free market capitalism.

Regarding innovation, it's hard to innovate when you are still playing catch-up, this is true not just for any one specific country.

 

[Speeder 2]

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

^^ Your blindly insisting that innovations are not tech advancements is highly subjective, or crap, to put it bluntly.

One of the key measurements, if not the key one, of innovation is, by its very definition, the overall patents a country produces, recognised by worldwide science community with little ambiguousity.

Whereas the quality of patents might vary ( I am sure a unique way of how one supposes to make a sofabed doesn't go very far in int'l patent offices), empirical evidences of the recent past suggest that the country which holds the most int'l patents has always stood at the forefront of worldwide technological powess and been the origin of the most Nobel Laureates in sciences.

Why don't you go look up the current standing of China's int'l patents (ICT) and the sheer growth rates for the last 10 years, alongwith the prudent projection by the industrial experts for its immiediate future (say the coming 3 years) vis-á-vis the US ?

As a side note, we all know that 5th gen fights require highly sophisticated RAM - material science. Though not all material science patents having millitary implications for the 5th gen, China produced the most peer-reviewed scientific papers on Material Science in the world last year and overall produced almost the most worldwide patents in Material Science during the recent years... food for thought.

 

[topjumper]

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

My friend, I think you might have read one too many anti china propagandas, this idea that 1.3 billion people are just like simple minded "automators", with a master government head pulling everyone's strings , it would make a great film though! I suggest you go to china to take a look and see if they all "think similar" . And btw unlile the impression you may get from this forum, they won't be at your throats like a sworn enemy just because you are from India.

 

[Iqbal_Brar]

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.

Like what exactly... I'm asking...

Because military technology is where biggest spin offs into civilian technology come from.... Russia is far ahead in terms of metallurgy, electro-optics.. aerospace.. and even the top biggest engineering fields.. electrical.. mechanical.. chemical and civil.. all major fields required heavily in defence area... russia was in space race with americans 50 years back.... china is only stepping into these fields just now... they are not close to russia in terms of technology... because yes.. military technology is most advanced and where technology potential into civil areas comes from...

 

[gambit]

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.

As implied that Apple did not designed their stuff but Chinese companies did, can we blame those Chinese companies for the iPhone's antenna problems, the iPad's much criticized weight, and the current 2011's bug that disabled the iPhone's alarm?

 

[below_freezing]

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.

what is the technically new aspect of a Macbook and how does it significantly differ from other notebooks?

some medium-high tech leading companies of china (not going to mention obvious ones like Tencent, Huawei, Haier, Tsingdao, ZTE, Lenovo, etc; only posting companies with worth of 100 million USD or above and which people have actually heard of)

Aigo Digital Technologies: aigo

Shanghai Electrical (the company that Reliance bought 10 billion USD of generators from): Home - Welcome to Shanghai Electric Group!

Sinoma Materials: Sinoma¡ªChina National Materials Group Corporation Ltd.
Sinoma Engineering: ??????????????

Baosteel Group: Baosteel Group Co. >> Home

Wuhan Steel: wisco

Gerui Advanced Materials: CHOP

Sany Heavy Industries: Sany Heavy Industry Co., Ltd_The official website of Sany Group

Shanghai Shipyards: ..

Changhong Electronics (sorry, no English site): ???? (Market value 68.258 billion RMB, 10 billion USD)

 

[below_freezing]

Like what exactly... I'm asking...

Because military technology is where biggest spin offs into civilian technology come from.... Russia is far ahead in terms of metallurgy, electro-optics.. aerospace.. and even the top biggest engineering fields.. electrical.. mechanical.. chemical and civil.. all major fields required heavily in defence area... russia was in space race with americans 50 years back.... china is only stepping into these fields just now... they are not close to russia in terms of technology... because yes.. military technology is most advanced and where technology potential into civil areas comes from...

Russia is ahead in 1 very tiny specific area of metallurgy: single crystal turbine blades, which is completely useless in every other area of application except military jet engines. Hopefully they can be replaced by ceramic coatings or even a pure ceramic engine.

There is 1 steel company from Russia in the top 10. There are 3 in the top 10 for China. In chemicals, there are 2 in the top 10 from China (one from Taiwan). There are ZERO from Russia in the top 50.

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/11/2/saupload_global_top_10_chemical_cos.png

In civil and mechanical I won't even talk: longest bridges in China, fastest trains, Shanghai Electrical Works, Shanghai Shipyard, Sanyi Heavy Industries, etc. etc.

Optronics: Google "List of LED producers". The top 5 pages show listings from China only. Want specific names? AU Optronics. Changhong Electronics (Changhong is a military supplier to the PLA as well; net assets 10 billion USD)

http://www.createled.com/

 

[TechLahore]

As implied that Apple did not designed their stuff but Chinese companies did, can we blame those Chinese companies for the iPhone's antenna problems, the iPad's much criticized weight, and the current 2011's bug that disabled the iPhone's alarm?

I guess you could, as long as you also credited the Chinese for the various phones they build for US brands that don't have these bugs.

As a point of fact, much of the design (not just manufacturing) by top tier US labels, is now outsourced. You may have heard of the term, "ODM". As an example, I believe close to 85% of PC Laptops (including Dell, HP etc.) are ODM'd and designed outside the US.

 

[Iqbal_Brar]

Russia is ahead in 1 very tiny specific area of metallurgy: single crystal turbine blades, which is completely useless in every other area of application except military jet engines.

1 area which you know of... And I don't know how useless it is.... Russians have a wide variety of civilian airliner aircraft... Their engine efficiency was behind the West.... but you can bet it is better than anything Chinese will put up in near future (if they do finally put a civil aircraft up soon that is)... you cannot simply fly over decades of experience and knowledge which Russians and western world have learned by making mistakes and ironing them over all these years.. you cannot simply get ironed out efficient and reliable technology without putting in so many years of research and experience...

There is 1 steel company from Russia in the top 10. There are 3 in the top 10 for China. In chemicals, there are 2 in the top 10 from China (one from Taiwan). There are ZERO from Russia in the top 50.

http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/11/2/saupload_global_top_10_chemical_cos.png

That does not mean that a country lacks technological knowledge... India makes that list also but I won't say that it is because we have superior medical and chemical knowledge than Russia... actually though medicine is a worldwide field and that just shows which country has acquired wider medical markets.. India and China have such a huge population so they will obviously make the list... Russia has traditionally never been export oriented in medical they have an excellent system which caters to their comparatively small population and that is what matters no?

In civil and mechanical I won't even talk: longest bridges in China, fastest trains, Shanghai Electrical Works, Shanghai Shipyard, Sanyi Heavy Industries, etc. etc.

You are comparing an already developed country which has made those bridges.. rails.. and civil infrastructure back in the 50s when our countries didn't even know how to build scooter engines.. obviously infrastructure will be newer because it is coming 60 years after the Russians... hell.. even the Indian metro systems are far newer and more advanced than American subway/metro system.. does that mean technology edge?? noo... it means America built up its infrastructure half a century ago so obviously it will be older...

Optronics: Google "List of LED producers". The top 5 pages show listings from China only. Want specific names? AU Optronics. Changhong Electronics (Changhong is a military supplier to the PLA as well; net assets 10 billion USD)

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so you think China producing more lightbulbs than Russia means you have more technology edge??

lets cut the chest beating my brother and get back down to reality...

China has achieved A LOT!!! Its achievements deserve to be acknowledged.. it has come from thirdworld country to almost first world in very short time... it has grown by leaps and bounds... but to say that you are superior to countries who have gathered so much experience and nurtured their technological fields for more than half a century.. than you are stretching things too much...

 

[ao333]

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......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.

This Vietnamese thinks he's better than Mexicans... They earn 5 times more than your m*thers in Vietnam and twice more than your f*thers in China.

PS: Vietnamese earn as much as Indians.

 

[faithfulguy]

There is a difference between manufacturing engineering and product engineer that usually are done by "electrical engineer" graduates. I agree that China, because of assistance from Taiwan, are pretty advance in terms of manufacturing engineering. However, when it comes to product engineering and design, it lags far behind Japan, Korea and espeically the US.

 

[ChineseTiger1986]

This Vietnamese thinks he's better than Mexicans... They earn 5 times more than your m*thers in Vietnam and twice more than your f*thers in China.

PS: Vietnamese earn as much as Indians.

Correction, more likely 10 times.

Mexico per capita 2010: $10,211 USD

Vietnam per capita 2010: $1,168 USD

 

[Developereo]

you cannot simply fly over decades of experience and knowledge which Russians and western world have learned by making mistakes and ironing them over all these years.. you cannot simply get ironed out efficient and reliable technology without putting in so many years of research and experience...

Good points. I will only offer this observation.

The decades old knowledge acquired by the established players is not locked up in people's brains; it is passed on to the next generation in their educational institutions. These same institutions also have foreign students who instantly get the decades of wisdom handed to them on a platter.

The reason this doesn't help those foreign students' home countries is because those countries usually lack the infrastructure to make use of this knowledge. A top-of-the-class Pakistani student in microprocessor design will have precious few options back in Pakistan; she is much better off putting her talents to use in the US.

That is the part that is changing for China and India. Foreign educated students now have an opportunity to do advanced r&d in their home country. It is for this reason that China and, to some extent India, will have an easier time catching up to the West.

 

[gambit]

This Vietnamese thinks he's better than Mexicans... They earn 5 times more than your m*thers in Vietnam and twice more than your f*thers in China.

PS: Vietnamese earn as much as Indians.

Get lost, loser. You are nothing more than a white Canadian trying to suck up to the Chinese...

 

[Jade]

About this risk thing I'm afraid you are over generalizing, as long as there is adequate risk/reward ratio people will take their chances, many private entrepreneurs in china are some of the most reckless guys I've met, this is not a trait of a one particular country, rather it is a trait of a country that practise free market capitalism.

Regarding innovation, it's hard to innovate when you are still playing catch-up, this is true not just for any one specific country.

Yes, Risk aversion or risk taking is very much an individual thing; however, there is one point to remember that provokes risk… and that is incentives; Capitalist societies offer better incentives to take risk then socialist based societies. This is one reason why you find scores of private enterprises in capitalist societies. Risk/reward ratio is better suited to capitalist societies

Unfortunately, risk/reward ratio also would widen the gap between rich and poor.