Xi's Call To Win Tech Race Points To New Wave of Chinese State-led Spending (reuters.com) 31
President Xi Jinping's call for China to "win the battle" in core technologies could signal an overhaul in Beijing's approach to advancing its tech industry, with more state-led spending and intervention to counter U.S. pressures, analysts say. From a report: Achieving self-reliance in technology featured prominently in Xi's full work report to kick off the once-every-five-years Communist Party Congress, with four mentions versus none in 2017. The term "technology" was referred to 40 times, up from 17 times in the report from the 2017 congress. While the report did not mention any other countries or specific sectors for that goal, it comes days after Washington imposed sweeping new regulations aimed at undermining China's efforts to develop its own chip industry. HSBC analysts said their takeaway was that increased spending in China, particular in STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) fields, and policy support was likely. Iris Pang, chief economist for Greater China at ING, said Xi's remarks addressed "the urgent need for talent and promoting self-sufficiency in technological advancement."
"We believe that this echoes to the U.S.'s CHIPS Act," Pang said, referring to the U.S. regulations. "As such research spending on semiconductor technology should increase. Typically, policies are released after such important events in China." In his speech, Xi listed a slew of industries where he described China as having achieved breakthroughs over the past decade, including large aircraft, space flight, satellite navigation - all of which rely on copious state support. No mention was made of semiconductors, an area where China has funnelled billions of dollars in government funds but was also seen to have been given more lee-way in using market-led approaches versus other sectors.
"We believe that this echoes to the U.S.'s CHIPS Act," Pang said, referring to the U.S. regulations. "As such research spending on semiconductor technology should increase. Typically, policies are released after such important events in China." In his speech, Xi listed a slew of industries where he described China as having achieved breakthroughs over the past decade, including large aircraft, space flight, satellite navigation - all of which rely on copious state support. No mention was made of semiconductors, an area where China has funnelled billions of dollars in government funds but was also seen to have been given more lee-way in using market-led approaches versus other sectors.
funding (Score:2)
Oh I hope so (Score:1)
The alternative is a glut of products, devices, things, whatevers, full of chips nobody outside of China even understands what they do because everything about them is in Chinese.
Re:funding (Score:5, Interesting)
But, even the founder who initially created the company cannot necessarily sustain success. Mark Zuckerberg for example. But somebody who should have had more repeat success was Bill Gates. Nobody could have been more conscious and thoughtful (i.e. paranoid) about trying to catch the next wave, yet Microsoft failed to parlay their PC leadership into dominating the web or mobile, despite investing heavily in them even after repeated failures.
Having resources and brilliance and determination are all necessary, but not sufficient. What's the rest? I don't know. So it's hard to foresee the future of China vs. the USA in the chip wars. Maybe it will become a mature technology and not really even matter any more.
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What happened to them was unfair.
I don't wish it hadn't happened though, I wish it was made fair and other tech companies were held to the same standard.
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How did the antitrust settlement harm Microsoft's ability to expand to mobile + web?
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By not engaging in practices that their contemporaries did, because those were the same actions that got their ass busted. Can you imagine a Windows Mobile phone locked down to only software MS could get a cut of? Holy fuck- that'd been the end of MS in 0.14 seconds.
One merely need to look at the literal river of antitrust lawsuits slamming into Google and Apple in Europe.
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It didn't, they were just fuckups who couldn't make a browser or a server worth a fuck. (Too bad, IIS had some nice features, but it still wasn't worth using.) They also shot themselves in both feet and the nuts with mobile by changing APIs three fucking times.
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Unfortunately... (Score:2, Interesting)
This is were a centralized economy can whomp a marketplace one on the short term.
Before anyone starts whataboutism... think of the MAJOR improvements that US has accomplished in the past century... they were all centrally managed.
WPA
Manufacturing, supply, & logistics for WWII
Manhattan Project.
Interstate Highway System
Rural electrification.
Moon landing.
COVID vaccine creation and distribution.
That isn't to say that all centrally managed projects are cost efficient or even succeed.
China also has a scale th
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Centralized projects that attempt to beat commercial competitors have a very mixed record. Manhattan Project didn't really have to worry about having an efficient budget. But if it were competing against Nukes-R-Us or whatnot, I doubt it would be competitive.
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A decentralized global economy is much better, all the decisions are not made by one myopic organization. And with an organization as corrupt as the CCP, we can expect massive investments and massive screwups.
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This is were a centralized economy can whomp a marketplace one on the short term.
Central planning of an economy never works efficiently. It never has. It never will. No amount of pining for communism will change that you tankie. If China's scale is so vast, why do they have about the same amount of manufacturing exports as the US who has a manufacturing sector a fraction of the size? And China's corruption is pretty huge too. The difference is that in Russia every level steals while in China only the bottom 2/3rd of the hierarchy steals. If China's per capital GDP was even half o
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Stalin's 5 year plans were enormously successful. Ya- a lot of people died, but I don't think he considered that a failure.
What's important is their economy outpaced anyone else in the world in growth.
But that's the side of a command economy you're ignoring.
For a while, pointing guns at people and making them follow your plan can work if the plan is good. Sure, eventually you have cancerous problems with corruption, etc, but you cannot deny that from Stalin's perspec
Re: Unfortunately... (Score:1)
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Brutally effective if u ignore everything objective
Nobody compared them with the US other than you. It's frankly silly to do so.
The site you link has an agenda. Comparing GDP per-capita growth with dollars as the Y axis? Who failed math how badly, now? I'll take misleading graphs for $100, Alex.
Since we were discussing the effectiveness of the plan, which was for the USSR, let's use some Maddison data your site neglected to include [i.redd.it].
No, they were brutally effective, period.
The reason they don't exist anymore, is because that government collapsed and was
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I wrote a comment but I tripped the lame filter, so instead of replying to your comment here I will just say F-U-C-K B-I-Z-X
china clones your IP and then under cuts you on pr (Score:2)
china clones your IP and then under cuts you on price.
China has been very slow to adapt (Score:5, Insightful)
Just 40 years ago much of the population, even in China's big cities were riding bicycles.
https://citybikr.com/2012/03/0... [citybikr.com]
By the time my parents had me, we had an interstate highway system. Even their parents enjoyed a good economy in the 50's that allowed a single house income.
Everyone was told "Suffer for the good of the nation", and anyone that spoke out was shot.
China has gotten a little better, but not by leaps and strides. Most advancements in chip lithography came from the United States. Each year we engineer better processes, techniques, then send those plans to the cheapest, but most disciplined labor pool in world. (One of the reasons the current Tesla plant in Fremont closed down in the 80's when it was NUMI was employee theft)
People are still scared to speak out. People have to watch what they say on the phone and on the internet. This is stifling for creativity because you're taught from an early age to just "Shut up and do it the way your boss told you to, don't disrespect them by telling them how it can be done better"
I worked for quite a few Chinese companies early on in my career. Never again. Have a friend that never worked for one thinking I was full of it, went to work for SuperMicro, he is desperate to get out just a few months later.
Xi won't be able to make China anything more than a copycat superpower as long as he keeps running his country the way he does. At least America still attracts top talent, top pay. End of the day China might get some more manufacturing facilities up, but as people continue to have supply chain and labor issues with China, they're already looking to move operations elsewhere. Just this year Apple announced it would start making iPhones in India.
Re:China has been very slow to adapt (Score:4, Insightful)
Also that massive "investment" the CCP made in real estate is now proving to be a massive albatross around the Chinese economy's neck.
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Most of the advancements in chip lithography come from Europe. Specifically ASML in The Netherlands.
What's the microprocessor equivalent... (Score:2)
What was is being mentioned is Xi call to invade (Score:1)
Xi now wants to build up the military so as to be able to take Taiwan by force. Sadly, other than a 200 year time when China brutal occupied Taiwan, it has been independent. Hopefully, Taiwan gets enough help from the west to remain a free nation and not become part of Xi's Communist takeover.
Makes sense.. (Score:2)
Learn mandarin (Score:2)
I have no doubt that China can win the engineering race. They are smart and hardworking. Yes, I will stick by that racist generalization. The real question is whether China can win the innovation race.