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China: the New Global High-Tech Power 427

Posted by michael from the manpower-not-a-problem dept.
Andy Tai writes "This three-part news.com special report shows how mainland China has become the focus of high tech business opportunities during the global recession. The article compares today's China to 19th Century America as "a booming nation starved for products and driven by a new generation of entrepreneurs", points out China's "sheer numbers and ambitious work ethic are producing thousands of engineers--and U.S. companies are recruiting the best of them," and concludes "that this may eventually be known as China's high-tech century. " Another good article looking at China's rise as a global power can be found here."
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China: the New Global High-Tech Power More

China: the New Global High-Tech Power

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  • China's high-tech *century*? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by electricmonk ( 169355 ) on Friday July 12, 2002 @11:12PM (#3875036) Homepage
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't their culture spend several thousands of years as the most advanced on Earth?
    • Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't their culture spend several thousands of years as the most advanced on Earth?

      Yes, and for 400 years, from the mid-9th century until the sack of Baghdad by the Mongols in 1256, Arabic Islamic culture was unparalleled in its splendor and learning.

      Easy come, easy go!

  • China is lo-tech (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by vandelais ( 164490 )
    Hello CHINA:

    How about getting the following the foundation for a high-tech economy?

    1)-access to energy
    2)-fair judicial system
    3)-clean water
    4)-enough food for its people
    5)-uncorrupt governance
    6)-educated people
    7)-freedom of expression

    No amount of friendliness towards business or incentives for technology will overcome these more basic barriers.

    • Of course, it would be nice if the chinese government didn't forcibly kill unborn children as well.

    • Get with the Times Already (Score:4, Informative)

      by Moonchen ( 452105 ) <Uncorrupt@@@gmail...com> on Saturday July 13, 2002 @12:34AM (#3875297) Journal
      I cannot believe that the parent to this post was modded up. Some of the above points are valid concerns, but others are problems of the past.

      Of course, every time there is talk about China, someone has to bring up something about Human Rights. But give me a break, clean water? food? China has gotten past that stage a long time ago. Right now overnutrition and obesity troubles much of the population. As for the judicial system, fairness is a matter of opinion. In China, criminals are punished more severely than in the US. Corruption in the governance is a problem in China, but the same problem exists in every country. The USA, for example, is a prime source of governmental scandals. China is working on a more efficient education system as we speak. The problem with education lies in overpopulation. Think about it, China has more than four times the population of America, andd merely building more schools will not be able to solve the problem overnight. The curriculum in Chinese primary and secondary schools includes a much more in depth understanding of subjects such as math and science than that of American schools.

      I guess my point is that although China's fundations are not yet perfect, it is getting better at a faster rate than any other country.

      • Re:Get with the Times Already (Score:4, Insightful)

        by mesocyclone ( 80188 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @02:10AM (#3875678) Homepage Journal
        China is rife with corruption, compared to the US. It is inevitable that a country without a free press, without a *transparent* judiciary and decidion making process, and without guarantees of free speech and due process will suffer from corruption.

        China can best be described today as a fascist country, with the state and big industry inextricably intertwined. It has a secret police (gestapo equivalent) which has wide reaching powers. Individuals who are critical can find themselves executed and their organs harvested for use by those in power. The government is undemocratic and power succession is typical of these regimes... it is shrouded in secrecy.

        Until China develops modern government, with respect for human rights including free speech and property rights, enforced by a minimally corrupt judicial system, and watched over by a free press, it is doomed to the fate of all such systems... increasing corruption, militancy and aggressive foreign policy, and poor economic performance.

        Capitalism, in many variants, has been proven to be the most efficient economic system yet tried. Capitalism requires property rights; it requires a low level of corruption; it requires transparency; it requires freedom.

        China is experimenting with state controlled capitalism - i.e. fascism - as opposed to its own total command economy. It is doomed to ultimately fail as an economic system as long as unelected officials can arbitrarily change the rules to their personal enrichment, backed by the power of a police state.

      • Re:Get with the Times Already (Score:4, Informative)

        by encino ( 537081 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @02:55AM (#3875839)
        Ohmigosh! Where to start?!?! Most of China consists of rice farmers in abject poverty! Only people in or near the larger cities "suffer" from overnutrition as you say. The country is *not* in good shape *at all* in terms of infrastructure as you claim. China is also the worst polluter in the world (much *much* worse than the U.S.). Everyone yells at America for not signing Kyoto, but it's China that burns enough coal to choke out the Sun, and the government doesn't give a rip. Not to mention the complete control of news and media by the state (Xinhua, anyone?). Yeah, I hear that makes for a highly informed and enlightened population able to make informed and educated decisions about things. And lord help you if you believe in some sort of God that is superior to the State! Or if you're a non-violent Tibetan monk! Look out!
      • But give me a break, clean water? food? China has gotten past that stage a long time ago.

        Yeah, a long time ago, like 1970? Only about 30 MILLION people starved to death [uchicago.edu] in China during the 60's.

    • Re:China is lo-tech (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Hello USA (and many other 1st world countries),

      How about getting the following:

      2)-fair judicial system
      5)-uncorrupt governance
      7)-freedom of expression

      The US seems to be doing well as a technology leader without the above traits. China will likely do even better than the US because they are more likely to cater to the big businesses than the US is (although the US government does do a good job whoring themselves out to big business).

      In order to succeed (in big business) they would be better off with a corrupt government that had a slanted judicial system and the lack of freedom of expression. It works over here quite well.
    • Question 1: How many of you learned to program on your own with little classroom instruction?

      Question 2: Now that China has a fair bit of internet acess (OK, stop the Chineese SPAM server jokes) what technical knowlege are they without?

      Iowa State may not be typical, but I would venture to say that over half of the Computer Science grad students here are from China/Taiwan. I wouldn't be suprised if the majority of CS professors in the US when our children attend university are from China. China may have inferior infrastructure compared to the US/EU, but they are neck and neck with us when it comes to technology. In the above post they have:

      #6)-educated people

      and That is all it takes.

    • Re:China is lo-tech (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Peahippo ( 539266 ) <peahippo @ m a i l . c om> on Saturday July 13, 2002 @04:41AM (#3876114) Homepage
      A "high-tech economy" is just a nebulous thing out there in the world, and we're not supposed to think about how it comes about. The capitalist class only knows how to make stuff, to sell stuff, to keep all the proceeds, and to slough off all the expenses of the enterprise upon the public. When you spend your time privatizing profits while socializing your expenses, you are waaaaaay too busy to deal with irrelevant items like: "Gee, who will buy our stuff, the guys we laid off in America, or the guys we underpay in China?"

      Having so stated my assumption, now I just gotta respond to your points under its perverse and wicked influence:

      access to energy

      Yes, this is pretty essential -- to production, of course (who cares what the customer does with the damned thing after the sale is made?). I wonder if local generation in China is being explored? -- it's an idea being toyed with in America.

      fair judicial system

      What the hell does that matter? Your factory is setup with Chinese "partners" who will inevitably be a part of whatever local government and "law enforcement" that exists. If shoes and clothing can be produced by a class of people with no recourse to "fair" judgment, then so can many other things that are produced by assembly line.

      clean water

      What the hell does that matter? People filter water in America; just filter in what you need in China. Whatever the workers drink is their own problem.

      enough food for its people

      What the hell does that matter? There will be plenty more Chinese coming in from the rural areas to get the chance to work in your factory for money, which they imagine will help lift them out of poverty and possible starvation. It won't, of course, but people have always shown hope in that regard since the Industrial Revolution.

      uncorrupt governance

      This is probably a factor, but a minor one at that. Bribery is just another line item in your budget. After all, this the standard way that the oil business is conducted.

      educated people

      What the hell does that matter? Your cheap labor is ideal for Taylorist work arrangements. And any cheap labor that you feel the need to educate for specific reasons (hey we need an electrical engineer for this factory), simply can be educated and returned to China at a cheaper cost than hiring a First World skilled person. Education is highly overrated; craftsman skills themselves have been long obsoleted by factories.

      freedom of expression

      Ju-das Priest, where do you get these silly ideas anyway? The shoes and clothes you are now wearing have in all probability been produced by people who do without hope, disposable income, fresh air, nourishing food, and job security. Freedom of expression is just another opportunity for the workers to make trouble for the capitalist class that owns the methods of manufacture. Since it is not only unnecessary but harmful to the process of maximizing profits, it must be absent.

      (Thank you for your attention. I had as good a time responding to your posting as I can ever have with my clothes on.)
    • I frequently visit China and I can say only point 2) and 7) still hold. The fact that the parent is being modded up reflecting the ignorance of the majority.

      I think if I had to judge US like parent did, I'll first list:

      1) Stupidity and ignorance.

      Yeah, I know that'd cause me some karma, but since karma system goes away I care less. :)
    • While I don't think China of today has all food shortages and water pollution problems, your basic point is well taken.

      As long as the United States opens our doors to inovation and rewards success, the best and brightest of China will come to America and become Americans. Why? Because we hold certain truths to be self-evident, that all people are created equal and have the right to the pursuit of happines. We believe that government should not be a body of men but a body of laws. And that government's only truth rests on the will of the people to choose how they are to be governed.
    • Hello USA,
      what have you got in your own eye?

      1/ california: deregulation sucks [corpwatch.org]
      2/ microsoft antitrust trial: where are the sanctions? [usdoj.gov]
      3/ erin brockowich and elsewhere [enn.com]
      4/ homeless: so used to it, it must be OK. [tripod.com]
      5/ enron [progressive.org]
      6/ georges bush jr [bushisms.com]
      7/ dmca [eff.org]

      no amount of self blindedness or hypocrisy will make the rest of the world forget all this and all the rest.
  • I hear that the CCP and PLA are just about to release Taiwan Invasion 1.0!

    I thought they would beat Mozilla 1.0 out the door - who would've thought the Lizard would have whipped it out first?

  • China has all of that, but misses one BIG part. A clear fair legal system where outcomes can be reasonably assured. Simple game theory will lead to the result that the lack of this will lead to a GREATLY diminished amount of wealth being generated. The oligarcy that runs the country and the lack of an independant judicary means that the generationof wealth will be forever hampered.
    • A clear fair legal system where outcomes can be reasonably assured.

      I don't think anyone could call results in US courts assured. The results from the US courts are as wild and unpredictable as anywhere else.

      The thing that mattered in the US was that, for a long time, people practiced a common sense philosophy and tried a lot harder to be fair an honest in their dealings. When the majority trying to understand and work within the system, it will work better than one where power players sit around and twist the rules to their ends.

      Look at accounting and Wall Street. When the majority of accountants were trying to come up with figures that fit within the generally accepted definitions, then you had a situation where investors could glean a great deal of information about the health of the company from the books.

      Today's MBAs and accountants seemed to have accepted the new economy (which is really a recycling of Kantian/Marxist thinking) and feel that that are appointed to dink and twist definitions to their ends.

      The courts can't fix this system. The only way to fix the system is wait and hope that some day we will dump all the new agisms and get back to a market where accountants strive to use the same definitions, and not manipulate and change the definition of terms.

  • China is 10-20 years away from being a great power ... and always will be.

    How many CENTURIES has this been predicted? Yes, China has a lot of people -- and always have had. Yes, China has a huge amount of wealth -- and always have had.

    I think this has literally been predicted for a thousand freaking years. I'm not an expert on China, but obviously there are deep-rooted cultural attributes keeping them from expanding their influence in the world.

    Wake me up next century when we make the same prediction that won't come true.

    • China is always a great power.

      She is a great story of power. Instead of typing up a million things about Chinese history let me just sum it up in a quote:

      "Of all that China exports to foreign countries there is not a thing which is not beneficial to people....On the other hand, articles coming from outside China can only be used as toys"
      -Lin Tse Hsu 1839 [To Queen Victoria]


      But like you say; before that her fleet of vessels, a staff of 27,000 on 317 ships, was reaching Vietnam, Cambodia, India, the Arab Middle East and eastern Africa. Then just as quickly the law changed to stop those ships - they didn't want out side influences.

      Look at the stories in "Once Upon A Time In China" even there they show China's distrust for the outside world.

      Even now they have the cancer of (real world)-Communism which was imported, see why they worry. It ruined Chinese culture, even to this day.

  • Because the evidence [northernlight.com] is China's getting ready to. Keep in mind the only legitimate Chinese government is on Taiwan. The mainland army finds that intensely annoying.
    ___
  • Many of us have already seen some of the amazing science and technology advances [alexchiu.com] that have come out of China in recent years.

    Indeed, I think Alex Chiu's insight can help shed some light on this topic. This is somewhat-lucid prose from his year-old /. interview:

    "I think the Chinese government is doing a great job right now. I support population control. I think USA should do the same. If you want to have more than 1 kid, you should pay more tax. The enemies of China always use "human rights issues" to attack China. But if USA has 1.3 billion people, USA would have the same human rights problem just like China. You cannot expect so much freedom in a land of 1.3 billion people. Chinese government is doing such a great job that China not only feeds its own people, it also feeds most of the Russians. Most of the food imported to Russia came from China. You guys always talk about human rights. But why can't you guys mention about "government rights"? Chinese government has the right to do whatever it must do to protect China. That includes population control and the liberation of Tibet. Do you know that before Tibet was liberated, you can buy and sell slaves in Tibet? In the old Tibet, you can have slaves, you can marry 4 wives, but you cannot take a bath for 1 whole year, and you cannot meet a foreigner. You can skin your slave alive, and you can kill your slave when ever you desire. The entire Tibet is ruled by a bunch of religious idiots. You can't take a bath for the entire year, and you can't trade with foreigners. Cummunists don't allow that! Liberated Tibet and kick out that stupid Dalai Lama, whatever that moron's name is. You guys don't know how much Tibet has changed. Most families in Tibet now has electricity. TV, VCR, stereo, micro-wave, you name it. Everything's made in China! They have shopping malls and super markets there. There's stock market brokers there. In fact, Tibet is one of the most popular European tourist attraction of asia. If Dalai idiot is still around, you be buying and selling slaves there right now! Everywhere would stink like hell because nobody teaches you the importance of taking a bath. If you say Tibetans are not Chinese because they have their own language and culture, let me ask you this: Is Hawaii part of USA? Is Okinawa part of Japan? Okinawa people have different language and culture than the Japanese. So should Okinawa gain independence from Japan?"

  • The same reason hi-tech went to South Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia. A minimum of infrastructure, enough education and cheap wages enforced by a repressive state. Boeing and Motorola love it. [perspicacityonline.com]

  • Ignorant nerds! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    there's a reason for all these low scoring posts, it's because you guys don't know jack shit about china! hell, if you wanna brag about communism and how things are over there, why not actually GO there and see it for yourselves? on the surface it's not much different from the US, it's cot a capitolist economy, but the government IS corrupt and is practicly lead by the military. of all the people i've talked to in china, most of them get pissed when i refer to taiwan as a different country, sure they have thier bad parts, but that's ALL you people ever look at! GO TO CHINA! see the FSCKING place for yourselves and experience it before you babble on about all your bull shit! and to emphesise my point, i'll repeat my point, YOU PEOPLE KNOW SHIT ABOUT CHINA!
  • Just look at that map of the world at night. The places you see high lighting density are pretty much the places that are advanced. Pretty much it goes like this:

    Western Civilization and Japan
    Eastern Orthodox rooted Civilization (Russia et al)
    That's pretty much it. Everywhere else is developing.

    Granted, it is theoretically possible for China to pull something like that off, but the government is the biggest hindrance. Until there is some serious reform (i.e. eliminate corruption), I don't see China catching up within the next 50 years.

    BlackGriffen
    • So, you are saying only Christian controlled areas are the ones which can be prosperous?

      You know though that most things you use today were fundamentally invented first by the Chinese...?

      But still, people ignore the fact that a "developing" country is the only type of place where changes can be made. For example here we are very controlling over our number one export "media". In other countries however, such as China, where they don't need to worry about "illegal" file swapping there can be explosions in those technologies; they can pioneer stuff we are to comfortable avoiding.

  • A bit of (non)fiction (Score:4, Interesting)

    by cptgrudge ( 177113 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @01:16AM (#3875417) Journal
    Envision this scenario:

    China, over the next 40 or 50 years, becomes an enormous economic juggernaut. With cheap labor, high tech industry, and a huge population, China begins to develop most of the world's goods for dirt cheap prices. World consumer choice is at an all time high.

    Because of the political system in place within the country, the average standard of living doesn't increase significantly.

    People are not stupid. The Chinese people will see how the majority are not benefiting from the economic prosperity and attempt to change the political system. The government in place will put down initial unrest, but a civil war could occur the likes of which we have never seen in the world. The world economy that has come to depend on the Chinese government for goods.

    With the ensuing economic collapse of China during the civil war, the world is plunged into a depression comparable to the late 1920's and early 1930's. The US Federal Reserve could not handle the removal of a huge portion of the world economy from the picture.

    Following the civil war, a democratic government is created in China, and the economy becomes similar to many western countries, with a higher standard of living and increased wages. The economic playing field is now leveled.

    Either that, or everybody nukes everybody. Whatever happens, I'll be dead by then. Oh well.
    • Yeah, but I don't see them CREATING anything!

      Everything I hear about China is their ability to copy stuff! Wooo. China, the world's biggest copy center.

      • They only created the modern world.

        Everything from guns to forks were invented by the Chinese.

        But the fact that they copy things doesn't make them "uncool". The American legal system is copied, it's other branches of government copied. Many of it's resources are imported.

        The list goes on but I've posted to much under this story as it is.

        • Re:A bit of (non)fiction (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ErikZ ( 55491 )
          Yeah they created the modern world, two THOUSAND years ago.

          We're talking about the country that exists today. Now. The stability that made them the most advanced culture in the world also stopped their progression.

          And I'm not talking about "Cool" or "Uncool". You're never going to be a world leader if your plan is to simply copy what the world leader has. You're just another follower then.
    • China, over the next 40 or 50 years, becomes an enormous economic juggernaut. With cheap labor .. the average standard of living doesn't increase significantly.

      It's impossible for China to be an economic juggernaut, and yet have low wages and standards of living. Basic economic reasoning - if there's real economic growth on a per capita basis, the growth must go towards increased real wages, otherwise where does the wealth go to? You wouldn't be able to name a single counter-example.

      The government in place will put down initial unrest, but a civil war could occur the likes of which we have never seen in the world. The world economy that has come to depend on the Chinese government for goods.

      Or there could be peaceful transition to democracy, like to Taiwan or South Korea.
      • It's impossible for China to be an economic juggernaut, and yet have low wages and standards of living. Basic economic reasoning - if there's real economic growth on a per capita basis, the growth must go towards increased real wages, otherwise where does the wealth go to?

        Chinese Communist Party and PLA leaders.

        The southern states of the US had considerable economic growth during the 1800's. Little of it made it to the slaves.

        State enterprises continue to dominate many key industries of China in what was now termed "a socialist market economy". Almost half are not profitable. Much of the growth of the Chinese economy has come from a newly freed private sector, but state domination of many industries limits this growth potential.

        Urban unemployment is around 10% in China and rural unemployment is much higher. 50 to 100 million surplus rural workers are adrift between the villages and the cities, many subsisting through part-time low-paying jobs.

        Moreover, the Chinese government has regularly lied about economic statistics, so it is even questionable what we really know about the Chinese economy.

        I'm sure that if there is an effective political movement from communist dictatorship to truly free markets and democracy, China would be a tremendous economic powerhouse. China has a high literacy rate and a modern industrial and scientific base.

  • continued US predominance uncertain (Score:5, Insightful)

    by g4dget ( 579145 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @01:28AM (#3875452)
    The US came into its current position of power through historical accident. Its rich resources, secure food supply, and geographic isolation allowed the US to become an influential power in WWII. Afterwards, it filled the power vacuum that was left by the self-destruction of Europe, and it managed to attract huge numbers of skilled immigrants from the rubble of Europe, which helped the US achieve technological and scientific predominance.

    There is no reason to believe that this is inevitably a long-term state. The US is a mid-size country (by population), and food, geographic isolation, and natural resources are becoming less and less important. And other countries are becoming as attractive as the US for skilled international workers.

    If the US continues to have a leadership role, it will be because it earns it. But that means that US politicians have to give up on their assumption that US predominance is a right that Americans are born with. Isolationist policies like those we have seen over the last few years will likely simply make the US less and less relevant to international affairs.

    • Completely right.

      Read more into this subject, and how we can save ourselves in "The Lucifer Principle" by Howard Bloom.

      http://www.bookworld.com/lucifer/ -excerpts
      http://howardbloom.net/

      "You only thought you knew what you were until you read this book. I want to burn it. I wish I had never read it. I wish Howard Bloom had never been born. And it is now my Bible. It is undeniable. It is a force unto itself. Everything you believed before, it will rip from you. It will leave you a boneless jelly of confusion. It will be the voice of a new philosophical generation."
      Nassir Isaf, an 18-year-old reader from Bainbridge Island, WA
    • If the US continues to have a leadership role, it will be because it earns it. But that means that US politicians have to give up on their assumption that US predominance is a right that Americans are born with. Isolationist policies like those we have seen over the last few years will likely simply make the US less and less relevant to international affairs.

      How about the voluntary bowing out in technology areas such as bio-technology or cryptography and presistent litigation? These are making the US less relevant also.
    • The US is the 3rd largest nation on earth.
  • The core premise of the article is that China spits out vast numbers of software engineers who work hard, hold advanced egrees, and are willing to accept low wages.

    The responses meander off into staw-man territory but don't acknowledge economics.

    Some, not all, programming jobs are going to go to China, India and Russia. Deal with it, its already happening.

  • Well, I have the unique perspective of a geek who just spent a bunch of time in China. It's an interesting place; plenty of contrasts, the bicycle rickshaw with a load of LCD displays outside Tsinghua university was one of them. The funny thing is the cities are capitalist and growing at a considerable rate. The countryside, where the bulk of the population is, is neither. And to move between the countryside and the city you need a visa. That sounds like a stable situation to me.

    Already many of the cities have a comparable standard of living to the US; except it's very different. I stayed at the Holiday Inn in Shenzhen and enjoyed a view of Hong Kong from my towering hotel room; the city was beautiful. 20 years ago 6000 people lived in a fishing village there. They made it a special economic zone and now 6 million people live there. Not a bad demonstration of the power of capitalism.

    I talked to some girls who worked at a nearby coffee shop. They were basically indentured servitudes for the coffee shop. They lived in a company dorm and the company gave them food. The company was, oddly enough, based out of Taiwan.

    So that was a little strange.

    The lack of a free press made people's view of america interesting; basically they had no idea of what life was like in the US and asked a lot of silly questions. But, they did have access to US movies, through the form of street markets or random guys on street corners who ask you if you want a DVD or VCD. So many people had seen US movies and were curious whether movies such as American Pie truely represented life in America.

    Conclusions? China is still a third world country with some parts approaching second world quality of living. It'll be a while before they give us a run for the money. Smart, ambitious people in China still want to come to the US.

    -Jay Thomas
    http://www.uiuc.edu/~jthomas2

  • my experience (Score:4, Insightful)

    by giampy ( 592646 ) on Saturday July 13, 2002 @01:50PM (#3877893) Homepage

    In the university where work as a research assistant, the majority of PhD students are from China and India. Chinese students invariably tend to be the best ones. It seems like by the time they come here they have already done A LOT of practical hitech research in their universities.
    Because of this, (and because most of them don't mind being paid 2k$/month or less) a lot of departments actually prefer to hire Chinese students for tech projects.

    Many of them will go back to China once their studies are over.
    It is also worth considering that for each student that makes it to the US, maybe 100 will stay in China.
    And, as the article says: "Hundreds of universities with strong tech departments have been created."

    Is this enough to say that China is headed towards becoming the place where hi tech is conceived and grown ?
    I think that, IF these government-funded policies will go on, it will be just a matter of time (maybe a couple of generations, maybe less ...).

    And btw, it seems to me that they are very inclined toward the sharing of knowledge and information, ...and files :-)

    giampy

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