Comment Re: Increase pressure to evolve (Score 1) 76
The US still leads in research and development, by a pretty large margin, but most of it is in theoretical work. This means that the US is ahead of the curve on things like quantum computing (though that's decades in the future, realistically), though the near-term breakthroughs are in photonics (products starting to come out now).
The US is very, very good at moonshots, but has fallen behind in practical manufacturing.
The problem's end result is that the US immediately ships its IP off to China, and even when it doesn't it does a shit job at security and industrial spies easily take it.
It's likely because China's business environment is so incredibly cutthroat that nobody wants to be the one that takes a risk. It's not that the Chinese can't do it, it's just not in their business or academic culture.
And really, that works for them. Quite well. They're way better at the faster-cheaper-better (pick two) optimization than the west is. The west can't do cheaper, and is bad at doing things faster. The west can only do better, slowly, at great expense. The Chinese are very good at doing "good enough", either faster or cheaper, only falling down when they opt for fast and cheap (which is the default unless the customer/government demands "good enough").
And the west is so bad at fast or cheap, that even when one is prioritized in China, the other is still often better than the west can manage.