'China's Engineer Dividend Is Paying Off Big Time' 114
An anonymous reader shares a Bloomberg column: Worries over China's "3D" problem -- that deflation, debt and demographics are structurally hampering growth -- are melting away. Instead, investors are talking about how the world's second-largest economy can take on the US and challenge its technological dominance. There is the prevailing sense that China's "engineer dividend" is finally paying off. Between 2000 and 2020, the number of engineers has ballooned from 5.2 million to 17.7 million, according to the State Council. That reservoir can help the nation move up the production possibility frontier, the thinking goes.
In a way, DeepSeek shouldn't have come as a surprise. Size matters. A bigger talent pool alone gives China a better chance to disrupt. In 2022, 47% of the world's top 20th percentile AI researchers finished their undergraduate studies in China, well above the 18% share from the US, according to data from the Paulson Institute's in-house think tank, MacroPolo. Last year, the Asian nation ranked third in the number of innovation indicators compiled by the World Intellectual Property Organization, after Singapore and the US. What this also means is that innovative breakthroughs can pop out of nowhere. [...]
More importantly, China's got the cost advantage. Those under the age of 30 account for 44% of the total engineering pool, versus 20% in the US, according to data compiled by Kaiyuan Securities. As a result, compensation for researchers is only about one-eighth of that in the US. Credit must be given to President Xi Jinping for his focus on higher education as he seeks to upgrade China's value chain. These days, roughly 40% of high-school graduates go to universities, versus 10% in 2000. Meanwhile, engineering is one of the most popular majors for post-graduate studies. It's a welcome reprieve for a government that has been struggling with a shrinking population.
In a way, DeepSeek shouldn't have come as a surprise. Size matters. A bigger talent pool alone gives China a better chance to disrupt. In 2022, 47% of the world's top 20th percentile AI researchers finished their undergraduate studies in China, well above the 18% share from the US, according to data from the Paulson Institute's in-house think tank, MacroPolo. Last year, the Asian nation ranked third in the number of innovation indicators compiled by the World Intellectual Property Organization, after Singapore and the US. What this also means is that innovative breakthroughs can pop out of nowhere. [...]
More importantly, China's got the cost advantage. Those under the age of 30 account for 44% of the total engineering pool, versus 20% in the US, according to data compiled by Kaiyuan Securities. As a result, compensation for researchers is only about one-eighth of that in the US. Credit must be given to President Xi Jinping for his focus on higher education as he seeks to upgrade China's value chain. These days, roughly 40% of high-school graduates go to universities, versus 10% in 2000. Meanwhile, engineering is one of the most popular majors for post-graduate studies. It's a welcome reprieve for a government that has been struggling with a shrinking population.
I am an engineer who worked at two fortuine 500 (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I am an engineer who worked at two fortuine 500 (Score:5, Insightful)
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1960s history and business (Score:5, Insightful)
Up and until the late 1960s USA corporate executives worked their way up in companies from the factory floor, giving them a deep insight into the business from many viewpoints.
In the late 1960s and mushrooming in the MBA 1980s, professional managers (management degree, MBA, finance degree) took over leadership of many large USA companies. Those professional managerial class spent focus on cutting cost and efficiency instead of building new products and inventing things. It drove out of upper management or kept out of upper management the next generation of corporate leaders who's learned the business from the factory floor or entry level jobs.
It stagnated companies into cost cutting as a long-term business strategy and shuffling financial paper around to milk another 0.05% profit instead of producing new products.
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If anyone is intrigued by this and likes a good podcast this one about Jack Welch really had some insights into that transition period in the business world to the corporate raider types we see today; Part One: Jack Welch Is Why You Got Laid Off [youtube.com]
1970 Milton Friedman started this slouching (Score:2)
Milton Friedman, economist, started this only in the shareholder interest with his 1970 opinion piece in the New York Times. It essentially put shareholder interests well above any corporation aims towards long-term growth, partnering with employees, partnering with people around the company factories, etc.
https://www.nytimes.com/1970/0... [nytimes.com]
A Friedman doctrine- The Social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits
By Milton Friedman - Sept. 13, 1970
Re:1960s history and business (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure that the right kind of person could learn a lot of useful stuff in an MBA program. Maybe that guy who worked his way up from the shop floor would be a good candidate.
An interesting thing about Boeing was that is that it became famous as a company with an engineering-oriented culture under a *lawyer* CEO. He'd worked as a corporate attorney for Boeing, spent a few years on the board, when he was offered the job of CEO, *which he refused*, insisting Boeing needed a leader with more of an engineering background. The board insisted, he accepted the job and led Boeing into an era of engineering excellence.
This suggests that the leader doesn't have to have a technical background, what he needs is enough humility to respect people with technical expertise. Engineering *should* teach you that, but as we saw with Ocean Gate being an engineer doesn't make anyone humble. Likewise it may be that what we dislike about MBAs isn't the particular training they receive, but the kind of person who gets attracted to an MBA program.
Re:1960s history and business (Score:5, Interesting)
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I fully agree with you on this.
There are certain jobs and sectors where certain personality types and characteristics are over represented.
MBAs are one such job.
I can never forget interacting with three different MBA types in the span of two months, and they all showed a bold lack of morals. One said he liked to hire newcomers because they are po
Union busting (Score:2)
It's worse than that. Management was
Re: I am an engineer who worked at two fortuine 50 (Score:1)
I've read that it was the merger with Mcdonnel Douglas that was the downfall of Boeing. Is this not the case?
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I've read that it was the merger with Mcdonnel Douglas that was the downfall of Boeing. Is this not the case?
That's largely carping from legacy Boeing employees that lost jobs or were passed over for promotions in the merger. Those folks made a lot of angry noise in the aviation press afterwards. Some work at Seattle was moved to Long Beach and sub-contractors (Boeing spun off their Wichita facilities), and then Boeing bought Vought's operations in South Carolina and moved 787 final assembly there. Boeing has been moving work steadily out of Seattle for decades now to cheaper locales and subcontractors. As 767 and
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People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:4, Interesting)
So sure, let China train engineers. America will take them.
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Re: People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:3)
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China is very racist, but most people there are not racist towards Europeans.
The more time goes by and the more shit happens the more I believe that most people in most places are racist. The difference is degree, not the fact itself. Racism was baked into institutions by racists intentionally, to preserve their privileges, after inventing and implementing racism made them privileged.
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The more time goes by and the more shit happens the more I believe that most people in most places are racist.
it's all varying degrees of "otherism".
people divide and subdivide into groups all the time, be it physically or mentally.
sometimes it's good (cool cultures form), sometimes it's somewhat benign (cliques at school/work), sometimes it's bad (justification for slavery).
perhaps a mental repercussion due to humans being so reliant on the family unit.
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China is very racist, but most people there are not racist towards Europeans. It's more of an issue of the Chinese culture being very walled off by its language, with its unique writing system.
The most racist thing that American's have done is convince themselves they are the most racist people, instead of celebrating the diversity of racism across the different cultures of the world! #decolonizeracism
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I honestly thought that China was a racist Country, and did not want White men.
Speaking as a white men, most cultures associate dark skin tones (even within their own people) with work outside under the sun (peasants, fishermen, construction workers) and therefore, less social status. So, us white in china elict mixed reactions, on the one hand, we are seen as laoway (the word means foreigner, but more connotations of maraurder than tourist), but on the other, we are so white, we elict reactions of high social status.
Having said that, your comment seems a bit sexist, as women can als
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I honestly thought that China was a racist Country, and did not want White men.
With the exception of a few countries like the US, Canada, and a few others, most countries are extremely homogenous and founded by and currently dominated by a single ethnicity (not just a single race, but a single ethnicity). In this regard, China is similar to other Asian or European countries. The US is also heavily dominated by white people, but other countries are even more extreme.
Re:People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:5, Informative)
Engineers want to work for the top tech companies, which are all American.
I recommend the NOVA episode "Inside China's Tech Boom" [pbs.org] (s50e16). It's mostly about Huawei and is pretty interesting and informative with a story-line about their country-wide 5G rollout. Their main campus is huge.
Working at Huawei can be intense - six day weeks and 12 hour days are the norm.
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I think the issue with the Trump administration is not whether those engineers want to work in the US, but whether they legally can work here. At this point, it looks like green cards and other visas that allow the holder to work are going to be much more difficult to get.
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They can legally work here if they’re among the "best and brightest" engineers globally; that's the stated purpose of O1 visas. O1 visas, unlike H1B visas, have no caps or lotteries. An officer reviews applications and determines eligibility based on documentation of the applicant’s achievements from their peers.
If they're not currently considered among the best and brightest, then it's trickier. The best bet is to obtain enough credentials to qualify for an O1. Keep working and upskilling until
Re:People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the issue with the Trump administration is not whether those engineers want to work in the US, but whether they legally can work here. At this point, it looks like green cards and other visas that allow the holder to work are going to be much more difficult to get.
Also, whether they dare. It's looking like every entry into the US is going to be a potentially harrowing and risky ordeal. Those who can get visas may think twice, given that any trip home to visit family will require yet another trip through the border gauntlet, where any error in paperwork or any device content that can be interpreted as critical of the administration may result not just in being denied entry, but in weeks of detention in a cold cell.
Re: People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:1)
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Don't forget that we're also attacking people's Teslas while they're driving down the road now.
Many people are saying that Elon is having his own vehicles attacked so that Trump can justify martial law.
I don't know if it's true, but if Fox news can report on what "many people are saying" then so can we
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China attracts engineers with big salaries, the same as places like Dubai do. You can earn enough to retire and then go home if you don't like it.
Quite a few from Taiwan and Japan go to work in China. One of the ways that Chinese appliances improved so rapidly is by hiring Japanese engineers for 5x the salary, including free flights as often as they want to return home for the weekend.
Re:People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:5, Interesting)
Western engineers in China were well payed between 2000s and late 2010s, and yes, it was a big destination for auto engineers.
Now they just don't need us.
Science Impact already Started (Score:5, Insightful)
In many ways, it doesn't matter how many engineers the US trains because we attract engineers from other countries.
Yes, you used to. However, recent events seem to be making significant changes in that regard at least in the sciences. In the past month I've seen multiple equiries about positions here in Canada from US-based scientists concerned about massive cuts and huge uncertainties about US research funding. The NSF was (or still is?) looking at its budget becoming a third of what it was.
I suspect that a cut of that magnitude is unlikely but, in the current climate, not impossible. However, just like the constant threat of tariffs have made businesses rethink or hold-off on plans due to the uncertainty, I can also report that the same effect seems to be happening in science too. Why would the world's best and brightest want to do to the US only to find that the research funding for their postdoc or grad student position got pulled a year into their degree or position when there are many other countries that would be more than happy to take them and where they would have no such uncertainty?
The US attracts these people because it offers excellent, stable research funding that let's them do the research they want and then move onto a great job in industry if they want to. The current actions of the US government are undoing and removing a lot of what attracted those people. While this may not immediately impact the demand for engineers, if those scientists are trained and make their breakthroughs elsewhere they are also more likely to establish the companies to exploit them elsewhere too and those companies are the ones that will employ engineers. It's going to take years to have an impact but if the current uncertainty about research funding remains it will have an impact and by the time it's clear and visible it will be too late to do much about it.
Are you sure about that? (Score:2)
Multiple countries now have us on various lists cautioning their people against traveling here.
I don't think people are going to want to necessarily move to China but they have more than enough people there already.
I don't think we're going to attract much in the way of engineering talent anymore. The country is so hostile to immigrants at
Re:People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:5, Interesting)
Didnt you hear about the program in France, inviting American scientists who fear their funding will get cut/fired under Trump are being invited and offered funding?
Or how many Chinese are being turned away from American Universities / work places, etc, cos of fear that they may be up to something (on doubt some may be, but if you turn away everyone, it probably does not help long term).
Don't assume everyone wants to come to America to work / study - especially since it seems people with valid visas are getting detained on arrival, sometimes for weeks, before they are deported.
Seem to recall reading about green card holders from Germany in that group.
America may take them, if people still want to come and work there. Problem is, good quality candidates have many other choices now. (similar to how a company ends WFH, and the best people leave the org first, cos they got options).
Re: People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:1)
Where have you been hiding lately? Lots of Chinese people are being rejected from the USA and are heading back to China. The USA has thrown its advantage away and the tide is turning...
Also, this whole article is about how China does not need to poach engineers from other countries, like the USA has been doing for many years.
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China is also smart. Look at Huawei for example. They're building up engineering offices everywhere. The US is unique in the sense that it draws opportunists. Europe really sucks at investing in people. Even though English literacy in Europe is extremely high, and I have never worked at a company in Europe where English is a problem, most European countries are not great destinations to work at for
Re:People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry kiddo, you have that quite backwards. A not insignificant portion of Chinas workforce go to the USA to be trained, and then return to China. You're incredibly self absorbed, many countries attract engineers from other countries, many countries attract and retain their own engineers. To think of the USA as some kind of place that everyone has some intrinsic desire to end up is not just hubris, it's precisely the reason many people shun the USA in the first place, even before Trump.
What I like most about your comment is the dichotomy of talking about the American culture - one that is significantly inward looking and infamous one where people typically do not travel or emigrate much (in any field), yet there's some belief that other cultures are all just a bunch of nomads looking for a new home moving country to country and simply haven't found the USA yet.
The world is full of people. People like me who move from one country to another (and outright rejected the USA as an option when it was offered). People like a good friend of mine who is literally going the exact opposite way emigrating to the city I left. People like her parents who have absolutely zero interest in every leaving the country they were born in, people like my parents who pick a destination based on precisely nothing to do with economics or work.
I find it insulting that you put us engineers all in one bucket. But I rest easy doing the same thing to Americans labelling them all ignorant of how humans in general work.
Re: People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:2)
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If someone else made something, I can make it too. There is no IP that can't be copied and generally improved upon with little more than a video or a few pictures. "IP theft" just cuts back on the time needed.
It's really funny. EUV being the hot topic now is soooo funny. China was blocked from buying EUV tech from ASML and Canon. Heads up! Canon copied ASML tech! Or did they? EUV is basically just 121-10nm light. Anyone who can produce a coherent source of EUV light with
Re: People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:2)
Re: People Don't Want to Move to China (Score:2)
The US doesn't have much of a way for engineers to come here unless they're from India and willing to work as an indentured servant via the corrupt H1B system.
It would be a dream to just give green cards to any background checked STEM graduate of a top 100 world university with a gpa above the median, and who can speak English to the same degree as someone who has majored in a foreign language in the US.
As to China, they graduate lots of engineers. Most can't find jobs. So it's great for Corporate China but
The MBA's and sales people seem to be the problem. (Score:3)
Re:The MBA's and sales people seem to be the probl (Score:5, Funny)
They don't know what a transistor is ...
Pretty sure a recent Executive Order says there are only "maleistors" and "femaleistors" in America now. :-)
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God damnit, another time when I wish I had points to mod up funny. Goes right along with the very real "transgenic" anger.
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God damnit, another time when I wish I had points to mod up funny. Goes right along with the very real "transgenic" anger.
And the DoD probably purging references to "transport" planes ... :-)
Along with [and this is real] photos of the WW2 bomber "Enola Gay" (plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, named after the pilot's mother btw).
Re:The MBA's and sales people seem to be the probl (Score:5, Informative)
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Along with [and this is real] photos of the WW2 bomber "Enola Gay" (plane that dropped the first atomic bomb on Japan, named after the pilot's mother btw).
I have to wonder about the pilot's relationship with his mother here.
"When people think of the most violent, deadly act of war in history, I want them to think of you Mom."
NOMBAS (Score:3)
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They don't know what a transistor is, but they keep wasting my time with their bullshit. Let the Engineers work, and let the stupid people do whatever they are doing. Don't care about them.
I am an MBA, and I also know what a transistor is, and what a pointer is too. And also compiled my (linux) Kernel.
It helps that before the MBA I graduated an electronics engineer, used slowlaris and BSD in '95, Linux in '96, and worked ~6 years in telco.
It seems that the company(es) you were working with where hiring the wrong MBAs
Re:The MBA's and sales people seem to be the probl (Score:4, Insightful)
That means you are not an MBA. You are an electronics engineer with an added business degree.
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That means you are not an MBA. You are an electronics engineer with an added business degree.
Every single MBA has a career before the MBA. My cousin was a (pure) mathematician* before being an MBA. During my MBA I knew layers, administrators, CPAs, Economists, other engineers, even a jet fighter pilot (godspeed soupbone) doing the MBA.
I'd not like my lawyer buddy MBAs managing a bunch of engineers, last time I checked, he was in private banking. My other lawyer MBA buddy got to work in the M&A dept of a F500 tech company doing "due diligency" stuff. Again, I'd hate that guy directing a bunch of
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Again, the problem is not the MBAs per se, is the company hiring the wrong MBAs in and putting them in the wrong places.
Not only. The second problem is people becomming MBAs that have no business being MBAs because they do not understand the limitations. And that is apparently so prevalent that bad MBAs are the rule and not the exception. The other problem is that business and administrative people do really not understand how the actual world works. And they are unaware of that. Adding an MBA does not fix that. A key difference is that, for example, a large part of engineerign education is to make it very clear to the stude
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Every single MBA has a career before the MBA.
WTF? You can get an MBA degree straight out of college. Some of the top universities might require work experience, but there are hundreds of MBA programs that don't, including Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth, Rice, Cornell, etc.
There are tens of thousand of MBAs with no experience matriculated every year. And for the others, the vast majority's only work experience is in "Finance".
I'm sure you met all those diverse career paths in getting your MBA. But what is important is the fat part of the bell curve, not the
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Every single MBA has a career before the MBA.
WTF? You can get an MBA degree straight out of college. Some of the top universities might require work experience, but there are hundreds of MBA programs that don't, including Stanford, Yale, Dartmouth, Rice, Cornell, etc.
There are tens of thousand of MBAs with no experience matriculated every year. And for the others, the vast majority's only work experience is in "Finance".
I'm sure you met all those diverse career paths in getting your MBA. But what is important is the fat part of the bell curve, not the tails.
I my country, once you graduate from college, you have a career. How on earth in the USoA one can graduate from colleage and not get a career? how does that look like?
And if that is the case. If a company hires an MBA who did the MBA rigth out of college with no career and no expereince, the mistake is the companies mistake.
And if the company hires an MBA who had a career and experience in "finance" before doing the MBA and puys him/her in charge of a bunch of engineers, again, the mistake is on the compan
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I my country, once you graduate from college, you have a career. How on earth in the USoA one can graduate from colleage and not get a career? how does that look like?
It looks like a dystopian novel come to life. You have to find jobs on your own, comparatively very few companies actually recruit at most colleges. In the USA, you have zero protection or guarantees as an employee. Forget everyone deserving a career out of college, you have no right to the job you have right now, and can be fired at anytime for any reason except a rare few which employers can easily avoid by inventing any reason whatsoever. Or just giving no reason at all.
Or, you can just continue to go to
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The problem comes when shitty MBA compromises intellectual integrity and ethics
The problem is that stupid people can get a MBA and then they're convinced that their degree makes them just as smart as an engineer.
Whistling in the Dark (Score:1)
Sounds like propaganda to me. How many of those bright young engineers have jobs right now? How many of them wouldn't escape to the West if they got the chance?
Re: Whistling in the Dark (Score:1)
Escape? Rofl. You know nothing.
Don't worry (Score:4, Funny)
All part of the plan (Score:5, Funny)
The Chinese can't take over the world if we destroy the world first!
(taps head knowingly)
But 15 million software "engineers" (Score:2)
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There are engineer engineers and computer programmers. I assume this is about the former, not code monkeys nor train drivers.
Chinese engineers are depply enbedded in the CCP (Score:5, Informative)
Xi Jinping himself is an engineer.
Engineers represent ~32% of the CCP leadership (from a max of ~51% in 1997). That DWARVES any other country worldwide.
https://www.chinausfocus.com/2... [chinausfocus.com]
Is not only that china has many engineers, is also that the Govt. LISTENS to them unlike:
https://www.wect.com/2023/12/2... [wect.com]
Where he had to go ALL THE WAY TO FEDERAL COURT to be allowed to talk about engineering.
PS: In my country (venezuela), most of the people in govt positions hold degrees in things like law, phylosopy & letters et al. We are chronically short of technocrats.
PS2: In my country you are an engineer as soon as you graduate from an engineering program acredited by the ministry of superior education. No ifs or buts nonsense. In certain areas (as in anything to do with Govt work in general) you need to be acredited by the "Engineering Guild" (colegio de Ingenieros), but that has more to do with guild/union negotiations than with acreditation. While I myself am a member of the guild, the only time I needed the membership was when the govt telco was courting me.
US engineers are depply enbedded in the BS (Score:2)
I keep running into American engineers that espouse Libertarian talking points and have an anarcho-capitalist political philosophy ripe for supporting the installation of an oligarchy. Amazingly talented American hardware engineers and software developers that when quizzed on their own country's governmental structure or basic Constitutional rights are testing below a 5th grade civics level.
At least communist engineers know what they are even working towards. (I assume that's mandatory training if you are d
Re: US engineers are depply enbedded in the BS (Score:2)
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You definitely did not understand that article you linked if that was your conclusion. No you can't just blindly go around in China calling yourself an engineer. They have stricter rules on that than America.
The reality is Engineering is a protected field in many American states, and in China, and in Australia, and in many countries actually. The court case wasn't about "talking in public" it was about a non-certified engineer presenting themselves as an engineer. Try doing that in China, the only person li
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You definitely did not understand that article you linked if that was your conclusion. No you can't just blindly go around in China calling yourself an engineer. They have stricter rules on that than America.
The reality is Engineering is a protected field in many American states, and in China, and in Australia, and in many countries actually. The court case wasn't about "talking in public" it was about a non-certified engineer presenting themselves as an engineer. Try doing that in China, the only person listening to you will be the guard at your cell.
I can certainly go blindly around china calling myself an engineer. Maybe some overzealous policeman will take me to the police station, but as soon as they check my background and see that I worked for Huawei in my country as an Engineer+MBA (twice, once on the payroll and once as an independent contractor) all the misunderstanding will be cleared.
And in my country (and Colombia where I also worked) I was/am an engineer, the only certification needed is the title granted to me by my university, no additio
Contradiction in summary or just missing the point (Score:2)
A problem because ... ? (Score:2)
It's a welcome reprieve for a government that has been struggling with a shrinking population.
Why would China (or India) struggle with a shrinking population? That, in and of itself, should also be a reprieve! I could understand an aging population (like Japan).
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Meanwhile the opposite is happening in the USA (Score:5, Insightful)
The current regime is very anti-science and doesn't respect that young people should make a career out of a STEM education. They are dismantling everything which is needed to graduate more young Scientists and Engineers to help solve the world's problems.
Additionally there are a lot of "junk" startups which are not concentrating on issues which will improve the world. They are instead going after products with recurring revenue streams since these seem to produce profit in the shortest time possible.
If we ever get into a war with China, they stand a chance of beating us (i.e. being conquered) because they have the engineering prowess to come up with tech which we don't have. (Not to mention a source of rare earth minerals for their war effort. Of course there's always global theronuclear war (Apologies to War Games) but then it's over for all of us then.
Re: Meanwhile the opposite is happening in the USA (Score:2)
It all depends on what type of war...the USA only starts wars and only in other places. So, other countries only have to defend and repel the USA...which is a lot easier, as history shows.
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The current regime is very anti-science and doesn't respect that young people should make a career out of a STEM education. They are dismantling everything which is needed to graduate more young Scientists and Engineers to help solve the world's problems.
And doing everything possible to block or deter young scientists and engineers from around the world from coming here.
Re:Meanwhile the opposite is happening in the USA (Score:4, Insightful)
If we ever get into a war with China, they stand a chance of beating us (i.e. being conquered) because they have the engineering prowess to come up with tech which we don't have.
That's not even the big concern. As the war in Ukraine shows, future wars will be fought with drones. Now, who's got the manufacturing capacity to make the most drones? China could simply spam anyone with them, even if they are 1/10 as effective as anyone else's they will still have numerical superiority in the end. WWII proved that manufacturing capacity was one of the most important factors in warfare, and we threw much of ours away. We kept the ability to make the big industrial stuff (although with what's going on with Boeing, even that is now questionable) but future wars will be fought with toy technology. The drones being used by Russia and Ukraine are really not different from hobby examples, except for what equipment is added to them. China is the primary source of all that stuff.
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"the current regime is anti science" .... ?
Based on
For starters, I think it's based on their tenuous to non-existent handle on logic, on their tendency to make up facts with no justification, ignore evidence to anything they don't like, removing funding from science at an unprecedented rate, and their fictional view of how vaccines work. So, other than basically everything they say and do, I can see why you're skeptical.
Funny, during the previous regime we were nigh-unto prohibited discussing the scientific origin of a global pandemic
Huh, I seem to remember a lot of discussion about it, publicly and privately, for the last 5 years. Maybe you lived under a rock, but that
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You want specific examples of actions that are so pervasive and expansive, it is clear you have not seen a reliable source of news in 5 years, and apparently have been asleep for the last 2 months. All is a simple google search away, but you will never do them or believe any link I posted if I did them, so what is the point?
And since my last sentence went so far over your head, you decided to argue and completely validate my point without even noticing, wasting any more time with you is absolutely pointless
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Is whataboutism proof, in your mind?
Yes, I think Musk's selectively censoring folks is nearly as bad as pre-Musk twitter was the other way around, and pretty hypocritical.
And?
A STEM ecosystem (Score:4, Interesting)
Jack Ma personifies the business mindset. One year, he's flying high. The next he pisses off the leadership loses most of his wealth and power, and gets exiled to Japan. Two years later he's "rehabilitated" and back on top again.
That doesn't work with STEM. Russia spent a solid generation and a half building a STEM ecosystem that was the equal of the US. Then, the Russian leaders decided it wasn't worth keeping alive. They simply cut the funding, turned the lights off in most of their labs and didn't bother to lock the door behind them. A huge chunk of their scientists and engineers left for other countries and the ones that stayed behind were driving taxis to put food on the table. It took 5 years to destroy something that had taken 50 years and probably trillions of dollars to build. Most of those russian STEM workers went to the US, but (I think) several hundred thousand went to Israel. Ever wonder why they're so technologically advanced? What a mystery.
China has a history of treating it's STEM people very well, and then suddenly very badly (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_science_and_technology_in_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China). Their current leader's policies seem to be "whatever he feels like this year" and nobody can tell him no. To my eye, that's not a promising recipe for a healthy long-term STEM ecosystem.
They're doing extremely well at the moment, though. That's certainly true.
Sounds like a PR piece (Score:2)
China has more engineers than the US. I can believe that. India has even more engineers than China. However, what is the quality of those engineers and how are they utilized? Size matters? Well, sort of but not by itself.
"In 2022, 47% of the world's top 20th percentile AI researchers finished their undergraduate studies in China". What does that mean? Is there really a practical way to order the quality/value/something of AI researchers? That statement seems like it came from a marketing group that
Re: Sounds like a PR piece (Score:2)
Unfortunately, the writing is on the wall wrt blatant sinophobia (and racism more generally) in the USA. An increasing number of Chinese people are returning to China for this reason, and also that the living standards in China have significantly improved, to the point where the USA is no longer an attractive place to work.
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Is there really a practical way to order the quality/value/something of AI researchers?
When I've seen these sorts of claims before, it's generally based the quality of the journals they publish in, and the number of citations those papers receive. It can be gamed, of course, but it's not totally subjective.
Our weekly CCP propaganda (Score:2, Interesting)
I am trying to figure out if /. is owned by China outright, or if this just keeps the lights on. Most of us who work with China regularly do not see much value out of them at all, except the usual access to cheap labor.
Re: Our weekly CCP propaganda (Score:2)
Your inability to work out such a simple thing suggests the rest of your view points can safely be ignored.
You realise that "propaganda" and "lies" are unrelated concepts. In fact, the best propaganda is true.
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No it's just your dose of inconvenience. Slashdot serves an important role to remind Americans occasionally to update their 50 year old narrow minded view of China. Look when all you do is throw a nickel to a Chinese person to get them to work for you, you're not going to get their talent. You're getting what you pay for. The actual talent you pretend doesn't exist is off developing new batteries, building the worlds largest bridges, building taller buildings than America, returning luna dirt samples from t
We lost when we devalued vocational education (Score:4, Interesting)
The narrative was that technical education was old fashioned and those who went down that path were doomed to low wage jobs. That fitted because the MBA's were sending all the technical jobs to China, our factories were closing and the demand for technical jobs was plummeting.
China went in the other direction by designing an educational system that encouraged vocational education at the expense of low value soft degrees.
Interestingly, Russia had a vocational heavy education system that churned out trades and even had PhDs in vocational trades. Post Soviet Union they dropped that system and adopted the western system that emphasised soft degrees. Fast forward to now and Russia has returned to the old system of vocation heavy degrees.
If China was a great place to live... (Score:2)
If China was a great place to live, so many of their best and brightest wouldn't be coming over here. Their rich wouldn't be vacationing here. Their young adults would be having children. The economic outlook is grim on so many levels. Unlike the US, they have no housing shortage. In fact, they have a housing glut. Still, women see dark futures, men can't find wives, and the birthrate is still falling.
The 996 culture grinds people into dust. The overbearing government does the same. Shit all you wan
A Chinese Engineer Dividend and... (Score:2)
Let's not forget that on top of graduating all those hard-working young engineers, China is unparalleled in their industrial espionage capabilities. If they were writing the song today, Sonny and Cher would have named it, "Gypsies, Tramps and Chinese".
China's successes in the past decades... (Score:5, Insightful)
Step back, and look at what China has achieved over the past few decades. 30-40 years ago, China was dirt poor, and only produced the crappiest of products. Through deliberate investment and guidance of their society, they now produce much of the high-tech for the entire world, and they have massively improved the living standards for most of their population.
The Chinese government is totalitarian, and rules with an iron hand. However, they have also exhibited a long-term view that is absent from most Western democracies. If that continues, our descendants will be speaking Chinese. If we don't want that, we need to get off our collective butts, stop arguing about (and doing) stupid sh!t, and actually work on progressing Western society. Of course, my definition of "stupid sh!t" is completely different from someone else's, so...
This is Incorrect - the 3D problem is very real (Score:4, Informative)
Demographics - Chinese demographics are really bad. Looking at their demographics curve [wikipedia.org], the up and coming generations are A) much smaller than previous ones, and B) have a serious surplus male problem. This is important for several reasons: 1) they won't be able to maintain this pace of graduating workers; the generations are already born and they're not getting better, and 2) has serious implications for China's attempt to move from an export to a consumption economy. Consumers are mostly in their 20's-40's, meaning there aren't enough consumers ocming up forcing China to rely on exports to maintain their economy, and right now the world is not fond of Chinese exports. Notably also, youth unemployment is very high, peaking at 21.9% in June 2023, prompting hte government to stop reporting on the metric. They do now, and it's at 16.9%, but notably does not include college graduate youth in their numbers (probably because it's a lot worse).
What this means is that college graduates in their 20's have a choice. Work a Llow paying job they're overqualified for [bbc.com] and have no marriage prospects if you're a man, or go overseas to Europe or Asia or Canada where they want high paying jobs and there's more opportunities to start a family. that's obviously hard now with current administrations around the world, but that won't necessarily last forever.
Debt - China has a major debt problem. While national debt is around 84% of GDP, that does not include debt from State Owned Enterprises, even though those SOEs contribute to the overall budget and expenditures of the government, so it's a manipulated number. The problem however is private debt which is around 195% of GDP. This is primarily mortgages from individuals in the housing sector, many of which have bought apartments in cities with no people, no demand, and no way to get out of the debt. These households will have payments on homes with no tenants because the housing sector overbuilt; they have enough apartments for 3 billion people [businessinsider.com] but by their own figures only have 1.4 B people, meaning many households own houses that will never house tenants but require them to pay a mortgage. This is already collapsing, and the people hit are households, not the government. No amount of engineering prowess can solve this particular issue.
Deflation - This is hitting China hard. They have an elderly population now, which tend to be savers which weakens consumer demand. They have high youth unemployment, which weakens consumer demand. They have households paying mortgage payments on homes with no tenants (and in some cases aren't even built) which weakens households' abilities to buy things which weakens consumer demand. They must export to keep people employed, but tariffs are rising around the world meaning they have to lower prices to counteract that. All of this is macroeconomic factors that affect prices and create deflation.
it's just absurd to think that because they graduated a bunch of AI engineers that somehow macroeconomics and demographics are irrelevant. They are not just highly relevant, they are existential to China's economy.
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Zeihan did a good portion of his career at Stratfor [stratfor.com] (now par
America has hopes and prayers! (Score:1)
China won’t beat America by educating generations of great engineers. Because America has something better—prayer! The USA will keep defunding public schools and steering kids to parochial schools where they’ll learn to solve problems with the help of Jesus. Just get on your knees, bow your head, and ask The Lord to help you develop new software and hardware and he’ll solve your problems. MAGA!
The US has an H1B and agism issue (Score:1)
H1B's rob workers of wage growth, jobs, and leverage while agism means they'll have to completely reset on another career path for retirement.
Young people would be crazy to target tech in a country that lays off about as many people as it imports on H1B Visas each year and claims a talent shortage while it has 11 million STEM graduates and professionals unable to find work.