Why China Is Emerging as a Tech Superpower to Rival the U.S.

[Denizen]

Donald Trump started the trade war out of fear that China was overtaking the US in technology as the drone story below describes.

China is also unrivaled in the rapid pace from concept to manufacturing and then to market.

It's not only Donald Trump that is fearful, it is the US military that is also fearful that China's technological development will also reflect in greater military capabilities.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, he is a decade too late to obstruct China's technical evolution and its ascendancy.

Why China Is Emerging as a Tech Superpower to Rival the U.S.

Why China Is Emerging as a Tech Superpower to Rival the U.S.

By CLAY CHANDLER
November 21, 2017
A dogfight in the world of drones was about to begin. It was November 2016, and Da-Jiang Innovations Science and Technology, better known as DJI, was preparing to launch its killer new product: the Mavic Pro. Weighing just 1.6 pounds, the Mavic was compact enough to fit into a book bag and featured a four-mile flight range and a built-in camera capable of shooting pin-sharp 4K video from hundreds of feet up. Though priced below $1,000, the Mavic sported sophisticated gimbals to stabilize the camera and cutting-edge software enabling it to lock on subjects and follow them around, detect and avoid midair obstacles, and automatically return to its launch point before running out of power.

The executives at DJI knew they had a great product. But would it sell? DJI had little brand recognition even in China, and Mavic was its first product for mainstream consumers. Moreover, DJI was up against a formidable roster of U.S. and European competitors flocking to market with similar devices—including Parrot, a 22-year-old French electronics manufacturer; Lily Robotics, a Silicon Valley startup that raised $15 million on Kickstarter; and GoPro, the maker of portable action cameras. How would DJI’s technology fare vs. the best in the West?

It wasn’t even a close contest.

DJI president Roger Luo says he knew immediately they had a winner—and a huge production challenge. Within three days of release, DJI had received three times more orders for the Mavic than it had expected to sell the entire month.

Meanwhile, the drone contenders from the West fell back to earth one by one. Parrot was the first to surrender, announcing in January it was axing workers from its drone division. Then Lily revealed that, despite collecting more than $34 million in preorders, it had burned through all its cash and would close without shipping a single unit. The real surprise was GoPro. The San Mateo, Calif., company had established its brand by selling more than 20 million “wearable” cameras. And CEO Nick Woodman had vowed GoPro would return to profitability with the release of a heavily marketed drone called Karma. But the Karma, it turns out, was bad—heavier and slower than its Chinese rival, and lacking its tracking or detect-and-avoid capabilities. Worse, the first Karmas had an alarming tendency to lose power and drop from the sky. After an embarrassing recall, GoPro relaunched in February. By then, DJI had taken off.


Fast-forward to today, and DJI controls more than 70% of the commercial drone market, a category that could soar to $15 billion by 2022, according to global research firm Interact Analysis, up from $1.3 billion last year. With venture funding from Accel Partners and Sequoia Capital, DJI has a valuation of $10 billion. The company doesn’t disclose financial results, but it has been widely estimated by analysts that sales this year will exceed $1.5 billion, with earnings approaching $500 million. ...

 

[fncceo]

Technical superiority doesn't come from manufacturing, it comes from innovation. China makes the iPhones. But, the next generation of iPhones come from Apple, based in Cupertino.

Augmented reality, generated adversarial networks, artificially intelligent operating systems, general purpose robotics... all of those innovations come out of the US and subsidiaries of US companies abroad.

I have great respect for what China has developed in the last 30-years. Since Nixon opened China to the West, they've gone from a technologically backwards country to a manufacturing power house second to none.

Chinese companies like Tencent are a good start. But, Tencent is a holding company that invests in technology development globally for the Chinese Market, not the other way around. China still lacks the R&D infrastructure that America has been developing for over a century. Collaboration between academia and industry exists in America as it exists almost no where else.

I can't say what the future holds, but for the near term, China 's role in the technology game will be manufacturing what Google, Apple, Oracle, and other companies invent.

 

[Denizen]

One-eyed, tunnel vision, view.

 

[Toronado3800]

Good topic. My usual ideas are:

-China will naturally recover from WWII, its civil war and some incorrect economic policies. Of course they are getting better / catching up.

-Thank god they are catching up. I don't want that large a country to be backwards and angry.

-My god, part of waht you pay for every Chinese Iphone leaves America to go fund their Space Force or whatever.

-I wonder how close they really are militarily. Where is Tom Clancy when u need him!

-I worry we'll end up in a proxy war with one of our Allies fighting a Chinese supplied military as the big kids on the block have to deel eachother out.

 

[Denizen]

Good topic. My usual ideas are:

-China will naturally recover from WWII, its civil war and some incorrect economic policies. Of course they are getting better / catching up.

-Thank god they are catching up. I don't want that large a country to be backwards and angry.

-My god, part of waht you pay for every Chinese Iphone leaves America to go fund their Space Force or whatever.

-I wonder how close they really are militarily. Where is Tom Clancy when u need him!

-I worry we'll end up in a proxy war with one of our Allies fighting a Chinese supplied military as the big kids on the block have to deel eachother out.

That is indeed a concern because it is arguable that the US has not won a war since WW2.

 

[anotherlife]

It would be relatively easy to start a war between China and Siberia, where the Chinese resources are. I am sure that Trump has thought of that, so the Chinese danger is not all that big. The European danger is bigger.

 

[Denizen]

It would be relatively easy to start a war between China and Siberia, where the Chinese resources are. I am sure that Trump has thought of that, so the Chinese danger is not all that big. The European danger is bigger.

You are evidently a resident of Trumpland.

Your post is nonsense. Siberia is part of Russia, not China and probably does not have the means, the cause, or the will to fight China.

 

[Windparadox]

`
China has been known to steal a lot of their tech.

 

[Denizen]

`
China has been known to steal a lot of their tech.

The US is not innocent in that regard. It's arguable that all US rocket technology is stolen from Germans.

 

[Muhammed]

Good topic. My usual ideas are:

-China will naturally recover from WWII, its civil war and some incorrect economic policies. Of course they are getting better / catching up.

-Thank god they are catching up. I don't want that large a country to be backwards and angry.

-My god, part of waht you pay for every Chinese Iphone leaves America to go fund their Space Force or whatever.

-I wonder how close they really are militarily. Where is Tom Clancy when u need him!

-I worry we'll end up in a proxy war with one of our Allies fighting a Chinese supplied military as the big kids on the block have to deel eachother out.

That is indeed a concern because it is arguable that the US has not won a war since WW2.

It is arguable that losing the lives of 400,000 young men, with countless others permanently disabled, while gaining absolutely nothing, does not constitute "winning" a war.

 

[anotherlife]

It would be relatively easy to start a war between China and Siberia, where the Chinese resources are. I am sure that Trump has thought of that, so the Chinese danger is not all that big. The European danger is bigger.

You are evidently a resident of Trumpland.

Your post is nonsense. Siberia is part of Russia, not China and probably does not have the means, the cause, or the will to fight China.

Let me educate you. Most Asian resources are in Siberia, not China. And my point was exactly that Siberia is a part of Russia. If it was a part of China, then we wouldn't be able to make the Chinese fight for it. Also it happens by the way, that a fast growing population of Siberia is Chinese, not Russian.

 

[Olde Europe]

Donald Trump started the trade war out of fear that China was overtaking the US in technology as the drone story below describes.

China is also unrivaled in the rapid pace from concept to manufacturing and then to market.

It's not only Donald Trump that is fearful, it is the US military that is also fearful that China's technological development will also reflect in greater military capabilities.

Unfortunately for Donald Trump, he is a decade too late to obstruct China's technical evolution and its ascendancy.

Why China Is Emerging as a Tech Superpower to Rival the U.S.

First, China is not "overtaking the US in technology" - at least that's not what that drone story describes.

Second, to demonstrate that the Trumpy even understands any details of that technological competition, and started his stupid trade with China because of it, would be a huge order. That is so, in particular, because the Trumpy - technologically clueless and ineducable - much more likely, and in line with his statements, started it because he wanted to deliver to the White knuckleheads who bought the Trumpy's scapegoat, and wanted to see it "punished".

Third, there is no way to "obstruct China's technical evolution" short of nuclear war, and a trade war does not advance that aim. How is that even supposed to work? The Chinese realize that, with tariffs slapped on, they need a better product at a lower price to compete, get better at what they are doing, and that's stopping their advance? That's nonsense, isn't it?

Fourth, the way to compete in the realm of technology is to invest in (basic) research and development, along with a focus on best practices and long-term strategy. Most assuredly, denigrating science, cutting taxes and funds supporting research, fostering a culture of short-termism and young talent flocking into a bloated finance sector rather than science and technology, and fitting policies and governance around crackpot conspiracy theories while investing in coal, is not the way to do it.

 

[Toronado3800]

Good topic. My usual ideas are:

-China will naturally recover from WWII, its civil war and some incorrect economic policies. Of course they are getting better / catching up.

-Thank god they are catching up. I don't want that large a country to be backwards and angry.

-My god, part of waht you pay for every Chinese Iphone leaves America to go fund their Space Force or whatever.

-I wonder how close they really are militarily. Where is Tom Clancy when u need him!

-I worry we'll end up in a proxy war with one of our Allies fighting a Chinese supplied military as the big kids on the block have to deel eachother out.

That is indeed a concern because it is arguable that the US has not won a war since WW2.

It is arguable that losing the lives of 400,000 young men, with countless others permanently disabled, while gaining absolutely nothing, does not constitute "winning" a war.

Semantically (a real word?) I'd say we won Gulf War 1 or 2 but we can look at the effect even winning the two world wars had accelerating the demise of the British empire.

I really have an urge to let the soldiers in our military bask in the glory of defeating Iraq twice. There needs to be some differentiation in verbiage to allow us their victory but say it was pointless economically.........and now that I think about it most wars which aren't for spoils are.

 

[Manonthestreet]

It's called espionage. All Chinese students and scientists should be expelled.

 

[Denizen]

Good topic. My usual ideas are:

-China will naturally recover from WWII, its civil war and some incorrect economic policies. Of course they are getting better / catching up.

-Thank god they are catching up. I don't want that large a country to be backwards and angry.

-My god, part of waht you pay for every Chinese Iphone leaves America to go fund their Space Force or whatever.

-I wonder how close they really are militarily. Where is Tom Clancy when u need him!

-I worry we'll end up in a proxy war with one of our Allies fighting a Chinese supplied military as the big kids on the block have to deel eachother out.

That is indeed a concern because it is arguable that the US has not won a war since WW2.

It is arguable that losing the lives of 400,000 young men, with countless others permanently disabled, while gaining absolutely nothing, does not constitute "winning" a war.

Semantically (a real word?) I'd say we won Gulf War 1 or 2 but we can look at the effect even winning the two world wars had accelerating the demise of the British empire.

I really have an urge to let the soldiers in our military bask in the glory of defeating Iraq twice. There needs to be some differentiation in verbiage to allow us their victory but say it was pointless economically.........and now that I think about it most wars which aren't for spoils are.

The US military seeks and enjoys conflict to blood their military. This portends that the world will never be free of war.