CDZ Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation

[Tom Paine 1949]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

 

[flacaltenn]

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

Whoever wrote this never had a job in the supply chains that are WIPED OUT in this country.. The author also never SAW the emergence of Japan in the 60s and 70s when we decided to offshore manufacturing there of all our consumer goods so that we could focus on the HARD stuff. Which is a plan we never fully executed. And within a DECADE -- the Japanese knew more about consumer products than we did.. This was absolutely predictable -- because as guy whose career was developing leading edge products -- I realize that "he who controls manufacturing, soon knows MORE than the creators of those products"...

The word salad above focuses on the WRONG part of the problem.. NO ONE is concerned about social media or smartphones. They are fairly useless commodity items and toys.. But GE selling it's entire Medical DIVISION to the Chinese is a bigger issue.. The bulk of our prescription drugs and chemical pre-cursors being now CAPTIVE in China is a bigger issue.. And the fact that companies are REQUIRED to spill every trade secret on the table to the Chinese and their MILITARY is a bigger issue. It's not a "fair trade" situation..

And MORE OVER -- how dare this moron talk about "Liberation Technology" when the topic is a country that issues a "social behavior score" to each of their citizens that determines how much freedom they MIGHT be allowed...

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Fully justifiable when in the USA to THIS DAY -- you can still not find a digital home medical thermometer on the shelf.. Not whining about them MADE IN CHINA.. I'm whining about the fact that WE CANT MAKE THEM ANYMORE.. The supply chain to manufacture stuff like that LEFT.. I don't know what part of this the elitist media understands, but I can't TALK to suppliers who now control the parts I NEED to build ANYTHING electronic.. They've raped and decimated us.. And I'm not being a "Nancy" and exaggerating..

Screw "WeChat".. Let them SPY on our kids.. Google and US govt are doing that ALL-OUT right now... I'm concerned that we were SUPPOSED to let them get dirty making basketballs and underwear and Christmas toys while WE DESIGNED the AI, Robotics, Materials for 21st Century Manufacturing HERE and ENDED the whole "cheap labor" thing.. Another strategic plan not carried out..

 

[flacaltenn]

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination....

If you think that was MERELY "cross-pollination" -- you would never recognize ANY of the plagues that God sent Egypt...

Problem was -- we never learned from the Japanese experiment and lost the ability to make a video/computer monitor/TV HERE.. Even for our OWN military.. Gonna be hard to go to war with drones and high tech surveillance gear when you can't SEE anything in front of you.

 

[shockedcanadian]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

The fact that China is authoritarian and there are similar impulses in Western leadership today, should provide a clue of what the future holds. With even more ease, Overlords will control their populations, especially if they control elections, ones speech, your career with Cancel Culture and any number of oppressive methods. The question today in the U.S is about stacking the courts. That doesn't worry people enough?

You don't see twitter determining who can have an account and who cannot? Arbitrary blocking posts and elimination of accounts on Facebook and other social media?

The future is grim, and China is going to eventually win because those with deep pockets don't care about principles or ideals anymore, they care about making more and more cash, and with it, more and more power. It's too easy for them today, little risk, all profit, little innovation or investment if they just build in low wage, low regulation (oh the irony) China and sell to the West.

If all goes as I envision it, those currently in charge to defend U.S National Security will eventually be employed to administer the whims of Big Government against citizens. This isn't paranoia, this is found in history. History is littered with massive control of governments by leaders, and in none of these cases has government themselves not exerted more of a vice grip on society. It's a certainty.

Why else is someone like Oprah Winfrey, a billionaire, calling voters in Texas to try and turn the state blue? Is it because she cares about YOUR plight? Of course not. She cares about HER plight. Anyone naive enough to think she doesn't benefit from particular policies and politicians?

 

[BasicHumanUnit]

Yeah, as the posts above indicate, it looks like mankind is about to backpedal pretty hard on personal liberties.
The "plan" was for patriots to use their Constitutional rights (arms) to defeat tyranny.......but tyranny got the upper hand.
I feel for kids being born now.

 

[alang1216]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

I never feared the USSR and I don't fear China for the same reasons. Their authoritarian form of government is inherently unstable. China's economy is growing at a phenomenal rate but one that is unsustainable. Their people are content with the status quo so long as they see their lives improving. Once that bubble bursts they will not be happy and the gov't will collapse like a house of cards.

 

[danielpalos]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

The capital bottom line seems more important to capitalists than our own People and Republic. There was never any requirement to offshore any jobs but for the Capital bottom line and that form of race to the bottom.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

The capital bottom line seems more important to capitalists than our own People and Republic. There was never any requirement to offshore any jobs but for the Capital bottom line and that form of race to the bottom.

Well, capitalism per se is all about the “capital bottom line.” The rise of Chinese entrepreneurship, the radical “creative destruction“ / waxing / waning / waxing again of state enterprises, capitalist farming, and the emergence of giant private corporations — all this was anything but smooth and easy. Every step of the way required immense domestic sacrifices, flexibility, hard work, study, and domestic political struggles. Most Americans think everything modern about China depended on “offshoring of jobs,” but few understand what it took for every class and strata of Chinese society to accommodate these changes.

It wasn’t just a small strata of American elites who went along for the ride. U.S. and world capitalist elites and virtually all Americans went along in one way or another ... at least until recently. Just as we went along with U.S. investments (and wars) in the Middle East, or trade with South America, Africa, the Far East and India.

China, an old and proud civilization, just managed to stand up, do the necessary hard work, and succeed where so many others failed. Of course Japan and the Asian Tigers had done the same earlier, with U.S. assistance. Once Europe and Japan started really competing with U.S. industry, in the self-reverie of our Cold War victory over the USSR, it was almost inevitable that China had a shot at rebuilding itself. It didn’t “cheat” the U.S. so much as follow its own interests and grope its way toward state capitalism. China’s demographics make it unique, as too its history. It has unique problems. China started the 20th Century from so far behind the pack, and faced such horrors during most of that century, that it is naturally still far behind in terms of average standard of living. But their present state capitalist system and powerful central bureaucracy appears very much in keeping with Chinese civilizational norms, if not with Western civic society norms.

It is within this context that new media and new technology are evolving and being used very differently than in the West. The West is also clearly moving to state capitalism, but it is coming kicking and screaming with a whole different set of values.

My own (unsupported) guess is that the next radical / revolutionary crisis in China, if it is not short circuited by war or decoupling with the West, will come out of anger at bureaucratic censorship and will start as a “free speech movement.” The “Storming of the Bastille” may be the storming of some internet or WeChat censorship office by students. It won’t aim at overthrowing the party, not at first anyway. Chinese students are passive today, but once so were HongKong students. I don’t think the CCP can succeed in using media alone to brainwash China’s elite students, though the U.S. stopping hundreds of thousands of them from attending Western Universities is not helping matters.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Whoever wrote this never had a job in the supply chains that are WIPED OUT in this country.. The author also never SAW the emergence of Japan in the 60s and 70s when we decided to offshore manufacturing there of all our consumer goods so that we could focus on the HARD stuff. Which is a plan we never fully executed. And within a DECADE -- the Japanese knew more about consumer products than we did.. This was absolutely predictable -- because as guy whose career was developing leading edge products -- I realize that "he who controls manufacturing, soon knows MORE than the creators of those products"...

The word salad above focuses on the WRONG part of the problem.. NO ONE is concerned about social media or smartphones. They are fairly useless commodity items and toys.. But GE selling it's entire Medical DIVISION to the Chinese is a bigger issue.. The bulk of our prescription drugs and chemical pre-cursors being now CAPTIVE in China is a bigger issue.. And the fact that companies are REQUIRED to spill every trade secret on the table to the Chinese and their MILITARY is a bigger issue. It's not a "fair trade" situation..

And MORE OVER -- how dare this moron talk about "Liberation Technology" when the topic is a country that issues a "social behavior score" to each of their citizens that determines how much freedom they MIGHT be allowed...

Interesting point about lost supply chains, and comparison to “Japan, Inc.” The problem as I see it is that the American “Wall Street Ethos” and obsessive fear of large government, even of government industrial planning and subsidies (outside of the MIC), made it almost impossible for our own state to act. Instead, we gave and still give to Wall Street and private capital almost free reign. Crony capitalism and de-industrialization was the natural result.

The U.S. effectively runs the Western world’s financial empire. The U.S. — increasingly living beyond its means and itself deeply indebted — sucks profit out of the Third World where possible and relies on the Federal Reserve or Congress to bail out bankrupt industries and save capitalism from periodic financial crashes. This is “Federal Reserve Crisis Intervention State Capitalism.” Borrowing is encouraged. Real profits less important than rising equity values, or speculative money manipulation. With important exceptions like internet companies, high tech related businesses, highly productive agriculture, medical and service industries (before Covid), most basic U.S. industry continues to decline. Regulations, environmental restrictions, even unions may be blamed for some of the failures of our basic industries in the past. But on the other hand pure capitalism means talent and money flows to where the real profits are — Wall Street above all. If something can be made cheaper in China or India, it will be.

 

[Oddball]

Chinese "innovation" often looks like corporate espionage.

 

[2aguy]

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

Whoever wrote this never had a job in the supply chains that are WIPED OUT in this country.. The author also never SAW the emergence of Japan in the 60s and 70s when we decided to offshore manufacturing there of all our consumer goods so that we could focus on the HARD stuff. Which is a plan we never fully executed. And within a DECADE -- the Japanese knew more about consumer products than we did.. This was absolutely predictable -- because as guy whose career was developing leading edge products -- I realize that "he who controls manufacturing, soon knows MORE than the creators of those products"...

The word salad above focuses on the WRONG part of the problem.. NO ONE is concerned about social media or smartphones. They are fairly useless commodity items and toys.. But GE selling it's entire Medical DIVISION to the Chinese is a bigger issue.. The bulk of our prescription drugs and chemical pre-cursors being now CAPTIVE in China is a bigger issue.. And the fact that companies are REQUIRED to spill every trade secret on the table to the Chinese and their MILITARY is a bigger issue. It's not a "fair trade" situation..

And MORE OVER -- how dare this moron talk about "Liberation Technology" when the topic is a country that issues a "social behavior score" to each of their citizens that determines how much freedom they MIGHT be allowed...

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Fully justifiable when in the USA to THIS DAY -- you can still not find a digital home medical thermometer on the shelf.. Not whining about them MADE IN CHINA.. I'm whining about the fact that WE CANT MAKE THEM ANYMORE.. The supply chain to manufacture stuff like that LEFT.. I don't know what part of this the elitist media understands, but I can't TALK to suppliers who now control the parts I NEED to build ANYTHING electronic.. They've raped and decimated us.. And I'm not being a "Nancy" and exaggerating..

Screw "WeChat".. Let them SPY on our kids.. Google and US govt are doing that ALL-OUT right now... I'm concerned that we were SUPPOSED to let them get dirty making basketballs and underwear and Christmas toys while WE DESIGNED the AI, Robotics, Materials for 21st Century Manufacturing HERE and ENDED the whole "cheap labor" thing.. Another strategic plan not carried out..

Don't forget the genocide of the Chinese Muslims.....

The Chinese got the jump on tech in the 1990s when the clinton's sold them access to our best tech.........we are now paying the price for that greed and will see even worse if their latest servant, joe biden, wins the election....

 

[danielpalos]

In my opinion, we should be raising the minimum wage to create more demand via a positive multiplier, Capitalists should be optimizing for their bottom and for better products at lower cost regardless of any pandemic. Since we can expect Capitalists to want to reduce costs for their bottom line, we should be solving simple poverty via the automatic stabilizer known as unemployment compensation in our at-will employment States. Equal protection of those laws could eliminate poverty on an at-will basis and enable capitalists to optimize for the bottom line without any, race to the bottom. Social services cost about the equivalent to fourteen dollars an hour and is a reason for a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage. Being able to quit and collect unemployment compensation should mean promoting the general welfare in that market friendly manner and enable potential labor market participants to go to school or otherwise improve their skill sets so they can command the wage they prefer to work for.

 

[Devils_Advocate]

China is a threat that had been ignored for so long because of it slave labor that corporations could abuse to sell cheaply made products back to the consumer around the World.

People Should be educated on the reality of China and how it manipulated it currency to stay weaker and making the U.S. Dollar stronger so they ( China ) can sell their products lower than what the U.S. can sell them.

Also people should be educated at the fact China does manufacture poisonous products and have been caught doing so many times in the past and what would stop China from doing it with our medical supplies?

Also people should be educated that China sell the raw ingredients to Cartels in Mexico to creat the illegal street drugs that kill our family members daily here in the United States of America.

Also people should be educated the sole reason why China expanded into the South China Sea is for the oil and natural gas that should belong to Vietnam and Philippines.

People should also be educated about the raping of resources in Africa and around the world by China and the environmental damage it has done to countries.

Anyone that believe China is an trading partner that we are misunderstanding about China true goal in all of this is someone that is ignoring reality...

Since George W. Bush days and my days on the Slate Political Message Boards under this name I have been screaming about the threat China was growing into and how they and Russia pose security risks to the U.S. and you can also do a search under Bruce T. Laney on this board and will find threads and posts about my opinion of China predating Trump Presidency.

China should be isolated from the rest of the World and the U.S. should focus on better relationships with Mexico, Central and South America when it come to trading partners.

The American Population does not benefit from a strong trade relationship with China and it is China benefits the most while making the U.S. vulnerable because as stated they control our medical production which should have never been in China hands in the first place along with any Military production no matter if it is a electronic processor to a spark plug we ( the U.S. ) should never be outsourcing vital production like that to a known enemy like China!

You will disagree but the reality is China is the enemy at the gates and Covid should have woken the World to this fact but alas many are still blinded by China and will fall for China victim hood while China kills millions more people around the World...

 

[AZrailwhale]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

I never feared the USSR and I don't fear China for the same reasons. Their authoritarian form of government is inherently unstable. China's economy is growing at a phenomenal rate but one that is unsustainable. Their people are content with the status quo so long as they see their lives improving. Once that bubble bursts they will not be happy and the gov't will collapse like a house of cards.

There is also a disconnect in China between the people making the money and the government who controls them. It's a unstable relationship and will eventually breakdown either into governmental repression which will kill all those golden geese or revolution that will kill the Chinese economy and bring down the government and probably balkanize China.

 

[alang1216]

There is also a disconnect in China between the people making the money and the government who controls them. It's a unstable relationship and will eventually breakdown either into governmental repression which will kill all those golden geese or revolution that will kill the Chinese economy and bring down the government and probably balkanize China.

Agreed. There is a disconnect here in the US too and it is getting worse. We have a much more flexible form of gov't, I just hope it is enough.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Here are excerpts from a thoughtful article on changes in American consciousness about technology and the “Chinese threat.” The article delves into many issues. I hope the discussion is not just another “China is Our Enemy!” pile-on, but rather encourages thoughts about internet freedom, overcoming national firewalls, and different ways technology allows for “manufacturing consent” (or chaos) even in the West. I remind all of Snowden’s revelations, Assange’s persecution, “fake news” and conspiracy mongering. Also, we will surely see new tech in the future, hopefully providing solutions to pressing national & international problems. There is much more at stake than narrow “National Security” concerns, though that is the main thing we hear about today:


Americans are as wrong in their overestimations of Chinese innovation today as they were in their underestimation just a few years ago.

Two fundamental narratives once gave Americans, and to a great extent, other “Westerners,” assurance of their enduring leadership in tech. These beliefs offered comforting explanations as to why authoritarian states like China not only would fail to produce truly innovative technology, but also would themselves be fatally vulnerable to it.

The first of these is the idea that technology — the internet, smartphones, and especially social media — would sound the death knell for autocracies. It might be called “liberation technology,” and for a long time, it was the most common form of techno-utopianism. This emancipatory narrative viewed technology as inherently democratizing. It conceived of the internet as a realm that floated free, above the petty concerns of nation-states, able to act upon politics without being acted upon by them. It therefore had boundless emancipatory potential....

The other narrative that once gave Americans assurance was also about the relationship between technology and authoritarianism. In this one, the “narrative of innovation,” tech innovation is only really possible under conditions of political freedom. Authoritarian states can’t innovate.... All of China’s companies, Americans long told themselves, were mere copycats. China somehow never managed to actually innovate, and anything that looked like innovation had to be the result of IP theft. Americans for the most part believed that one, too, until quite recently....

The emotional nature of these narrative inversions has its roots, of course, in the fact that the U.S. faces, in China, its first true multidimensional peer competitor since the end of the Second World War....

China’s ruling party, the Chinese Communist Party ... [rolled] out a nationwide system that would assign “social credit” scores to its citizens based on online behavior and certain markers of ideological purity.... More troubling still, Beijing was creating a tech-enabled Orwellian security state in Xinjiang in its northwest. In that region, at least, China has indeed tipped into full totalitarianism.

The tone of coverage of Chinese tech began noticeably to change in 2016, when a cascade of stories praising China’s advances in AI, its super-apps like WeChat, the ubiquity of mobile payments and mobility solutions gushed forth from newsrooms. In no time, Americans had gone from open contempt for China’s innovative capacity — coupled with a smug, hubristic faith in their own — to an exaggerated regard for, or even a panic over China’s capabilities.

Even before the pandemic, overreaction to Chinese technology already threatened to undo the enormous good that had come of decades of cross-pollination.... As the Trump administration bans Huawei from its networks and TikTok and WeChat from its app stores, it seems determined to learn only the worst elements of China’s approach to technology.

Fear of a red tech planet — why the U.S. is suddenly afraid of Chinese innovation - SupChina

I never feared the USSR and I don't fear China for the same reasons. Their authoritarian form of government is inherently unstable. China's economy is growing at a phenomenal rate but one that is unsustainable. Their people are content with the status quo so long as they see their lives improving. Once that bubble bursts they will not be happy and the gov't will collapse like a house of cards.

There is also a disconnect in China between the people making the money and the government who controls them. It's a unstable relationship and will eventually breakdown either into governmental repression which will kill all those golden geese or revolution that will kill the Chinese economy and bring down the government and probably balkanize China.

Interesting and once very popular perspective. May still happen. But I have grave doubts about it. The tendency toward state capitalism is universal in the modern world. Today the most powerful and wealthy private capitalists in China are well represented inside the Communist Party, but they are just one “lobby” there.

The CCP is at present run by an experienced, Machiavellian, but genuinely nationalist bureaucrat who seems to be preparing another consolidating purge. In the Party are other ambitious, probably less competent and more corrupt elements, and of course many civil service “time servers.” The party is complex and made up of numerous fiefdoms and factions. Regional and local government, private corporations and state enterprises, the military, all provide separate arenas for building fiefdoms and personal networks. But the party connects all of them. The “people” have no obvious alternative.

It isn’t easy for private enterprise to break loose so that “a disconnect in China between the people making the money and the government who controls them” manifests itself clearly. Even less likely is a Balkanizing of the state — at least in my opinion. Maybe in the past this was possible, but no longer. Nationalism is a growing tendency with deep roots in society, as is fear of anarchy or outside “imperialist” pressure.

As for the economy, the idea that it would just “pop” from internal contradiction has — so far at least — not been shown to be the case. See

China: The Bubble That Never Pops

Tom Orlik is a perceptive China expert, specializing in Chinese economics. Here is a fascinating podcast interview with him on SupChina / Sinica. He is interviewed by the always entertaining popular China expert Kaiser Kuo, who first made his name as an expatriate American musician in a Chinese...

www.usmessageboard.com

 

[Picaro]

lol the article in the OP was written by a clueless Burb Brat moron. Fewer and fewer people can afford $1,000 I phones every 6 months, and fewer and fewer people every day can afford to keep paying hundreds of bucks just for TV, innernetz, and phone service as the country slides into 2nd and 3rd World level incomes relatives to the cost of living, and it is not just Trump and the GOP suffering from the delusion that dreplacing high productiviy jobs with either nothing or part time food service and lawn mowing gigs or crappy Uber-type sidelines wearing out your car years before you should while getting paid far less than the replacement cost hauling pizzas and burgers around. It takes years to build back up to the kind of domestic economy needed to pull off what we did between the 1880's and WW II into the 1950's, and we're still not even trying to in real terms, just creating yet another debt bubble and trying to call it 'Growth N Stuff'. The real fact is the top 10% now own over 87% of the stocks on the market, up from 82% in 2009, and babbling about the GDP and this month's unemployment numbers doesn't mean we're getting richer as a people in real life. Real wages keep dropping even more.

And, anybody who thinks Asians are suddenly going to rise up and change their cultures soon are even more delusional; the Red Chinese 'middle class' is the same 'middle class' it has had since the 1930's; the only thing that changes occasionally is the names of the dictators running the Cadres, and that isn't going to change in the next 100 years either. Neither is Africa, India, any of the Islamist states, and Europe is fracturing again as well.

 

[Tom Paine 1949]

Few people can afford $1,000 I phones every 6 months, and fewer and fewer people every day can afford to keep paying hundreds of bucks just for TV, innernetz, and phone service as the country slides into 2nd and 3rd World level incomes relatives to the cost of living, and it is not just Trump and the GOP suffering from the delusion that ...

That is all TRUE!
But what exactly is your argument against the supposed “Burb Brat” OP & article writer?

 

[Picaro]

In my opinion, we should be raising the minimum wage to create more demand via a positive multiplier, Capitalists should be optimizing for their bottom and for better products at lower cost regardless of any pandemic. Since we can expect Capitalists to want to reduce costs for their bottom line, we should be solving simple poverty via the automatic stabilizer known as unemployment compensation in our at-will employment States. Equal protection of those laws could eliminate poverty on an at-will basis and enable capitalists to optimize for the bottom line without any, race to the bottom. Social services cost about the equivalent to fourteen dollars an hour and is a reason for a fifteen dollar an hour minimum wage. Being able to quit and collect unemployment compensation should mean promoting the general welfare in that market friendly manner and enable potential labor market participants to go to school or otherwise improve their skill sets so they can command the wage they prefer to work for.

One flaw in that is that corporations have been lying out of their asses about 'skilled 'labor shortages', and universities and Jr. Colleges have all been helping peddle those lies to get suckers lined up and running loan sharking scams on America's people. They lie because they love green card slaves and criminal illegal aliens. They can abuse them no end, for both fun AND profit. Financing job training and college education is just a welfare program for the schools peddling lies and the corporations who think we should provide them with free job training and massive gluts of skilled labor at Third World wages at no cost.