Cutting edge or not, the next century will be driven by China simply because the momentum that they have generated.
The only thing that still remains a red flag for me is China's lack of democracy and political instability that may come due to it.
And all the countries around China, I visit them often, they use none of China's internet stack. Facebook, YouTube, WhatsApp, are all very strong in SE Asia. This includes Chinese places around China, like HK, Taiwan, Singapore. If Chinese mobile innovation was so great...wouldn't they have even just a little bit of success outside of China?
> Cutting edge or not, the next century will be driven by China simply because the momentum that they have generated.
China will be continued to be driven by China, but the internet world has already began fragmenting into China and everyone else.
- stole most techs from us/Japan/Europe
- innovated...nothing
- copied apple products down to the last screw
- prevented Google and Facebook to compete, even though they claimed to be open market to wto
As for your momentum, don't forget the trillions of state debt, the wto membership expiring this year, xi the dictator closing down news channels, billions in capital outflow
Calling copying successful products, methods, inventions "stealing" is a very subjective statement. If you want to see what someone who doesn't "steal" can achieve look at the stories of children that provided the inspiration for the Mowgli story. A more reasonable description of not reinventing the wheel is "being smart".
When I hear about technological prowess, I am expecting things like rockets that land on barges, self driving cars, and even block chains. Not web apps and mobile apps.
China has enough of the pieces in place that I wouldn't be surprised to see some innovations soon that would impress me. But it just hasn't happened yet.
Most of Chinese people share the same opinion. There are huge resources poured into the areas you mentioned above. Though the progresses made on those fronts in China won't be covered by Western media, until they happened.
(Almost) Nothing is led by China and (almost) nothing ever will.
I remember as a boy the stories of Japan taking over the world in the 1980's. The same will come of China.
The Bubble will burst, and they'll slowly find their way into the world order.
Bar codes? Give me a break.
They've done well with some type of commerce activities wherein the tech facilitated development given their needs (Ali Baba), but that's not really tech.
Everything is copy.
Tell me - what tech does anyone use that was conceived of, developed and made in China?
Nothing really.
And that won't change.
This?
Meanwhile, talk to any rail car maker in the world, and they'll tell you that as part of the deal they had to sell trains in China, they had to hand over 100% of the IP, research, R&D, plans, schematics. And within 1 year the government had handed over the plans to a state owned competitor who had copied the entire thing from top to bottom.
When we see those nifty trains running over San Francisco, you'll have a point.
As far as I know, the modern trains that I've seen in China seem to be manufactured by Chinese companies.
The technology, if I am not mistaken, were transferred to China by Soviet Union and European companies post WW2 in a legal and friendly manner, i.e., they send their experts here to do manufacturing or China send some people overseas to learn about the technology.
And the same thing happened to Japan if I remember correctly, they were able to "learn" designs from the West and improve on it to build their railway system that is one of the best in the world.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#Techn...
However the key part that China cannot copy from Japan is the human software part, that is the training and service excellence of 50 years of history with hundreds of millions of passenger kilometers of operational history and zero passenger fatalities during operation.
China's HSR has already had multiple fatalities during operation, unfortunately.
Yes - because in order to do business in China, you have to give over your IP to a Chinese company and 'partner' with them to sell there, OR, after you give over your IP someone else gets their hands on it and copies you and you've wasted your time.
China is not an open market, most sectors are heavily protected.
Granted - it's arguably a smart thing for them to do during 'catch up phase' - but you can't remain competitive by doing those things.
Non-Chinese nations should impose tarriffs on all Chinese goods until we can freely sell things there without government interruption.
They can protect their banks, telecoms etc. like every country, but not every consumer good.
The companies that have been successful there are largely consumer retail like restaurants, clothing etc..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_long_tunnels_by_type
Choose your arbitrary metrics wisely :)
http://brobible.com/life/article/average-penis-size-study/
(Sorry, could not resist)