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Comment by mSparks | Hacker News Reader

well. japan destroyed us car manufacturing.

and the ussr. despite everything. destroyed us global military equipement sales.

China seems to be picking at a dead carcass tbh, not exactly much left to take.

US is so scared of chinese tech advancement they have banned exports of high end intel chips there. but that hasnt stopped them taking all the top places of the worlds fastest supercomputers.

As soon as a couple of Chinese unis overtake the ivy league colleges will there be anything left in the US except bones?

would you even know whether they have already?

perhaps you missed junes

China maintained its No. 1 ranking on the 47th edition of the TOP500 list of the world’s top supercomputers, but with a new system built entirely using processors designed and made in China. Sunway TaihuLight is the new No. 1 system with 93 petaflop/s (quadrillions of calculations per second) on the LINPACK benchmark.

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> japan destroyed us car manufacturing.

Hardly. Toyota and Honda both make cars in the US, which seems counter to saying they've destroyed it.

Even just looking at the American manufacturers, America still does alright. For instance, in a list of the top 10 best-selling vehicles in the world in 2015 [1], yes, a Japanese car came in first, but a German car came in second and US took up the third and fourth spots.

yeah. Detroit. still the booming global center of car manufacture it was in the 80s.

Maybe if you close your eyes and click your heals together three times.

Meanwhile. in the slightly more real world.

http://theweek.com/articles/461968/rise-fall-detroit-timelin...

It's a lot more complicated than that. If you were forced to buy a US manufactured car in in 1979, it was pretty much guaranteed it would be an ugly, unreliable piece of garbage. And Detroit had already been a mess for decades. In response to Japanese competition and investment, US auto manufacturing quality has completely turned around, and is vastly better than before Japan was a big presence in the US market.

If it is such high quality now why did Detroit become the largest city ever to file for bankruptcy in 2013, even after the $17.4 billion bailout to GM and Chrysler in 2008?

How is that "vastly better"?

We're talking about production not the product. and that isnt complicated. Asian markets have an abundundant supply of highly skilled labour. western markets do not.

furthermore. that isnt a surpise. its policy.

>Detroit become the largest city ever to file for bankruptcy in 2013,

Detroit filing for bankruptcy has more to do with car manufacturing moving to southern, union free states and Mexico than it does with Japan.

funny how americans blame the labour unions for the destruction of their car manufacturing. when the country and companies that forced that destruction have

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labor_unions_in_Japan

It's quite simple. Detroit was built on manufacturing jobs. Those jobs went to southern states and Mexico. They didn't go to Japan.

The reason they went south is that labor was cheaper there because those states are unfriendly to unions.

I'm not blaming anyone, I'm pretty pro union myself, but that's what happened. You can argue until you're blue in the face, but it's a fact that the manufacturing jobs left Detroit for southern states and Mexico, not Japan.

Detroit is a city, not a car manufacturer it has its own set of problems. If GM/Ford/Chrysler filed bankruptcy, you'd have a point

> and the ussr. despite everything. destroyed us global military equipement sales.

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/27/world/middleeast/us-foreig...

"Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals."

only if you pretend things like this

http://news.sky.com/story/china-signs-russian-gas-deal-worth...

were not part of a gas for weapons agreement.

which it. well. was.

then you have stuff like http://m.sputniknews.com/military/20160217/1034893494/russia...

the difference is. both china and russia sign deals "payment in kind" us signs deals where they get nothing but some of their debt paid off from other (broke) g8 countries.

you know that's not sustainable for the us right?

China is paying Russia about a bit more than $10 billion a year for that deal. Even if some of that money is going for weapons, the US is still doing much more in total arms sales than Russia.

I'm not sure why I bothered responding, because I'm sure you'll reply with something about how they are really paying much more than that under the table (even though no reputable news sources have reported on it).

It's clear to reasonable people that neither the USSR, nor Japan destroyed the US economy. China will not destroy the US economy either.

This fear of China is caused by inappropriately extrapolating current trends, i.e., China is growing at 7% per year, and this rate will continue unabated despite that fact that historically GDP growth rate always declines as a country becomes developed.

As to your earlier assertions about super computers, those numbers are close to meaningless.

The UAE has the world's tallest building, should we be afraid of that?

If the UK wanted to build the world's fastest super computer, they could. If the US wanted to we could. It's just a dick measuring contest that is primarily a function of how much money a country currently wants to spend on building them.

The only thing faster super computers prove is that they are simply worth more to China than they are to us. They are massively behind us in nuclear capability, so the ability to conduct simulated nuclear testing is more valuable to them. The PR win is also correspondingly more valuable to them.

china gdp per capita even as it becomes the worlds larget economy this year is only $6,807.

Their growth rate is not going to slow or deviate significantly in our lifetimes.

Yes, I've seen the arguments to the contrary. But they are all based on wholly flawed assumptions.

the op is "Why China won’t own next-generation manufacturing".

Well. the worlds fastest super computers are what deliver next-generation manufacturing.

As for massively behind the us in nuclear capability.

Not for long. They already poached the US's best talent. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-next...

>Their growth rate is not going to slow or deviate significantly in our lifetimes

I'm not sure what you're basing your projections on, but China's growth rate has been heading down for the past decade. They are currently at half of their max GDP growth rate.

There are zero serious forecasts that show a constant ~7% growth rate for the next 50 years (based on your our lifetimes quote). That is insanely optimistic beyond even the dreams of the Chinese government.

>Yes, I've seen the arguments to the contrary. But they are all based on wholly flawed assumptions.

Again, any evidence that doesn't fit your narrative is rejected.

>Well. the worlds fastest super computers are what deliver next-generation manufacturing.

That's not even remotely close to true. Next generation manufacturing will primarily be driven by advances in automation that have little to do with super computers. The world's fastest super computers aren't even close to the largest factor in advancing manufacturing methods.

>Not for long. They already poached the US's best talent.

That article doesn't show anything except that a group in China has a goal of commercial molten salt reactors by 2030. According to the article they didn't even have funding yet past next year.

Stop posting random tangentially related articles that don't prove your point.

Seriously are you just trolling me? You really believe that China's growth rate won't slow over the next 50 years? That's completely insane.

I'm not sure what you're basing your projections on, but China's growth rate has been heading down for the past decade. They are currently at half of their max GDP growth rate.

lower growth last years was policy -prevent "overheating". http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/news/chinas-overh...

now it isnt

http://www.tradingeconomics.com/china/cash-reserve-ratio

still have something like 20 or 30 years left before they reach their urbanisation goals. And things dont stop there.

Your out of date and worthless references don't do you, or anyone else any favors here. The article from 2011 about China overheating is laughable.

China's economic numbers have long been known to be fiction, regardless of the truth or facts that may play a small part in their creation. http://www.economist.com/news/china/21689628-chinas-obsessio... http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527023034481045791521...

Current articles about energy oversupply only reinforce, in a current context, the fact that their GDP, growth and other financial numbers are fabricated: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-26/china-ener...

The only way to understand Chinese financial conditions is through hindsight. This is problematic for the global economy, but it's even more problematic for China. While their resources are massive, they are not infinite. The point is that it is not sustainable and eventually they will be forced to operate in reality and communicate their reality.

Not sure what you mean by "out of date" in 2011 they launched a policy of reducing growth by raising the reserve ratio massively, they are targeting "high single digit growth".

That growth is all mostly coming from the urbanisation policy. from 98% of the population living and working in the paddy fields a few decades ago to their target of 90% living in modern super cities.

They can literally double their output from now simply by spreading technology from the early 1900s, rather than pure manual labor. But they are going straight for "next-generation manufacturing".

"Energy oversupply", "city oversupply"... Those would be those "flawed assumptions" I was talking about. Its only "oversupply" if you think it impossible they get from the 56% urbanisation rate they are currently at, to somewhere near the 95% urbanisation rate of countries like the USA. Which is the current policy.

And pretty much anything is much much more productive than picking rice from a paddy field by hand, which is the current working day of 46% of the Chinese population - more than 600 million people - or twice the population of the US.

http://www.worldbank.org/en/country/china/publication/urban-...

By 2030, up to 70% of the Chinese population - some one billion - will be living in cities.

If they wanted to they could target high triple digit growth because it is all fiction.

China's diminishing growth, and a current, global energy oversupply are not flawed assumptions, they are global economic realities. I provided credible, current references to support this point in my previous post.

You can beat the drum about growth, urbanization or broad assumptions, but you fail to address the primary problem that this merely propaganda not grounded in credible, objective data.

I was more concerned my comment about China in hindsight and your out of date references would be misconstrued as contradictory. Your reference was out of date and already proven false and thus irrelevant. China can only be viewed in hindsight because it takes years to disprove the current propaganda.

is this a cause and effect thing you are struggling with?

didn't they teach you in school the effect (lower growth) has to come after the cause (raising the reserve ratio)?

Or is it just that because US policy has had all policy levers thrown on full speed and they still can't manage an inch of growth that you don't believe in them?

If that is the case, newsflash, that is because the workforce population isn't growing and the education system is shit.

You fail to address the elephant, so why chase the mice?

I thought the article was an interesting perspective because China does own manufacturing today. This is suggesting that next-gen manufacturing will present new challenges and benefits that will make it more difficult for anyone, in this case China, to own it in the future. In particular, this creates opportunities in engineering and automation, which from the comments, seem to be of particular relevance for this audience.

If you can't elevate your debate while acknowledging the fictional nature of China financial information this isn't much of a conversation.

Thanks for your perspective though.

The article does not in any way address the fact that China has the very low cost base (massive numbers of highly trained human capital and substantial investment in physical capital and R&D) to guarantee pretty much no other country can compete.

Does it?

Instead, it seems to start from the premise that they are not already the world leaders in "next gen technology".

Which is a total fallacy.

You know lines like:

China’s manufacturing engine has largely stalled

and

Even though China is graduating far more than 1 million engineers every year, the quality of their education is so poor that they are not employable in technical professions.

->utter BS. For a start, their "top 10%" is greater than the total number of US graduates. And their "Bottom 10%" is still more employable in a technical profession than an average US graduate.

Unfortunately, when you focus on human capital in China, you can't dismiss the fact that China, particularly in the manufacturing sector represents modern day slavery. The fact that no other country can compete only supports this.

In fact, the article does address this (cheap Chinese labor/slavery), and proposes that the shift in need of labor through robotics and automation, essentially resets the playing field in that regard.

They are not already the leader in next-gen technology because it is next-gen, is is in the formative stages. It is the leader in manufacturing, the current generation.

I don't agree with the statement that their manufacturing engine has stalled. Their growth is diminishing and their dominance is at risk.

I agree that the statement that their education is so poor they are not employable sounds like b.s.

That was never my point. If you can respond to my points, that would be a start. If you could refute them rather than promoting the propaganda I would be impressed.

->They are not already the leader in next-gen technology because it is next-gen, is is in the formative stages. It is the leader in manufacturing, the current generation.

Erm. They are the leaders in everything from manufacturing to supercomputing. What does that exclude?

-> Unfortunately, when you focus on human capital in China, you can't dismiss the fact that China, particularly in the manufacturing sector represents modern day slavery.

Maybe, maybe not. Working for western companies like Apple, sure.

Alibaba

probably somewhere between conditions at Google and Ebay.

At least you are funny...

So, it's the Western companies, like Apple? I don't think so. Western society may provide the demand and the capital to create the conditions, but the Chinese are the perpetrators of slave labor.

Can you provide some examples of where they are already leading in a field that doesn't exist yet?

nuclear: msr projects and their fusion reactors.

various space based warfare kit (shooting down satellites for example)

that quantum communication satellite.

Im sure there is more.

Then you do believe China has 50 years of 7% growth.

It seems you are a lone prophet crying out in the wilderness. No one else, not even actual Chinese propagandists would make this claim.

I've nothing left to debate with you. Your absurd exaggerations show that your arguments are based on nothing but your own pet theories augmented by Chinese propaganda.

I have no idea how someone outside of China could fall harder for Chinese propaganda than actual Chinese people.

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