China’s great leap forward in science
theguardian.com
theguardian.com
What the article actually says, is that China is investing a lot in basic science. What is true is that while the quality of research per researcher in China is not that high, the sheer investment and focus coupled with quantity has led to a lot of scientific progress.
My father is part of that thousand research program to lure specialists back to China. Having seen how he works in China compared to Australia, what the real advantage China has for researchers is that they give virtual free reign and all the resources needed (read: $$$, labs and all the grad students you want) to conduct research.
For those who've never worked in academia, even though there is more academic freedom outside of China, there are whole loads of red tape (mostly well-intentioned) that slow things down. For example, at Princeton, any social science experiment involving people requires a panel to approve the ethics. A similar experiment in a Chinese university does not have the same requirements. Even if they did on paper, it would not be as rigorous.
The same goes for expenditures. I remember my father complaining years ago about how for an Australian research project, spending research money on a special type of computer required additional approval even though the money for research was already granted. That's not the case in China.
The net effect is that shockingly enough, the Chinese have managed to create almost a startup-like sandbox environment for researchers. In fields, particularly biotech, where there are ethical, and other red-tape considerations, the Chinese have an edge in producing results faster.
Of course, this just means to get one cloned monkey, hundreds of independent teams mostly likely inhumanely murdered many multiples of monkeys to get to this result.
What is important is to realize that for the Chinese, this sort of Stanlinist "only the results matter" approach is perfectly acceptable, if not encouraged. Most people would balk at the ethical and human cost, I know I do, but there is no doubt that it provides an advantage to Chinese scientists over those in the developed world. Multiply in the sheer number of Chinese scientists and you have results. Progress at any cost.
See for example Nature: http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/experimental.html
Wonder if people with more insight would clarify how incentives work in Chinese academia.
it also worth noticing that Australia is not the best example to use here. e.g. the NBN project would be considered as a typical corruption case under the Chinese laws, in fact one can argue that it is the textbook definition of corruption in Chinese standard. Think about it - there is no ethics showstopper when laying fiber in Sydney/Melbourne, why the majority of residences in those two cities still don't get access to the NBN first promised back in 2007 after billions of AUD of their tax money already spent on NBN? Corruption is just corruption, calling it red tape is not helping. the rules are simple there - if you are not qualified for the job, it is fine, you get replaced/demoted, if you use red tape/endless paper work as excuses to misuse tax money (e.g. NBN), that is corruption and Central Commission for Discipline Inspection looks after you and your mates.
btw, by Chinese standards, the NBN corruption case is enough for many life imprisonment sentences. This week's news on Australian deputy PM living with his mistress (not his partner in his own words) in his friend's apartment rent free is just another good dose of corruption without consequence drama.
Sorry; I'm not familiar with this situation. Where's the misuse of public funds?
Can you list all the ethical and humane ways the "developed world" became "developed", for someone who thinks all you're arguing is China shouldn't be able to advance in the way we did, now we can't get away with it any more (in our own countries, at least; hence why we happily outsource everything from cheap phones to torture to less 'red-tapey' ones)?
Though nationalism is on the rise in India, it is still a very fractured society, with a strong emphasis on autonomy of groups to make their own "rules", treating the state as a weak actor. The quality of education at all levels is shockingly poor (specially in science and technology) and no way ready to produce any kind of revolution.
While India will make painfully slow progress in the physical sense (infrastructure), it is very unlikely to follow the Chinese model. Sadly India will remain fractured (or de-centralized, if you want to put a positive spin).
If you have been to India, you will know the pervasiveness of "status quo". Things are so broken, hard and complex that it does not make sense to even start doing something.
Yes, I'm aware that India is a single country, while Europe wasn't. But with the right amount of autonomy, you end up with the same conditions, and it's not too different in practice.
Also these states (or ancient / medieval kingdoms in them) have rarely been "at war" with each other. Until recently, India was sparsely populated and it was easy the "migrate" to another land to establish your kingdom rather than fight with your brother or cousin.
If you are interested, Francis Fukuyama [1] has a very interesting theory that says that India has been held together by its society and not its state. Multiple waves of invasion have not fundamentally altered the texture of the society, parts of the new culture have been slowly assimilated in it, often forcing the invaders to adapt to their new home.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origins_of_Political_Order
[0] http://www.personal.ceu.hu/corliss/CDST_Course_Site/Readings...
Some argue that China will do the same thing, but it's just as likely the elites continue to hoard most of the benefits of this development and it stays closed off. Trading personal freedoms for economic development is temping and very scary because it's tempting.
Ha-joon Chang was not advocating to trade personal freedom for economic development; he was explaining what really transpired, contrary to the official narrative on economic development.
It does look like an interesting paper. Thanks.
Most people won't complain about personal freedoms as long as their QOL is improving rapidly.
That this whole system has worked so well for 30 years completely undermines the entire basis of western macroeconomics and is the equivalent of telling a traditionally trained economist that the earth orbits the sun while they believed the opposite. It just does not compute and they can't even wrap their heads around it. Thus they keep predicting an imminent economic collapse every years even though they've been wrong for more than 25 years.
Huh? No they haven't. Especially since Japan was still crashing in the early 90s, it was hardly an established precedent by then.
> That's because money is electronically printed by the government and given to banks in exchange for bad loans on a regular basis.
Japan did the same thing, it led to zombie companies and a lost decade.
> There is no debt default crisis. The banks just keep lending and no government debt is created like it would be in America if the government wanted to do the same thing.
You see how this can't work forever, right? Also, if SOE's are publicly owned and their loans are implicitly guaranteed by the government, how is that not considered government debt?
> Thus they keep predicting an imminent economic collapse every years even though they've been wrong for more than 25 years.
It hasn't been 25 years, and whatever, China has crashed a few times since the early 90s. I remember seeing half completed buildings in Tianjin in 1999 just standing out as husks.
I know, I know, you think "its different this time" or "its different for china", but its all BS in the end, because it never is.
It should be interesting to see how it develops when the economic eventually slows down and China is no longer the cheap manufacturing park of the world.
25y is nothing. Japan went like that for 40y, from the end of WW2 to laye 80s. Until it stopped and never recovered since. Fortunately they stopped at a high income level.
A more interesting history is that of Argentina. It was an export powerhouse that went from being a poor Spanish colony in early 1800s to having a per capita income as high as Germany or France in 1920s. After the crash all went downhill and income levels are back to mid levels.
In a way China is subsidizing goods for the most of the world. The outcome is the kind of political problems this is causing in most countries.
Checkout Chinese provinces lying about inflating 25-30% of revenue, overstating their constant 7% gdp growth, debt ratio of over 300%, massive capital outflow, their own economists warning of a crash, and many others To see just how bad their crash will be
They became successful after getting more individualist.
At any rate, that's beside my point, which is that (whether or not they're useful) the existence of huge SOEs by definition isn't classical capitalism, no?
The chase after the buck, cult of success and celebrities, car-heavy cities. Also cars as status symbols.
The concentration of power in the central government isn't really that visible.
I agree with you second claim. There's recently really a strange deluge of anti-Chinese comments, even here on HN. My guess it stems from ignorance.
Model of what?
China does have the advantage that any dictatorship has: the country goes on any direction with full force.
Of course, it's all at the expense of the individual, their rights, liberty and life.
The benevolent dictator is only benevolent until he isn't.
Lol sure it works....until you're one of the citizen being tortured by the government. I can't believe how greedy these scientists are. As if Einstein should have worked for the Nazis.
"China 'holding at least 120,000 Uighurs in re-education camps'"
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/jan/25/at-least-12000...
"In China, the Brutality of ‘House Arrest’" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/25/opinion/in-china-the-brut...
"Liu Xiaobo, Chinese Dissident Who Won Nobel While Jailed, Dies at 61" https://www.nytimes.com/2017/07/13/world/asia/liu-xiaobo-dea...
"Report: China still harvesting organs from prisoners at a massive scale" https://www.cnn.com/2016/06/23/asia/china-organ-harvesting/i...
And yeah it sucks that China can do terrible things to its citizens, but I still think most of the negative sentiment toward China is economic. The sample size is small but successful empires from history always value their own success over the lives of foreigners. In that sense it doesn't matter if China is 'evil' or not - 'we' are not Chinese - it only matters if they are powerful enough that their self interest can cause significant harm.
http://www.aljazeera.com/programmes/insidestory/2014/05/chin...
In any case, I think China's cohesion can easily be seen just by looking at the differences in papers being published in china vs the west.
For instance, you won't find many if any papers in china on the effects of diversity within society and the workplace. Unlike here, they don't seem to be urgently researching in this area.
Maybe, and just maybe, their research in those areas is not something anybody would be willing to publish.
Also works on the flip side. WW2 and the work stemming form it saw massive technology advancement sin a small period.
Obviously I'd prefer the former. It also feel disingenuous not to recognise the latter. Essentially either comes down to giving scientists goals and opportunity.
Either a society is pushed to do so by an imminent danger (a war or a brink thereof), or by an authoritarian pressure (USSR, China), or starts to slow down (e.g. Russia and, to a smaller degree, USA). "Normal.people" deeply discount long-term goals in favor of immediate consumption.
If I were a smart Chinese scientist with degrees from top western universities, and I had the option to return to my home country, start a lab, and perhaps be part of a modern day scientific revolution, rather than spend 3 more years in a postdoc position in the us, id do it in a heartbeat
The above atmosphere is especially intense in China where the seriousness of Gaokao (高考) derives from the long history of imperial examinations (科舉) since over a thousand years ago. Just as in the old days, academic merits can greatly impact one's socioeconomic position for life. [1]
The system originates from Confucianism, which is an ideology with deep influences across East Asia (China, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan) and Singapore:
"Another new idea, that of meritocracy, led to the introduction of the imperial examination system in China. This system allowed anyone who passed an examination to become a government officer, a position which would bring wealth and honour to the whole family." [2]
From what I gather, this is not the case for American society. It is even embedded in language with pejorative terms like 'nerd', 'geek', and 'dork'. Yes, there are honor rolls but it doesn't seem like the kids honored are granted much social status by peers (Correct me if I'm wrong. I did not grow up in the US.). The top social groups belong to athletes, cheerleaders, and cool kids who devote their time to non-academic activites.
It is not surprising to see that these social factors, which have great influence on tweens and teens, may lead to weaker academic results for most students who do not have a chance to study and socialize in schools with more academic environment.
(It appears to me that Europe is somewhere inbetween the US and East Asia regarding this matter. If anyone from the US or Europe could comment, that would be quite informative.)
As a concrete effect, average American math level in high school is about 2-3 years behind their peers in developed Asia and also behind most of Europe. [3] This inevitably results in fewer students qualified to take 'hard' STEM majors in college and grad school. The US has been leading the world in science largely by the works of a minority of outstanding locals and a substantial immigration of global talent.
As China develops further and becomes able to train more students at home to their fullest potentials, as well as attracting back Chinese scientists who work abroad, it is not surprising their academic advantage may turn into a practical edge in scientific and technological development.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperial_examination
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism#Meritocracy
[3] http://www.businessinsider.com/pisa-worldwide-ranking-of-mat...
However, there's definitely pockets in the US from which a large part of the US academic elite come from for which it's not true that academic excellence isn't revered. A couple examples off the top of my head: The Palo Alto high school triangle, TJHSST, Exeter, the NY magnet school system, etc. A startling percentage of the US's top CS/math/physics talent comes from these schools.
In my personal opinion, top students at these schools will perform better than top students in China. Although the high level of academic rigor in high schools in China raises the average ability, it also dampens the amount of time that the top students have for extracurricular activities.
Top students from China vs. top students from American would be an interesting study. Comparing top students to average students never really makes sense.
Of course, there's still the several hundred million of impoverished in China that have much worse education.
It doesn't help that high level math teaching is restricted to pockets of excellence.
We just had a Fields medallist in Brazil. Yet we're in the bottom of the barrel when it comes to math teaching. We also share this disregard for 'nerds' as a society like the US
I considered applying to grad schools here, especially since some Chinese schools are quite highly ranked. Whenever I walk past Starbacks (not a typo) on my way to work, I'm reminded that there's very little respect for IP outside of China. I worry that if I ever came across promising research, someone else would take credit for it and I would be left with nothing.
I'm friends with an American here who started a pretty successful restaurant selling Mexican food. He says that if a wealthy, prominent Chinese person liked his business, that person could start the exact same business across the street and then sue my friend for copying the business, and the Chinese person would win the lawsuit because my friend is a foreigner.
In regards to the other things you said, air pollution is a thing but it wouldn't stop me from pursuing my career goals, and I expect it to get better. I think the standard of living here is pretty good (though that's mostly because most companies will pay foreigners a lot more than they'll pay locals, so your buying power is pretty high).
The current climate matters. It doesn't exist as a separate sphere distinct from technological innovation. It saps energy, destroys trust, and squanders human capital. And for what?
I don't think it's possible to enforce a strict ideological orthodoxy in one area while leaving the mind free to be creative in others. If people regularly get burned following their ideas, they'll learn a generalized intellectual timidity.
China doesn't have this particular social climate. It has many others, yes, including various human rights issues, but its problems don't seem as inimical to technical creativity as ours do.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Freedom_of_speech_by_country#P...
[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Americans_in_the_Ven...
I know that's a bit offensive, but as you said you would see a headline about the holocaust on poverty, or the genocide of african rape or the shoa of fake shekels?
But what about the holodomor on corruption? Does that sound like it could get past a non-ukrainian editor?
If it was meant as a Chinese equivalence for "leapfrog", the author is certainly missing some research, presuming good intentions.
Again I see immigration as mostly economic and foreign policy so being left on that isn't a good start. Throw in the wage gap (an econ issue they are far left on) or their pro-eu stance (very left econ wise).
Are you saying they are neoliberal because they are out and out socialists or something? What kind of right wing economic policies do they support aside from free trade which is not really strictly right/left anymore.
Please start here. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communism
If you fight for not getting reminded, how would we make sure you still remember, eh?