DJI's First Delivery Drone Takes Flight Globally

It's not "more" tech. It's different tech. Lockheed makes the f-35.

If Lockheed were to try to make a drone equivalent to the best that DJI has to offer they would make that drone more expensive and actually much worse in performance, size and technology then the Chinese counter part.

One isn't more advanced then the other but each respective country is more advanced then the other in both of these technologies.

As someone who was born and spend half of my adult life in this country I can tell you an average Polish person didn't "hate Russians" in general before the recent intensification of the war in Ukraine. Despite the 50+ year occupation of our country and everything that happened during it an average Polish person didn't consider "the Russians" an enemy. No, we considered them mostly victims of their own mafia state regime. Also the common belief was most of Russians go along with the regime because they don't want trouble and only maybe up to 15% are real believers in the idea of imperial/communist(funny how both result in the same thing for the neighbours) Russia and even them were seen as sort of victims of their upbringing/propaganda. In short, no, before Feb 2022 most Polish people didn't "hate Russians". Even shortly after the start of the war this didn't really change much. There was an outpouring of support for Ukraine (despite our own mutual hate - look up Wolyn massacres and Ukrainian collaboration with Nazis) because people saw this war as an obvious parallel between how Russia invaded Poland in September 1939 taking advantage of a 2 week earlier Hitler's attack (in reality there was a secret pact, look up ribbentrop-molotov pact). But still, everyone thought this was what states sometimes do(mostly authoritarian countries, but it happens to democracies too), so just a fact a war happened wasn't enough. But then things changed, when news(and millions of refugees with their own recording on their own personal phones) showed us the atrocities "average Russian" drafted from general population does when given a gun and no law to stop him. Suddenly people in Poland realised of our "grandma's tales" of horrible atrocities done for fun by Russian soldiers 50 years ago weren't exaggerated. They were what happened back then and what happens now. This was very enlightening to the state of mind of an average Russian. If a normal country engages in war like in Iraq and Afghanistan for example rapes and arbitrary killing of civilians is the exception, it's a crime, when Russia engages at war it is policy, it is a gift for soldiers to "have fun" for a week before they go to the front as they are expected to die. Then there are all the mothers, the flies and everyone else in Russia. We expected people would see after few months their sons are dying for nothing, nope, they are all getting good (for Russian standard) money and they support it. A recorder and authenticated phone conversation was recorded between a young soldier and his new wife in Russia (he got drafted after the wedding). In this call she told him how she is "fine with him raping Ukrainians, because rape is not a betrayal, also she hates all of them, and when will all the appliances they looted (microwaves, flat screen TVs, washer) be arriving (they have essentially a courier service between the front and Russia for all of the loot). It is calls like that, and contacts with rare Russian that happens to be in Poland for business or driving a truck trough that made an average Pole hate an ordinary Russian. Not 400 years of attempted conquest (this is what nations do), but what they do when they succeed.

It's really hard to say. I think saying "the west doesn't truly care" isn't 100% accurate. Some people in the "free world" do truly care about these things. Some are more internally focused- it's a mix. It is not impossible that the US will defend Taiwan against a Chinese invasion. It depends on who is president, who their advisors are, what are they thinking about. "Caring" about Taiwan or Taiwanese might be some part of that calculation. For one thing the US having declared that it will do so increases the chances that they actually will, and their presence in the region also increases the probability. Do they have a variety of other considerations? Sure. Are they acting out of self interest, also sure. But the interests appear to somewhat align (i.e. it is in the US's interest that Taiwan remains in the western sphere of influence and it's also what Taiwan seems to want, and it's what China doesn't want).

If it was clear that the US would stay out of it then perhaps China would have already retaken Taiwan. Arguably some of the other conflicts are really part of the same power struggle. Russia's half-failure in Ukraine is maybe causing China to take a pause.

Ukraine and Israel are a little different. Israel has the capability to defend itself. Ukraine is arguably less strategically important. A direct confrontation with Russia has perhaps a higher risk of turning into a nuclear war.

Every country wants to have power, so in the end acts in its own intrest.

We as civilians have to choose if we want to live in a democracy or serve a dictator. It's clear dictators like to invade democracies, as is the case with both Russia and China.

Economic advancement of a dictatorship is asking for problems.

"Aviation and JavaScript" lol.

Maybe the Boeing issues are related to the use of JavaScript in Aviation?

Not really arguing about China being a manufacturing power house but I don't think that was the point that was being made. That part might be compatible with their regime (though arguably not the current regime any more). What would be the top 10 tech/science areas, other than aviation and JavaScript where China has demonstrable leadership over the west?

During Covid we saw mRNA vaccines coming quickly from the west. Including their manufacturing. Semi-conductor manufacturing technology is still led by the west (all the way up and down the stack). Tesla is manufacturing in the west fairly successfully (ofcourse with lots of Chinese parts). In the compute world I can't think of a single technology where China clearly leads. They might be manufacturing a lot of components but they're not the ones innovating/designing. Manufacturing is about cost/scale/momentum and they're still carrying a lot of the investment forward but I don't think the derivative of that is as steep as it was 5-10 years ago.

When I say 'western levels' I'm referring to GDP per capita.