China Is Rapidly Becoming a Leading Innovator in Advanced Industries

It’s hard not to choose a car based lifestyle when outside of cities there is basically little or no public transit in many places. On top of that, when many people’s experience with travel by train is the outdated and slow infrastructure that already exists, why would they support more of that experience? I’m not anti- these things, just adding to the context.

Rail and cars aren’t mutually exclusive. Amtraks car carrier service seems to be very popular despite how badly they manage it.

Why can’t I drive my car on a train and go cross country?

In support of HSRs; I recently took a car train in Switzerland. They have - I think - 5 of these, which take a shortcut tunnel through various mountains, and saves you quite a bit of time, as well as angst driving through narrow and windy mountain roads.

So I could see similar HSR car trains saving quite a bit of time, between HSR hubs in appropriate cities in the US, versus spending e.g. 20+ hours driving from Dallas to New Jersey.

> ...the anti-intellectualism that's been in American society forever...

That seems to be a bit of a stretch, the US lacks many things but a high-skilled workforce isn't really one of them. The issue is more the anti-industrial trend. The systems that China used to get ahead and build things like all that high speed rail are mostly illegal, nonviable or - at best - politically hazardous in the US (massive amounts of low-quality construction, lots of coal fired plants, low wages, ignoring IP laws, experimenting with different legal structures in specific areas to see what works).

Right, because this time it's different! /s

Raising such speculation without any explanation as to why there's even a limit to free market societies, much less any proof that the US is close to reaching such a limit, is very poor pandering.

I think history has shown that a planned economy isn't really viable long term.

If the US has reached the limit of something (which I'm not sure about), it's the limit of a society organized in that one specific way. The US is an old country. It's far older than the current incarnation of China or most European countries. If a country remains stable that long without having to reinvent itself, it may risk stagnation.

> A planned economy works better for the citizens

I do not think so.

We have not had an example of a consumer society in a planned economy, that I know of

But the Soviet example is illuminating. They had fabulous infrastructure, built the best rockets, the fastest fighter jets, even had very good super computers.

But they never made a TV with a remote control.

I would love to see a study of consumer appliances in the USSR, but I bet there was a toaster available. One.

China may blaze a new trail and show us something new.

But now they have returned to "Leader for Life" I am expecting them to return to the days of Mao and loose their edge.

Go on China! Prove me wrong!!

> you said they can what?

Something tells me you and I live in US cities with different attitudes towards this sort of thing. ;-)

In Europe, some downtowns are already doing this, even without the robo-taxis to make up for it.

Yeah there’s no need to do that. Cooperative autonomous vehicles would make congestion near zero. In fact it would be like a self assembling train in all directions. The value of the train goes down dramatically when you factor commuting to and from the stations if you can eliminate human drivers. Vehicles would be high speed and capable of essentially congestion free transit by using basic graduate level control theory. I don’t think China built them something particularly useful in 10 years.

That’s not true at all. People will migrate for a higher quality of life, more opportunities and better financial gains even if they are not suffering. That’s essentially the bulk of legal immigration in the US and it’s mostly from India and China.

They kicked out all the people that did not fit the Han identity, so lots of the peoples that populate SEAsia today lived in what is now China. Those left in China, see themselves as unified Chinese people --they all adopted the mainstream prevalent culture --and don't long any erased ancient culture they might have had. They do not consider themselves as the remnants conquered tribes who were abused or decimated and subjugated by the Han. They see themselves, from their point of view as Han Chinese. Even Manchurians who at one point subjugated and controlled China, today see themselves as Chinese as any other Chinese in Beijing or Wuhan. They assimilated and took to Han culture and practice Han culture so much they are all one and the same today --with two exception and that is in their northwest and southwest --and those because those were very recent conquests. Most likely those in the southwest will assimilate despite a an exiled renegade spiritual leader who opposes the inevitable.

One difference is that the US is a mixture of all the worlds people's. Is there a historic world power as diverse?

China is helped by a straight forward "interests" based foreign policy

The USA has a "principles" based policy, that is hypocritical and is actually a private property based interests based policy.

It makes the Chinese straight forward to deal with, whereas the USA is not easy to deal with, you can never be sure where you will stand with them in a decade.

Then there is Trump....

To be fair, the germans were (let's lump both world wars here) attempting to replace the brits with themselves, not just play spoiler[0] and take them down.

(I've seen at least one economist claim that given the growth differentials, they would've been better off peacefully outcompeting them, but maybe the "Thucydides trap"[1] was already sprung? Even so, it's still an own goal)

[0] although this does make doing a Bradbury even more apt

[1] compare "always two there are. no more. no less."

As an avid user of both DJI and Bambu products, US-based equivalents, if they even exist, are so far behind the quality and capability curve it makes me genuinely sad.

As an example, I had a heatbed issue with an early X1C. I went back and forth with the Bambu support folks a few times, busting out a multimeter and thermal probe. They had no trouble interpreting the information, and sent me a replacement part, under warranty, ASAP. Can you imagine any company stateside that would engage in actual troubleshooting nowadays? At best it's going to be some poor guy stuck reading through a script they can't change, and aren't empowered to resolve anyway. Maddening.

The author of that book is part of the Silverado Policy Accelerator, a natsec state think tank.

Ukraine is a different affair. The CIA funded political parties during the Euromaidan/Automaidan, which resulted in internal conflict that led to the current state of affairs. The only reason they could predict it was that it was their goal.

china is not know for invading

I hate to break it to you but this:

The USA, overall, does not encourage the development of high-tech engineering, improved infrastructure, cultural growth, appreciation for academic rigor

is not true in the slightest. In my lifetime the USA brought to critical mass most technology that makes the modern world modern.

Infrastructure issues are a lack of holding local government accountable. My area our infrastructure is mostly new with several large bridges recently replaced without incident, most highways recently expanded, train infrastructure greatly improved and capacity expanded (and soooo much quieter it's awesome). Sewer expanded AND releasing less into the river. Oh and water policy changes (made possible by infrastructure improvements) allowing the re-establishment of Salmon in our rivers, improved sturgeon population.

The average American males attitude towards women in my lifetime has taken a huge cultural shift for the better. Huge changes have been made to reduce domestic violence (and peoples indifference to it) in my lifetime. Huge strides against inequality and racism have occured in my lifetime. Huge strides in LGBT+ rights. These are just off the top of my head cultural growths that have occured in my lifetime.

The education of the average American is soo much better than it was of my parents generation, or the one before them. People are much more empathetic, inquisitive, understand more tech, are more well read. I agree we don't place unreasonable academic expectations on our children, but don't mistake that for a lack of intellectual inquisitiveness. In fact, I would say our attitude sparks it more, and to a deeper, more passionate level. I can't recall running into young people who can't sign their name, while that was not uncommon in my grandparents generation and I know multiple people like that in my parents.

The USA is doing so much better than we were in the 1970s. The USAs willingness to vocalize our doom and gloom feelings is just one of our strengths, not a sign of our impending collapse.

I love China. My dad was a hippie, we had so many books on China and communism (I even grew up on a commune in the 70s). I have visited China and loved it. I have friends there, and many friends in the USA who were born in China (and got stuck in the USA when they were students during tiananmen). I wish China the best. It doesn't have to be an us versus them, this isn't Civ. Lying about the USA doesn't accomplish anything. Those trying to doom and gloom the USA into Russian style indifference are mistaking the 'tragically online' attitude of despair for a general American one.

Stop stifling dissent. People who can think freely on software, or chemistry or whatever, are not eager to accept a situation where they cannot also think freely about politics and international relations.

Accept reality in international situations. (Taiwan is a de facto separate country; the nine-dash line is a mapmaker's aberration rather than any kind of reality.)

Accept reality in economic statistics. (A number of those apartment buildings are worth zero.)

Accept reality in society. (People don't like being fed propaganda. People don't like thinking that they can be in trouble for saying what they think.)

But I don't think they can do those things and keep any kind of "business as usual"...