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Comment by nradov | Hacker News Reader

Exactly. Advanced turbine manufacturing is largely a chemistry and metallurgy problem. The Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolution killed off China's intellectual capital so they had to start from scratch in 1976, and only really got moving in 1992. They've been way behind but will catch up eventually.

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According to the article, the skills gained from decades of manufacturing experience and the yield capabilities are more critical than simple chemistry and metallurgy.

The chemistry and metallurgy involved here are far from "simple".

Okay. Advanced chemistry and metallurgy then. What do you want to call it? Jetenginebuildingology?

Quick question. Same issue in Japan. They have talents and capital -- why do you think they are not able to come up with a reliable turbine -- when they can manufacture almost everything else?

Economics. Japan has chosen to specialize in other areas and being a jet turbine engine manufacturer isn't where they've chosen to put resources in. The pay off simply isn't there. They're there in the supply chain, with IHI, MItsubishi, and Kawasaki being in the business of advanced titanium and nickel superalloys being used in wind, steam, and gas turbines for powerplants. It's just that the economics of commercial jet engines themselves isn't something they've chosen to pursue.

Not for jet engines, those are basically all about metallurgy and nothing else.

Because repression is a thing of the past in China? They continue to persecute investors and business executives who get too successful and to repress academic work they find politically objectionable. The communist party continues to exercise control over all intellectual endeavors.

And don't think it doesn't matter for jet engines. This article gets into how the open acknowledgment and dissection of engine failure in the West promotes quality and that China has clearly not adopted this culture. Of course not.

They'll catch up in the same way the Soviet Union used to - at unsustainable cost and on the way to falling behind yet again.

Persecuting or favoring investors on a political basis "and to repress academic work they find politically objectionable" has come to America. The only business people intellectually weak enough to not be a threat are real estate developers.

Not that the tech industry leaders who are way too comfortable with fascism are making such a good showing either.

So you think it’s just as bad as China here? Please state plainly instead of dodging around. Would you just as soon live there, have made your career there? You think you’d be able to publish your books and prosper there? You think we are fascist and so… your life will be miserable now?

I think you’re being absurd. You’ve had a great and largely unfettered career. How has repression hurt you in the slightest? Who repressed you?

> Would you just as soon live there, have made your career there?

Speaking for myself obviously, but: absolutely yes

Only one of my books has been translated into Chinese, so what do I know?

Plainly, you’d much rather live here than there, and your equivalence is totally false. It’s a dictatorial repressive regime and much worse than here and you know it, and your comment is a corrosive disingenuous false equivalence.

It’s really a bizarre statement, a sort of narcissistic need to feel persecuted amidst a life of plenty in the wealthiest society ever known. They have forced sterilization of Muslim women in China, up until recently forced abortions under the one child rule, and you get disappeared for criticizing dear leader. And your cozy life is comparably miserable? Only in your mind.

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