China's Leaders Vow Tech 'Self-Reliance,' Military Power and Economic Recovery (nytimes.com) 108
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: China's Communist Party emerged from four days of meetings behind closed doors in Beijing declaring the country's leader, Xi Jinping, a "helmsman" who would lead "the ship of socialism sailing into the wind and waves with determination." At a time when other world leaders remain consumed by the coronavirus pandemic, China promised an economic revival, greater technological self-reliance and a stronger military to protect the country's economic and political interests. The meeting underscored Mr. Xi's seemingly boundless political control, as well as his ambitions to propel China out of the current crisis into a new phase of growth, less vulnerable to external risks. Here are the main outcomes from the meeting, which outlined policy priorities for the coming years.
Economic revival: After the shock from the coronavirus crisis of the first months of this year, China's economy returned to4.9 percent growth in the July-to-September quarter, and exports have revived strongly. In its five-year plan, China aims to expand domestic markets and encourage innovation across the economy -- from cutting-edge technology to more efficient farming -- the party leaders said in an official summary of their meeting. That summary did not offer specific growth projections from 2021.
Homegrown technology: The meeting of the party's Central Committee declared that China would make enhanced technological self-reliance a priority over the next 15 years. "Insist on the core status of innovation across all of our national modernization," the leaders said. "Make technological self-sufficiency a strategic pillar of national development."
Military modernization and security: The Central Committee declared that China's military -- one of Mr. Xi's core priorities since taking office in 2012 -- had improved greatly, even as it promised to make still more "major steps" to enhance the country's security. The committee did not detail any new programs but called for "comprehensively strengthening military training and preparedness."
Economic revival: After the shock from the coronavirus crisis of the first months of this year, China's economy returned to4.9 percent growth in the July-to-September quarter, and exports have revived strongly. In its five-year plan, China aims to expand domestic markets and encourage innovation across the economy -- from cutting-edge technology to more efficient farming -- the party leaders said in an official summary of their meeting. That summary did not offer specific growth projections from 2021.
Homegrown technology: The meeting of the party's Central Committee declared that China would make enhanced technological self-reliance a priority over the next 15 years. "Insist on the core status of innovation across all of our national modernization," the leaders said. "Make technological self-sufficiency a strategic pillar of national development."
Military modernization and security: The Central Committee declared that China's military -- one of Mr. Xi's core priorities since taking office in 2012 -- had improved greatly, even as it promised to make still more "major steps" to enhance the country's security. The committee did not detail any new programs but called for "comprehensively strengthening military training and preparedness."
I think I can guess their slogan (Score:5, Funny)
Make China Great Again
Re: (Score:1)
Re: I think I can guess their slogan (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
For some definition of "world".
âoeHomegrown Technologyâ (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone else find it odd that Slashdot publishes Chinese military talking points, but wonâ(TM)t publish coverage of USâ(TM) own plans for critical infrastructure independence?
Re: (Score:1, Troll)
Based upon stolen western IP.
China right now has more engineers and scientists in training than the US has in total. Even if the quality of Chinese education is not as great as in the US, the sheer numbers will speak for themselves.
And we already see the effects: Huawei is pressured because they dared to create better and cheaper hardware than the US companies.
Re:âoeHomegrown Technologyâ (Score:4, Insightful)
Even if the quality of Chinese education is not as great as in the US, the sheer numbers will speak for themselves.
Ahh, a variant of the infinite monkey theorem.
They should read The Mythical Man-Month, throwing more people at a project almost never leads to the desired outcome.
Re: (Score:3)
They should read The Mythical Man-Month, throwing more people at a project almost never leads to the desired outcome.
Perhaps having more projects does?
Re: (Score:2)
Wait... you couldn't possibly be suggesting that there is diversity in China... that's like heresy in free market capitalism... we all know commies only have one way of thinking.
Re: (Score:2)
In and of itself, it doesn't.
More projects with infinitesimal chance of success still only adds up to a very small chance, not least because they aren't actually additive.
China was a source of many world-changing inventions, thousands of years ago. What changed? They haven't put out anything more than minor refinements on others' work in millennia.
Re: (Score:2, Insightful)
It's the name of the theorem: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Go get triggered somewhere else.
Re: (Score:2)
I don't believe it to be demeaning and insulting. It's an analogy. Get a grip or go get triggered somewhere else.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
What good is all this brain power when the government does not give people the freedom needed to take advantage of it?
If someone wants to build a better rocket to carry people into space in the USA then they have the freedom to try. Sure, there's going to be plenty of paperwork and legal issues to work out but the government isn't going to ban it. In China no one is allowed to try since the government would suspect a private;y run rocket test is a ploy to escape the country.
If there's a rocket launch in t
Re:âoeHomegrown Technologyâ (Score:5, Interesting)
Just wondering, have you been to China and seen any of their tech development first hand? Do you read scholarly journals very often and look at where the authors are located. If you did either of these, you would see that there are areas China is vastly more developed than America. Some of these areas include the wide application of AI. Another good example is essentially any practical analysis of tunnel boring. Oh interesting enough you can find good papers about applying AI to understanding the factors involved in driving a tunnel boring machine.
Keep acting like free speech is the end-goal of all of society and you effectively divorce yourself from any reasonable understanding that evolution has no goal... but how does that dog food dogma taste bro?
Re: (Score:1)
Indeed. In China, freedom would never be allowed to be a barrier against the expansion of AI initiatives.
Re: (Score:1)
China has been great about tweaking established ML approaches. You'll see plenty of authors from Chinese universities publishing at ICCV and CVPR, for instance. Those conferences, while top tier, are focused on applying ML to vision problems, not necessarily inventing and analyzing some vastly novel ML approach.
Authors at Chinese universities significantly lag, in contrast, at developing novel, very useful, and widely recognized ML schemes. They've started breaking in more to the NIPS and ICML scenes, bu
Re: âoeHomegrown Technologyâ (Score:2)
I agree predominantly. Cavets would be that many AI publications in American and European universities still have ethnic Chinese as authors. As for creativity, more can certainly be done. However, as China's economy shifts towards self consumption and as western nations isolate them more, the shift will likely happen in the same way that they developed many industries such as plastic. It's not instant but China has a resilience in it's cultural approach. Mostly China hasn't been forced to innovate an
Re Homegrown Technology (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm sure China leads the rest of the world in some areas of technology. This lead is not likely to stay because they chose to restrict the freedom of the people to compete and collaborate as they wish.
China doesn't just lag behind in technology because they don't value free speech. They lag in technology because they lack many other values. Let's consider China's desire to be more self reliant on military technology.
China lags behind on nuclear naval propulsion, because they don't value alliances with na
Re: Re Homegrown Technology (Score:1)
You didn't explain how China became a leader in certain tech fields and then you make the claim it will lag. it's like you believe in magic...
You then show how Chinese tech is not comparable by only considering military applications of technology. Could it be China has better things than to be a warmongering country... apparently not in your mindset.
Re: (Score:3)
You didn't explain how China became a leader in certain tech fields and then you make the claim it will lag. it's like you believe in magic...
Or, it's like I already wrote a long post and I didn't feel like going on for another three paragraphs to explain that minor point.
You then show how Chinese tech is not comparable by only considering military applications of technology. Could it be China has better things than to be a warmongering country... apparently not in your mindset.
Or, it could be by pointing out that China lags in military technology I have one example that shows a general lag in all technology, a general lack of concern for the Chinese people, as well as a lack in sufficient military and industrial capacity for the Chinese government to be any real threat to anyone but the Chinese people.
China wants to be self sufficient politically, eco
Re: (Score:2)
It appears to me that China wishes to sever ties with all other nations so that they would be free to wage war with their neighbors without running the risk of economic sanctions slowing them down.
This is another huge leap. There are plenty of nations China has good ties with. Even many European countries have good ties with China. If the US said to many European countries right now, "Us or them" -- many European countries would cut of economic ties with the US in lieu of the much more disastrous outcome of cutting ties to China. Why do you think so many countries deny that Tiawan is a separate entity from China?
Your own claims defeat themselves and then you make smug statements like it's trivial to
Re: (Score:2)
China lags behind on nuclear naval propulsion, because they don't value alliances with nations that developed this technology.
You think the same nations that don't want to let Huawei deploy 5G, would be willing to let China have their nuclear naval propulsion technology?
Do you think America would be happy with any country that tried to cooperate with China in that way? What do you think might happen?
Re: (Score:3)
I read scholarly journals very often, and I am struck by the vast number of solicitations I get for publishing in Chinese garbage journals. Many of these journals seem to be reputational echo chambers and citation rings that exist for the purpose of establishing a veneer of credibility for junk research done by phony scientists. I also peer review journal articles with Chinese authors. Some of them are decent, some of them a
Re: (Score:1)
Thanks for your reply. What is your specific field? Also, I find that your statement could be true of a number of a couple of fields for scientists outside China. In fact a bunch of the research into Corona virus seems to be relatively junk in terms of impact, if not even worse with questionable data and conclusions. A number of fields have been losing "reproducibility" which is a core for science and as such these fields seem to fit in my mind as being plagued with "junk research".
Re:âoeHomegrown Technologyâ (Score:4, Insightful)
Re: (Score:2)
We are in complete agreement here about open science and open access. For awhile I worked on some projects to better facilitate sharing the data processing pipelines along with the data itself which would allow researchers to reproduce the results and more specifically no black box. In addition this would facilitate extension on-top of reproducibility, so that groups could add there own metrics and etc into the mix. Modeling and machine learning seem to be areas we find in a lot of science now that often la
Re: (Score:3)
And that's why you are being overtaken.
This is exactly what happened with 5G, everyone in the West assumed that the Chinese couldn't invent anything and would just rip off their ideas when they got around to having them. Then Huawei patented all the 5G stuff and started releasing hardware everyone else was years behind and faced with paying them royalties.
Same with the Japanese car industry way back. Written off as poorly made, funny little copies of Western brands, until one day they were better and outsel
Re: (Score:1)
Huawei is NOT a leader in 5G technology, and they got most of the way to where they are through espionage.
https://www.lightreading.com/5... [lightreading.com]
https://www.wsj.com/articles/h... [wsj.com]
Re: (Score:2)
WSJ is paywalled. The other one I skimmed but the two central claims are dubious.
They say that Huawei's massive R&D budget, multiples of Cisco's, covers lots of things. It certainly does, but so does Cisco's. Cisco isn't putting every penny into 5G either. Huawei's size also gives them advantages, because as well as developing the technical standards they are developing phones that implement them and network hardware to interface with and more besides, right down to the silicon level.
The other point abo
Re:âoeHomegrown Technologyâ (Score:4, Insightful)
What good is all this brain power when the government does not give people the freedom needed to take advantage of it?
So you've never been to China or even spoken with an actual Chinese citizen.
If someone wants to build a better rocket to carry people into space in the USA then they have the freedom to try. Sure, there's going to be plenty of paperwork and legal issues to work out but the government isn't going to ban it. In China no one is allowed to try since the government would suspect a private;y run rocket test is a ploy to escape the country.
What a bullshit. China has no exit visas and passports are freely obtainable by anyone. There are plenty of Chinese tourists everywhere as a result, the greatest limiting factor for travel is almost total incompetency of the population with English or other foreign languages. But since early 2000-s, English in China is being studied in all schools starting from the 5-th grade. I have a friend who did a stint as an English teacher in China, the demand was so great.
China cannot surpass the USA in technology until they give their people the freedom to speak freely. Which brings up another thing holding China back in technological development, that people are not able to speak freely with others outside the country, or even among themselves in the country.
China doesn't care about non-political speech. As long as you're not publicaly calling to replace the CCP or making porn, you can speak of whatever you want. There are certainly no problems with STEM research, as it's mostly apolitical.
Re: (Score:1)
China has no exit visas and passports are freely obtainable by anyone.
Yeah, I forgot-- it's just Hong Kong where people aren't allowed to leave, because they dared to speak out. "Mainland" Chinese citizens wouldn't dream of speaking out, so they're allowed their "freedom".
Re: (Score:2)
Yeah, I forgot-- it's just Hong Kong where people aren't allowed to leave
Again, total nonsense. Hong Kong citizens can _easily_ leave, with Britain allowing extended stays and even immigration. There are no legal or even semi-legal limits on this.
Re: (Score:3)
https://www.bbc.com/news/world... [bbc.com]
https://www.scmp.com/news/hong... [scmp.com]
Right. They're not stopping anybody from leaving.
Re: (Score:2)
Mr Li, who was arrested earlier this month for alleged collusion with foreign forces and money laundering, was detained on suspicion of "unlawfully crossing the border", the South China Morning Post reported, citing police sources.
Try escaping to Canada if you're on bail with an active criminal case going on against you. I'm not arguing that the charges against him might be fake, but it's a far cry from "people being prevented from leaving".
Re: (Score:3)
It's exactly "people being prevented from leaving".
The clear message there is, "If you say something we don't like, we will take your freedom away." In such a case, you never really had freedom in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
It's exactly "people being prevented from leaving".
The US is preventing people from leaving.
The clear message there is, "If you say something we don't like, we will take your freedom away." In such a case, you never really had freedom in the first place.
Re: (Score:2)
wtf are you even talking about? We can speak out against the government all we want here. It's a cornerstone of our civilization.
But I'm done arguing with Chinese trolls. Have a good day.
Re: (Score:2)
wtf are you even talking about?
You can't leave the US if you are under investigation for money laundering. The US is preventing people from leaving!
Re: (Score:2)
Getting out from under the US' thumb is difficult, they claim you as a source of tax revenue even after you leave, for a time.
But it's mostly difficult because nobody really wants Americans any more. They'll take us if we have skills they're desperate for, of course. But there's not tons of countries where we can just move to easily any more. There's a few in central and south america that will take us if we can demonstrate proof of income, but otherwise you need to be somebody or have skills which are in c
Re: (Score:2)
Re:Homegrown Technology; (Score:4, Informative)
Do you mind if I call out your bullshit ?
"passports are freely obtainable by anyone"
Could you kindly explain to us what the chinese citizenship score is and what are its consequences ? ... millions of chinese being forbidden to buy a plane or a train ticket ?
Like
Children of low score parents being barred from attending university ?
Getting your score lowered for jaywalking (and getting IDed by AI-powered city cameras) ?
Smoking in the bullet trains ?
Are you part of the 50-cent army ?
Re: (Score:2)
China doesn't care about non-political speech. As long as you're not publicaly calling to replace the CCP or making porn, you can speak of whatever you want. There are certainly no problems with STEM research, as it's mostly apolitical.
Politics gets into all sorts of things in the so-called apolitical realms of science and technology. The space race between the USA and Soviet Russia? Mostly driven by politics. All great achievements, but also a great deal of showing off. Investing in research technology has been popular with politicians for ages, provided that it makes them look good and gets them elected. I would admit that some fields of research might not attract political interest, such as the fractal patterns of the wrinkles on the s
"Non political speech" (Score:2)
It sounds so innocuous - only non political speech is limited.
Sorry to say that the CCP, like all communist parties, takes a very broad view of what constitutes political speech. It goes well beyond "replacing the CCP or making porn"
That even you admit that the CCP finds "making porn" to be a political act is telling.
Re: (Score:2)
Can confirm, several family members have recently applied for Chinese passports and received them quickly and without issue.
Parts of China are actually quite cosmopolitan, especially in the south west. Bikini pool parties, sex toy shops... And many of the rumours are simply false, e.g. you can buy Winnie The Pooh merch from the Disney store or Taobao, it's not banned.
Of course parts of it are really, really bad and we shouldn't forget that. But the Chinese government isn't busy destroying its economic prosp
Re: (Score:2)
Everything you said was equally true of N*** Germany and the US coveted their scientists enough to pretend they did nothing wrong. Even if the Chinese government is at a "bad guy" level of N*** Germany, which some people agree with and some people do not, do not underestimate the brilliant sociopath roll. And China has a lot of dice.
What the fuck is a lameness filter and what is lame about this? Ah, we can't say N A Z I any more.
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
I guess it's effective, and it has the side-effect of making Godwinning a topic a little more circuitous, but sometimes you just need to use the word N when you're referring to fascist Germans of the 30s and 40s.
There are self-described four-letter n-words in America today. That word's got legs.
Re: (Score:2)
If someone wants to build a better rocket to carry people into space in the USA then they have the freedom to try. Sure, there's going to be plenty of paperwork and legal issues to work out but the government isn't going to ban it. In China no one is allowed to try since the government would suspect a private;y run rocket test is a ploy to escape the country.
I thought your pro-nuclear anti-solar ranting was completely over the top. But this makes it almost seem sane in comparison.
Why would anyone go to all the trouble and bother of making a rocket to escape China in. And not just buy a plane ticket and do it the usual way?
Re: (Score:2)
And good percentage of them will be devoted to shoring up the CCP dictatorship through technological means and syndicating that technology across the planet to other countries wanting to track, surveil, censor and oppress their population.
One Ring to rule them all,
One Ring to find them,
One Ring to bring them all,
and in the darkness bind them
Well if we'd stop sending our jobs and factories (Score:3)
Maybe if we invade Mexico.... Pretty sure we'd get our buts kicked by Canada.
Re: (Score:1)
You do know that slavery in China is a relatively small percentage right. Slavery is something that is more common in Africa. There is about as much slavery in China as there is in America...
What China does have a lot of is poor people with a seemingly crazy work-ethic compared to Americans. Three days off in a month -- no problem (it's somewhat common actually).
Also the use of prisoners in America to produce things is extremely limited -- so you should get your facts straight. In most states it's limited primarily to things like license plates. In some states there is a larger range of work but then it comes with a small base rate. This is a wage so it's not slavery, even if it is an artificially low wage. It's more like indentured servant which is a much better parallel to what's going on in China.
But hey, I get it -- you are probably American, so you love hyperbole.
You do have citations to back up your claims, right? Otherwise what you are posting must be hyperbole, and therefore you must be an America (your logic, not mine).
Re: (Score:2)
I haven't posted here in many years, but yes it is odd and obvious.
Self-Reliance = taiwan is us! (Score:3)
Self-Reliance = taiwan is us!
Re: Self-Reliance = taiwan is us! (Score:1)
Re: (Score:2)
took me a second to get it, but to your point:
"strengthening military" + " technological self-sufficiency" + "expand domestic markets" = no more taiwan
scary stuff
Re: (Score:3)
Re: (Score:3)
Perhaps the world is more pragmatic than the US is, and therefore doesnt blame China for a naturally occurring virus?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Bingo. More than that... here is the parallel.
You have one country where the local representatives wish to silence what is potentially a large health issue. They do this successfully for a short period of time before the issue is so large, that this can no longer be done. There leaders discover the issue and take swift action to reduce the impact of this health issue. In particular the countries leader takes a drastic measure and lockdowns not only this local area but most of the country. Not only this but
Re: (Score:2)
Funny how the original post was moderated "Troll" and this gets moderated "Interesting." Has the CCP taken over Slashdot moderation?
Re: (Score:1)
It's funny how this get's parroted like any American who is willing to consider China in any positive light is instantly called a member of the CCP. If only joining was that easy, I would of signed up already.
Nonetheless you seem to ignore the insanity of current western politics exemplified by leadership in the US and the UK. Instead you suggest by mocking China, that these cultures which are so disorderly with respect to governance and individual civic social obligation are still yet somehow superior?
The
Re: (Score:2)
Yawn
Re: (Score:2)
Well, there are a few things.
They happened to be the starting point for COVID-19. This might could have happened to anyone, but it may also be rooted in some practice that could be addressed. By itself, probably not enough to be up in arms about.
Also, Xi Jinping has been declared leader for life. It's always been a bit worrisome about how the political scene has been there, and this is another step in that direction.
Also, they have reneged on their one-nation, two systems promise regarding Hong Kong, and ca
Re: (Score:2)
Few are blaming China for the existence of the virus. That's an unsupported conspiracy theory. Many are still blaming China for the virus' success, though, because they concealed facts about it for some time after they knew it was a problem. If they had opened up about it and asked for help early, we might have avoided this pandemic, or at least its severity.
"...technological self-sufficiency..." (Score:3)
of course, now that the milk ain't free anymore
Re: (Score:2)
They have been on this path for a while, initially to develop hardware for government and military use. They have their own CPUs that use MIPS architecture, been going since the 90s. RMS used to have a laptop with one of those CPUs and some new models were announced just last week.
They also have x86 CPUs. Some are in partnership with VIA (Taiwanese) and some are in partnership with AMD. The AMD ones are particularly interesting, basically Ryzen but on a larger (and thus slower and less efficient) process, w
Once Biden is in office (Score:1)
Good chance for China to test the military and burn up some of the 1st generation equipment and see what works what does not.
The US will be consumed with the transfer of power and the Socialist bumping Biden out of the way with the election in the rear view mirror.
This is a good idea (Score:4, Interesting)
Nixon opened up China in 1972. Since then, that country has benefited greatly from engagement with the rest of the world. On VERY favorable terms. For the most part, it's very difficult to figure out how much of China's success is because of their own initiative. They will claim is was all them, the west will claim that they helped China out of poverty, and the truth is probably somewhere in between.
Let them go their own way. Let's disengage and see who backtracks more. If I was a betting man, my money would be that the western world contracts economically around 5% as we shift manufacturing elsewhere. I'm guessing that China is going to drop a whole lot more. But... whatever the outcome... this is a good experiment. It's a for-realzies acid test. Let's see if the Chinese Communist Party has truly invented something new and improved (like they claim), or if they're just a plain old oligarchy that's been riding the coattails of the capitalist democracies, or if it's something in between.
Re: (Score:3)
History has demonstrated again and again that when a nation is suddenly isolated and cut-off, politically and economically, from the rest of the world, it always leads to one thing, and one thing only:
War.
Re: (Score:2)
North Korea has been cut off politically and economically from the rest of the world for something close to 70 years. How long will it be before there is a war from this?
I'm far from any kind of expert on what is going on in North Korea but in listening to the experts it sounds like North Korea is close to collapsing. They are running out of food. They are running out of fuel. They are running out of people willing to put up with the self imposed poverty, and those at the top are running out of ways to
Hey China, You Forgot Something (Score:1)
China imports 80% of their oil and most of it comes from the Mid-East. I don't think they can count on America protecting their shipping in the future. You may say, but they have a navy! Yes, but how many hulls can actually do escort duty all the way to the Mid-East and back? I leave it to the curious to do the home work.
It's attractive rhetoric for nationalists. (Score:5, Insightful)
But self-reliance has a downside: it isn't economically efficient. By all means vow to achieve economic growth, but saying you'll do this while becoming self-sufficient is like claiming you can drive a stick shift car with one hand tied behind your back.
The great historical demonstration of this was Mao's Great Leap Forward. Mao wanted to become self-sufficient in everything. This included steel, but China didn't have the energy resources to run the full-sized steel mills they'd need. And they couldn't import it -- that wouldn't be self-sufficient. So Mao decreed that neighborhoods and farm collectives build small, wood-fired steel furnaces -- tens of thousands of wood-fired "backyard furnaces". The collectives quickly ran out of trees to cut down and began scavenging wood, even digging up coffins. There wasn't enough ore to feed the furnaces, and they weren't allowed import it -- that wouldn't be self-sufficient either. So to meet their quotas they began melting down any metal they could find. This included their farm machinery, contributing to a famine that killed more Chinese people than the Japanese did in WW2.
And for all that sacrifice, they never came close to becoming self-sufficient in steel. In fact after a year or so of this the party finally learned that those backyard furnaces weren't even producing steel; they were producing pig iron. People must have been afraid to tell the party officials the bad news.
Contrast this with Deng Xiaoping, who had no problem making China the dominant producer of steel in the world. He did it with trade. Now did they cheat along the way? Sure, some. But it wasn't the kind of cheating they could hide; everyone knew what has happening, but went along with it in exchange for a mountain of cheap shit.
Self Sufficiency and Taiwan (Score:3)
You make a good point. The idea that free trade allows each economy to specialize on the things that they are best at is classical economic theory.
China and the Tigers before them certainly did very well by focusing on trade. Doing what they did best, cheap manufacturing, and importing materials and technologies.
However, times have changed. China now has world class technology, and does not need to import any. It also has plenty of raw materials. On the other hand they are still vulnerable to political
Re: (Score:2)
It is all about Taiwan. If China (tries to) invade, there will be a cold war that is colder than anything had with the Soviets. There will be no trade.
Why do you think that? They managed to destroy democracy in Hong Kong without any serious repercussions.
Re: (Score:2)
No, Taiwan is quite different from Hong Kong. China always had nominal control over Hong Kong, but has no control at all over Taiwan.
There would be a hot war, which is unthinkable in the modern psyche.
At the very least, nuclear weapons introduced to Japan, S. Korea and Vietnam.
It would be huge. Not even the likes of Obama would be able to ignore it.
Comparative Advantage (Score:2)
an economics concept, is not understood by many "self-reliance" touting strongmen
Re: (Score:1)
The idea of comparative advantage was an idea that took Latin America by storm in the 19th century. Meanwhile, US stole technology from Europe in the 19th century, engaged in heavy protectionism that some say help caused the Civil War, as Europe put tariffs on US cotton, etc., due to US tariffs on Europe's higher tech goods to protect US budding industry, further dividing the nation.
100 years later, US industries caught up. Latin America, who was following the latest and greatest theories of comparative a
Re: (Score:3)
But self-reliance has a downside: it isn't economically efficient.
When much of the international reliance is because of the need to import food and energy it leaves a nation weak. Reliance on such vital resources leaves a nation with little leverage in international negotiations. If it's a matter of not getting coffee or peaches then that's just a matter of having to drink tea and eat oranges instead. If it's a need to import 80% of their petroleum then an oil embargo can bring their economy to its knees overnight.
Americans have been begging to be free of the politics
See, this is what you get (Score:2)
when you install an idiotic sociopathic buffoon into the Oval Office. Yes, China was almost certainly on this course anyway, but Trump's handling of what can now only laughably be called 'foreign relations' probably hastened it by a decade or two. Pissing off a country as big as China and poking it with a stick repeatedly can never end well. It's necessary to push back against them, and to prepare for their inevitable attempts to dominate the world; but some tact and subtlety are needed, and I suspect Trump
Re: (Score:2)
Trump is doing so well on foreign relations that it was a topic that wasn't even discussed during the debates between Biden and Trump.
Tell me something, where is the USA at war right now? There's certainly plenty of Americans in uniform all over the world but how many of them are seeing any battles? Where are these battles being fought?
President Trump oversaw the American embassy in Israel being moved to Jerusalem. He negotiated a handful of deals in the Middle East that improved relations and trade. IS
Re: (Score:2)
Mostly BS. The alleged president has put NATO on rocky ground, Obama had already started NATO on becoming less reliant on the U.S.
The alleged president managed to avoid war by selling out the Kurds to those nice Turks, and is currently abdicating any gains in Afghanistan to the Taliban. He managed to up the ante for the murderous Saudi aggression in Yemen.
The gains in MidEast is mostly because the Palestinians are past their sell by date and the Iranians are scaring the pretty little pink panties off the Su
Re: (Score:2)
Tact and subtlety only confuse buffoons.
China may be a lot of things, but stupid ain't one of 'em.
China was playing the statecraft and empire building games when most other peoples were still building mud huts and playing with sticks. They know how the game is played, and they can see through bullshit. They invent some every day.
Which, I guess, is what China has been inventing for the last couple thousand years.
Pollution (Score:3)
Re: (Score:2)
Aren't these the policies of the alleged U.S. administration?
Re: Pollution (Score:2)
Translation into English... (Score:4, Insightful)
" 'Insist on the core status of innovation across all of our national modernization, the leaders said.' "
English translation: "We've stolen enough Western technology that we can now attempt to modify it more specifically for our own purposes."
CO2 neutral by 2060? That's ambitious. (Score:3)
Taking 40 years to get to carbon neutral is not a goal. Anyone in the Chinese government now capable of acting on this goal is going to be retired, senile, or dead in 40 years. This is a common practice among politicians, they make promises on some future goal to make people feel good but the completion date is so far in the future that they cannot be held to it while they are in office.
China is (in)famous for their 5 year plans. Where's the 5 year plan on how they are going to lower CO2 emissions?
Getting to zero CO2 emissions is going to be difficult. I believe many people do not realize just how difficult it would be.
The USA uses on average 3 terawatts of power for all energy, not just electricity but also for transportation, heating, and so on. If the USA were to replace all vehicles with electric versions then we'd have to replace the petroleum we use with some kind of electricity generation. Let's ignore the impracticality of electric aircraft for a bit.
The USA took 30 years to build 100 gigawatts of electrical generating capacity from nuclear power, starting from 1960 and ending in 1990 when new construction in nuclear power came to a near standstill for about 30 years. The USA has built 80 gigawatts of hydro power, stopping in about 1970 when we ran out of rivers to dam up. Solar, wind, biomass, and other low CO2 energy has has slow growth in the last 40 years in which there's been any real effort in developing them. Only wind power generation made any real gains, reaching nearly 100 GW of capacity. But wind power capacity factor isn't like nuclear power capacity factor, the capacity factor of wind is about 30% and nuclear is about 90%, meaning for the same generation capacity wind produces 1/3rd the energy.
If we were to build nuclear power plants at ten times the rate we did at the peak of construction rate in the 1970s then we could put 100 gigawatts of electricity capacity on the grid per year. That's building in 1 year what was done the first time in 30 years. Is that possible? Perhaps. Getting 100 gigawatts of low CO2 energy production per year for 30 years gets 3 terawatts of current demand. If we assume energy efficiency gains keeps pace with population growth and/or per capita energy increases then this is a reasonable number even over 30 years of time.
Because solar power takes so much more material per power and energy produced its not practical to replace any meaningful percentage of our current fossil fuel use with solar power. At least not solar PV. Even if we ignore the material requirements there's not near enough factories to produce solar PV cells to crank out enough solar PV cells to replace any meaningful quantity of fossil fuels.
Wind, hydro, and geothermal do not require the specialized production facilities, or specialized skills, of solar PV. There's a lot of people capable of producing and pouring concrete for foundations. The turbines, generators, and so on used in these low carbon energy sources are much the same as those in fossil fuels, and we can build enough fossil fuel plants to keep up with old plants closing. The material needed though is an order of magnitude or three higher than that of nuclear power. Solar thermal is much the same as these other options in being low tech but with a lower capacity factor the material needs are higher yet. So, if we are to get to zero CO2 emissions in less than a century then the bulk of our generating capacity will have to come from nuclear fission power.
Getting back to the need for fuels for things like aircraft, ships, and other transportation that cannot be practically made electric there's the option to synthesize hydrocarbon fuels. This is carbon neutral if the carbon for the fuel is drawn from the air. This is a century old technology paired with 50 year old nuclear power technology. This is doable, and while currently twice the cost of petroleum fuels based on economics from prototypes it's not entirely impractical.
The USA could get a net zero carbon e
Tech self-reliance. (Score:2)
This just means they'll be more overt about stealing and less open about reporting what's actually in their crap.