European Union is Dead but Does Not Yet Know It

[ronwagn + 6,290]

8 hours ago, Rasmus Jorgensen said:

Let's see. Give it 5 - 10 years. 

I understand and respect why you want to believe the EU will die. I understand why Trump wants it to die.... We live in a uncertain world. I would much rather a functioning EU looking after my global interests than relying on American wims that is really on based on a mercantilist approach to trade... 

People said Trump wouldn't get elected. 

In other words you would rather have a fascist EU than a Europe of free capitalist nations.

[Marcin2 + 726]

4 hours ago, Rob Plant said:

You think all 1.4 billion are all smart??

i would disagree and say they are told what to do, how to behave, how to live their lives and even what to think by the CCP.

that to me is the antithesis of smart!

I am analyzing them from the point of view of European interests and Chinese goal of becoming developed country.

For all of us the mere perspective of living in a country without free speech or the right to vote seems to be a nightmare.

And I Personally know that it is a nightmare cause I lived in both types: communist and democracy.

But the fact that Chinese live in their particular dictatorship system does not change the fact that they are smart.

They are crazy about giving the best education to their children.

In any metrics, on average their children are smarter than American, British or Polish children ( independent PISA testing)

They work hard and I have not found any scenario under which they would not become developed  country in 20 years ( bar some alien invasion).

Even that they may not like CCP , they love their country and have smart government and most of all work hard.

 

Edited April 20, 2020 by Marcin2
Typo

[Marcin2 + 726]

4 hours ago, Tom Kirkman said:

I would suggest that China has other weaknesses besides just a technology gap.  CCP leadership being a prime one.

True, but as you probably noticed 😀 i am analyzing China from the point of view of my pet questions: Would China become global hegemon, when and what would be Europe and US position then ?

CCP leadership is a weakness that would be a huge problem of China, but Unfortunately for us only AFTER they would become hegemonic country.

For technological , scientific development you need some level of civil liberties and personal safety from prosecution by the state.

My observation is that the bar is lower, much lower than the current level of personal liberties in China.

So in short dictatorship is not a problem for closing technology gap by China.

Whether CCP would be efficient in 2050 or China would need new system of government is not important for us.

For subordinate Roman provinces it was not important that Rome changed from Republic to Imperial  Principate and later Imperial Dominate. All the time these provinces were under Roman hegemony.

[Ernst Reim + 33]

Douglas Buckland: "Americans would never give up our national identity... "

But do not forget that under the EU there was a lot of strengthening of regional identities. Regions in France got more EU-support than from the Paris-centered France. Scotland and Bavaria both considered separating from their countries under EU rules (Scotland a bit more seriously than Bavaria ).

Give a Pan-American union a few years and see how much Texans and Californians would react if they notice that becoming less American would allow them to be more Texan/Californian. ;)))

[0R0 + 6,251]

2 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

True, but as you probably noticed 😀 i am analyzing China from the point of view of my pet questions: Would China become global hegemon, when and what would be Europe and US position then ?

CCP leadership is a weakness that would be a huge problem of China, but Unfortunately for us only AFTER they would become hegemonic country.

For technological , scientific development you need some level of civil liberties and personal safety from prosecution by the state.

My observation is that the bar is lower, much lower than the current level of personal liberties in China.

So in short dictatorship is not a problem for closing technology gap by China.

Whether CCP would be efficient in 2050 or China would need new system of government is not important for us.

For subordinate Roman provinces it was not important that Rome changed from Republic to Imperial  Principate and later Imperial Dominate. All the time these provinces were under Roman hegemony.

The freedom of expression, venture capital safety from regulators seeking to redirect it, and safety from state persecution threshold required for  technology development is higher than available  in most of Europe, not to speak of where it is in China. That bar is higher than you are suggesting. I suspect that without foreign developers and direct government championing of high priority tech to clear obstacles by the power structure, you could not have the current level of technology innovation in China. 

I know you suspect that the Wuhan virus outbreak was a deliberate action by the CCP, but I think it is more likely to be an accident. But in any case, its handling revealed an ossified system at many levels throughout the parallel hierarchies of government and the CCP. It does not bode well for innovation, but does for stomping it out.

The outgoing China as Hegemon team led by Xi in the early 2010s appears to have given way to the put up the barricades and go North Korea team. They appear to be readying themselves for  complete isolation. Their social media clamp downs have reached hyper paranoid schizophrenic episode levels, and they are shutting down communications of Chinese with the outside world altogether in their attack on computer gaming. I would expect that you would be required to obtain a license to communicate outside the country. The virus has severely curtailed outgoing travel as well as incoming travel. 

The systematic process of demonization of foreigners that started early last decade and was among the first signs of rot in the system, along with the disappearance of fresh cheap prepared food vendors from the streets, the cessation of travel has been a big target for CCP leaders in order to cut down on capital flight, current account deficits, and have shifted to taking in as much oil as they can conceive storing. The topping out of their real estate market in real terms (1st tier cities, where prices have far surpassed absurd) is threatening both the investments and savings of the consumer, and the governemnt's chief source of revenue - land sales at the provincial level. It is not possible for the financial system to function without this activity moving forward. This restricts the ability to fund new projects in infrastructure as well as technology development, particularly their attempt to break into high end chips,  

Another sign of China preparing for cut off from the world is their odd statements about going vegetarian when CCP officials were visiting devastated chicken farms and decimated pork farms. The bulk of grain imports are for animal feed. 

 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

13 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

The problem China is too healthy for the United States. US economy is in ICU since 2008, under oxygen ventilator of zero interest rates, not able to breath independently, as was shown in 1 year recent period when they tried to.

1970s US policies were After China - Soviet Union split. Remember that until 1970s US was in active containment of China, they did not allow them into UN. Yes China should be very grateful that US stopped sanctions against them in 1970s, cause they wanted them against Soviet Union. This gamble did not pay off as China developed too quickly. First sanctions came in 1989, but in early 2000 harsh sanctions were in  the cards since first months of Cheney-Bush. 9/11 saved China and allowed them into WTO in return for backing War on Terror,remember that Clinton refused earlier.

And later it was too late to contain China, the largest blunder of US policy in the last 200 years.

EU interrupts in US technology sanctions against China. EU still refuses to stop scientific and technology cooperation with China. This is the most important for US as technology gap is only Chinese weakness.

Lucky you don’t take sides...as you posted earlier.

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

12 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

China can keep them as pet economy like they keep Taiwan

What are you smoking? Perhaps you meant Hong Kong? 

[Douglas Buckland + 6,308]

6 hours ago, Ernst Reim said:

Douglas Buckland: "Americans would never give up our national identity... "

But do not forget that under the EU there was a lot of strengthening of regional identities. Regions in France got more EU-support than from the Paris-centered France. Scotland and Bavaria both considered separating from their countries under EU rules (Scotland a bit more seriously than Bavaria ).

Give a Pan-American union a few years and see how much Texans and Californians would react if they notice that becoming less American would allow them to be more Texan/Californian. ;)))

Won’t happen, so just wasted energy..

If Europeans are comfortable with diluting their national identities by identifying as European as opposed to say, French, German, Italian, etc...., then more power to them. It is simply that, as an American I find that odd.

[0R0 + 6,251]

13 hours ago, Gregory Purcell said:

July 17 2018

"

There are three great geographic power-centers in the world. The Anglo-American/transatlantic one which is often called 'the west'. Mackinder's heartland, which is essentially Russia as the core of the Eurasian landmass, and China, which historically rules over Asia. Any alliance of two of those power-centers can determine the fate of the world.

Kissinger's and Nixon's biggest political success was to separate China from the Soviet Union. That did not make China an ally of the United States, but it broke the Chinese-Soviet alliance. It put the U.S. into a premier position, a first among equals. But even then Kissinger already foresaw the need to balance back to Russia:

On Feb. 14, 1972, President Richard Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger met to discuss Nixon’s upcoming trip to China. Kissinger, who had already taken his secret trip to China to begin Nixon’s historic opening to Beijing, expressed the view that compared with the Russians, the Chinese were “just as dangerous. In fact, they’re more dangerous over a historical period.”

Kissinger then observed that “in 20 years your successor, if he’s as wise as you, will wind up leaning towards the Russians against the Chinese.” He argued that the United States, as it sought to profit from the enmity between Moscow and Beijing, needed “to play this balance-of-power game totally unemotionally. Right now, we need the Chinese to correct the Russians and to discipline the Russians.” But in the future, it would be the other way around.

It took 45 years, not 20 as Kissinger foresaw, to rebalance the U.S. position.

After the Cold War the U.S. thought it had won the big ideological competition of the twentieth century. In its exuberance of the 'unilateral moment' it did everything possible to antagonize Russia. Against its promises it extended NATO to Russia's border. It wanted to be the peerless supreme power of the world. At the same time it invited China into the World Trade Organisation and thereby enabled its explosive economic growth. This unbalanced policy took its toll. The U.S. lost industrial capacity to China and at the same time drove Russia into China's hands. Playing the global hegemon turned out to be very expensive. It led to the 2006 crash of the U.S. economy and its people have seen little to no gains from it. Trump wants to revert this situation by rebalancing towards Russia while opposing China's growing might."       

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/07/helsinki-talks-how-trump-tries-to-rebalance-the-global-triangle.html

That is well out of date and Trump pretty much fell on his face doing that one. That was published just in time to see Russia acting up in the ME and tightening up cooperation with China with implementation of new combined anti air missile batteries from Russia with new control electronics modified from Russian designs. Russians now have China do some of the mass production for them. 

[Walter Faber + 48]

To give some European/German view:
1) EU is not perfect and needs some reforms but acting together is better than every state going alone. As everyone knows, as a big player you have more leverage in international negotiations (especially trade) than as a small participant. 
2) There is solidarity within the EU. Germany/France/Italy and more pay more to the common EU fund than they receive. That is generally accepted by the population in the giving countries. Moderately and strongly pro-EU parties control 87% of the seats in the German parliament. Naturally, there are discussions about the best way forward, but that is completely normal for every organisation and in the end there has usually been a compromise in the EU. 
3) There was and will be additional solidarity and help within the EU during the Corona crisis. The beginning was chaotic (as almost everywhere in the world, be it Asia, North America or Europe) but it is getting better. For example, Germany sent teams to Italy and treats patients from Italy and France. (https://www.br.de/nachrichten/deutschland-welt/deshalb-hilft-deutschland-auslaendischen-covid-19-patienten,RvCrBGx, use auto translate). 
The measures by the ECB are also a sort of inter-European help as it generally benefits the weaker countries over the stronger countries.
The alleged lack of inter-European help in addition is overblown and instrumentated by (often right wing) populists in media and politics for their political agenda.  
4) IMO Europe helps almost every country, some more than others but all get their share. German industry can export more easily, Eastern Europe gets subventions for modernisation and can send workers to Western Europe where pay is better, and Southern Europe gets subvention an increased tourism due to common currency and less border restrictions and has easier access to capital markets for investment.
5) Being part of the EU does not equal giving up your national identity. You have to make compromises but that is life. On the other hand, it secures peace and encourages learning from each other.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Walter Faber

[Marcin2 + 726]

8 hours ago, Ward Smith said:

What are you smoking? Perhaps you meant Hong Kong? 

40% of Taiwanese exports goes to China and Hong Kong In total about 132 billion USD that is 22% of Taiwanese GDP

Taiwan has 72 billion US dollars surplus with China&Hong Kong and it is 12.5% of Taiwanese 600 billion GDP.

Various estimations put number of Taiwanese working in Mainland at 500-700,000 that is 5% to 7% of their workforce and this are mainly White collar jobs.

I would put it in perspective, what would be the numbers if it would be in China exports and US imports size of economies.

It would be like China exporting 3.0 trillion dollars to US and having surplus of 1.7 trillion dollars with US, sounds like close relations isn’t ?

China is conducting the program of planned economic unification of Taiwan with Mainland.

I do not think it is good for Taiwanese people long-term but that is a deliberate  Chinese policy.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Marcin2
Typo

[Ward Smith + 6,615]

This is democracy, manifest

The EU misses Britain already

[El Nikko + 2,145]

23 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

It is not Chinese fault that they are geographically predestined for global supremacy.

Unique features of 3 large long rivers with the largest of them with unpredictable catastrophic floods. All 3 rivers with latitudinal flows into Pacific.

All of this on the huge 2 million square kilometers of good arable land. 
In this conditions millions of people can thrive but they need to cooperate or perish in the floods and hunger.

So China was always the most populous country with the largest economy, the last 150 years just an aberration.

It is not their fault, 1,400 million smart people cannot be anything else but hegemonic country and 340 million people cannot prevent this to happen.

 

[SUZNV + 1,197]

Quote

 

For technological , scientific development you need some level of civil liberties and personal safety from prosecution by the state.

My observation is that the bar is lower, much lower than the current level of personal liberties in China.

 

My observation is different than the above:

-China still needs to steal IP from the US/EU companies. One requirement of a foreign company to have access to China market is to partner with a Chinese company, and the Chinese partner always try to steal your IP. If Chinese partner have the ability to do something similar, even at a lower quality, then no way they allow you in their market in the first place. And China "thousand talents" program, mostly try to steal researches in the US. Even if they can corrupts the top scientist and steal the IP or a prototype. Steal or Reverse Engineer skills set are much different with inventions or ideas in the first place. Techs are changing faster and faster, how much do you can keep up just by stealing?

-Another bar is English, the Universal Language for Global Research. A Chinese Scientist will have to waste time to learn English to do science research to have up-to-date knowledge, that will require them to get out of the firewall, which may in turn, turn them against their government.  Yet a Chinese scientists from oversea, where their knowledge are obtain in English, it will was lots of effort in communication in Chinese. So should Scientists in China communicate in English or Chinese? Languages are not much of a problem for normal individual job. I cannot speak English well but my job doesn't require to speak much. But in this case a nationally level of government researches, you somehow need to merge the millions of research together, language could be an issue.

-US talents make lots of money. Sure they can be greedy and corrupted and may do some deals illegally , but they are unlikely to give up their careers in the US and go to China to make money (They may want Chinese money in addition of the level of jobs and liberty they have and think they can get away). The exception maybe the scientist is a Chinese Nationalist Scientists. US is a magnet for international talents so China have a risk of losing their talents than attracting ones. And money is just one of the issues.  You really don't want to make decision and be responsible for in the system where everyone is afraid of failure (Look at Wuhan Governor). Less transparency and more political managements and micro management is toxic for work conditions. More friendly fire and dirty competition and stealing idea from each other. That toxic environment attracts greedy for power or money scientists, not the great one who truly want to contribute for science or solve problems. They may promote a scientist because of factions or personal relationship background than because of the  contribution level.

After you are go through that process.The input is a scientist, the output will be a politician , corrupted with time.

That why most politicians are corrupted in any country, from the ancients time to now even they were ideology and naive when they started. Their skills set is for manipulating, public relation, political correctness, back stabbing, playing with words , legal corruption, remove the opposition...and they rise in the rankings with that. Especially ones who devoted their whole life in politician careers, if he is a good person, he would have abandon his career, or been kicked out of the game, or never get promoted, otherwise he musts join the swamp and has complicated connections.

We all know that It is The People responsibility to understand politics and turn corrupted politicians on each other, not the other way round. The more independent thoughts, the more transparency required to get the People's votes, the harder for politicians to lie and the smaller the cake for politicians to fight for.  If your country is truly have Democracy and getting more corrupted politically, aren't all the voters responsible for that? You need to have independent thoughts to process the information from all sources, from politicians , from mainstream or even from people don't share the same values with you.  You have to empathy their angles of view and not frame them into too much Fox or CNN. People follows the mainstream simply because they are loyal to a Party, lazy to think, too busy with their lives or their entertainment, or because they don't have confident in their knowledge and need a reputable/popular sources to follow, or to feel they are part of a community, or to think they are deep. Even if they are stupid, we will have to accept our political system is "mobs rule" and even zombies can vote. In many countries, the right to vote is luxury.

CCP did encourage people to overthrow Kuomintang and since oppressing student movements in 1989, now they try to tell their people keep working hard and pay tax, don't worry about political stuffs. We are here to protect you, bring our country to prosperity to be a world power. We discourage you to join politics. Your soul, your heart, your organs are belong to the Party.

Edited April 21, 2020 by SUZNV

[Marcin2 + 726]

@SUZNV You added a lot of important insight and I agree with most of the opinions/facts that are in your comment.

But in fact you have not said anything against my major thought that is: Current Chinese level of civil and personal liberties iare more than enough for the succesful scientific and technology development.

This is my opinion. But there are also many facts, metrics. Whatever a lot of people say at this forum I am not pro or against China, I just use data to make informed judgement.

List of metrics: high quality of education at primary and secondary level (PISA testing), high number of graduates with tertiary education and doctorate degrees, high level of tertiary education (global rankings of universities, citations in scientific journals), high R&D output (money spent: in PPP dollars 90% of US spending, in real terms over 50% of US spending: UNESCO data; high number of citations in scientific journals, largest pool of R&D workers, largest number of R&D centers of multinationals, 3rd largest country in US foreign patents granted, 2nd largest number of int patents granted (after US).

I have not met any opinion of US scientist or think-tank analyst other that: China is closing fast the technology gap with the United States in ALL areas. If you  know ANY opinion to the contrary please provide the link.

I really ejoy the fact that you are next person that is formulating opinion about this topic. I am writing at this forum since September 2019 and still have not found any metric, numbers to the contrary.

The best contra-arguments I already got here: these metrics (by Western or global organizations :-) are fake; Chinese are dumb and they are not able to think creatively because they live in a communist country and Marcin you are Chinese agent so this ultimately proves the point that you are wrong.

Edited April 21, 2020 by Marcin2
typo

[SUZNV + 1,197]

16 hours ago, Marcin2 said:

@SUZNV You added a lot of important insight and I agree with most of the opinions/facts that are in your comment.

But in fact you have not said anything against my major thought that is: Current Chinese level of civil and personal liberties iare more than enough for the succesful scientific and technology development.

This is my opinion. But there are also many facts, metrics. Whatever a lot of people say at this forum I am not pro or against China, I just use data to make informed judgement.

List of metrics: high quality of education at primary and secondary level (PISA testing), high number of graduates with tertiary education and doctorate degrees, high level of tertiary education (global rankings of universities, citations in scientific journals), high R&D output (money spent: in PPP dollars 90% of US spending, in real terms over 50% of US spending: UNESCO data; high number of citations in scientific journals, largest pool of R&D workers, largest number of R&D centers of multinationals, 3rd largest country in US foreign patents granted, 2nd largest number of int patents granted (after US).

I have not met any opinion of US scientist or think-tank analyst other that: China is closing fast the technology gap with the United States. If you  know ANY sich opinion please provide the link.

I really ejoy the fact that you are next person that is formulating opinion about this topic. I am writing at this forum since September 2019 and still has not found any metric, numbers to the contrary.

The best contra-arguments I already got were: these metrics (by Western or global organizations 🙂 are fake; Chinese are dumb and they are not able to think creatively because they live in communist country and last but not least: Marcin you are a Chinese agent so this ultimately proves the point.

I  did not told you are Chinese agent. If I don't have any respect for you, I wouldn't write that long.

Those metrics are misleading and does not prove anything. I was in top "school for gifted" in biggest city in Vietnam. I have many friends from Malaysia, Shanghai, Hongkong while studying in NZ, not bad in the ranking either and my uni was the number 1 in NZ and I recall they guaranteed only 40 positions for Software Engineer top down for enrollment form final exam of 5 subjects: Statistics, Calculus, Physics, Chemistry and Economics. I know exactly what these metrics tell and what they don't tell you, and I have seen them in the response earlier but not bother to go at it. Understand  more about these kinds of statistic you will see they are meaning less.

1 Studying up to graduate or finishing PhD does not have any meaning to be a great Scientist or Engineer. My legal retirement age is 68, does my first 25 years of study have any meaning? To be a good scientist, you have to keep doing research for the rest of your life, which the research environment: liberty, co-researchers, liberty, gut to take responsibility, less ass licking, no idiot order you around, not so greedy to stay with the high investment low profit research but not to bad to have to worry paying bills, languages etc. and especially, stay humble and respects the hard works of other scientists.

How many of China scientists won Science Nobel Prize or Fields Medal?(at least VN high school education made 1, but he studied in France for university) Gifted people need a lot of environment to shine. With the population of 1.4 bill, surely China have a lots of them compares to the rest, but how many people can go to the top in world competition level?

2 The way and motivation of Asian educations  is much different from the Western way of study. Both educations emphasized on test results but for example for Olympics Math or Science high school competitions. In countries like Vietnam or China,we have competition in school round, district round, city round and national round. Each round will have a teacher who try to guess-teaching  their team what the exams may look like. I don't know if it is even fair as one of the teachers above will write the exams. In the Western Countries, any student want to try their ability can sign up. If you have a lots of competitors, simply organize a qualify round. Students may have a tutors or self learning. Do you think the math in High School levels for Olympics exams can prove anything if you have a database of previous exams compare to on your own (maybe with a private tutor)?

And what Asian traditional thinking of education since the ancient time ? To be rich, to be famous, to make your mum and dad proud, make you spouse/kids proud, make your school proud, make your province proud and make you country proud. Not for curiosity or for the sake of science or solve the problem. Therefore when they archive what they want, science is just one of the many way, they satisfy and has no motivation to go. Off course there are always exceptions but this is the main stream. It makes point 1 even more toxic environment and if you are for science only and hate political scientists around you, you would love to live in the West.

3 Western Educations focus in creativity, application and finding out a formula to solve real life problems, to separate top students while Asian Educations traditionally emphasize on tricky quiz that does not have much meaning when you really know the trick. One helps you to catch the fish and one just hide the fish so you can look for it. In communism country, you will have to do lot of Marxism, Socialism, Communism History and Philosophy. Their Maoism or HoChiMinh ism philosophies are so advance and confused and I doubt any of their top Philosopher can understand what they are talking.  

4 Among Western Countries, there are many different approach for nurturing top talents. Some example:

-Like in West Germany, in my Dad time, 1970s, your career were decided by headmaster when you were around 13-15 based on your studying. It would decide you to be a skilled technicians or engineers and doctors. Off course there were many ways to cross but takes lot of times and efforts. This is a clever way to optimize educational resources for students and Education is free.

The only draw back I can see that do you really know what you do want at that ages? But the good things I like about Germany social system is everyone is proud of their professions. The pay gap is not that much, compares to the US. One of my dad's professor crossed form technicians to engineer, and he were very well respected as he had the strength of both. Another one when he miscalculated which leaded to my dad miscalculated, he said "I can be wrong but it is your job to following the logic, not following me" Another one told him:"I know you are the top students of (south) Vietnam, that why you are here. If I am the top of Germany, I would have been in the US". Very logic based educational culture. I like the way they do exams by interviewing instead of doing written tests only.

-UK, Canada, Australia, NZ has different approaches (a bit different from each others). Students can decide which majors they will do in University by selecting 5-6 subjects. An the University  will review case by case. College fees are not much, if you are residents. For oversea students, it costs as much as in the US (depends on exchange rate though).

-USA high schools and colleges are very interesting. After students have high school diploma, they go to colleges. But in the first 2 years in college, they study all sorts of things that don't related to their majors. I doubt if they even have a major yet with General Education. Second languages, Liberal Arts, Psychology etc. They only study their major in year 3 and 4. No offense but I don't think you can do much in 2 years for your major compares to the UK system. But when they work, they really commit and love the things they do. There is no "work life balance" concept, they even hate it. They constantly study and Company provides lots of fund in R&D an encourage them to grow so they developing their skill really fasts. And many works and keeps studying for higher degrees or management, some of managers has 2,3 degrees, which cost lots of investment . And they have to compete with talents from all over the worlds. Skills migrant in the US is the hardest to compete for 20k Master slots and 65k Bachelors and Master slots H1b. But if you are an exceptional scientists, then you almost guarantee to get in. There is flaw and cheating for Asian or Idian for competing that 85k slots though. 

Historically, USA inherits many strong  expertise from different cultures which is the backbone of their society. They have the economics/finance knowledge of the Jews, Management, marketing, international sales and economics law knowledge of the UK and the engineering knowledge of Germany.  And the concept of very American ideology cultivated by the Founding Fathers, the concept of weak federal Government, freedom for The People, distributed powers, free market less regulation that are embraced by all of the origins.  Off course as the strongest economy, US has a very sophisticated political corruptions and every weaknesses of Capitalism. Any Greatest Empires are prone to collapse from within and the divisions seem worse. Less and less people understand or appreciate that ideology. They are too busy with family, money, recessions or liberalism .Some take things for granted and no appreciation even immigrants.

No country can mass producing top talents  like they can in Olympic Academics or Sports. They can only attract them by proving best working conditions, less politics or managements. Smart people like freedom (not vice versa though).

I have been thinking like you before, but substitute China with Vietnam, as I had much higher marks than students around me but couldn't find job when graduated in recession time for 1.5 years, partly because I cannot  speak English fluently, maybe because I am too shy. Only mainstream are using meaningless, cherry picking statistics. Statistics don't lie but all of the liar are using statistics to persuade  people who think it is a scientist way. Sciences don't help much with social study or psychology or election or religious, or everyone would have been rich from the stock market.

What are metrics for greed? for power? for nationalism? Using science metrics to try to measure society is anti-science itself. I do realized we are using AI and Big Data for metrics nowadays, that proves that current metrics has no meaning and they try  to use AI and Big Data to do better. Many investment fund are using these for stock markets as well, wonder if it helps them to make lots of money but if it does, then stock markets shouldn't exists. It just minimized human errors or miscalculation and less training or experience needs to present data.

Edited April 22, 2020 by SUZNV

[Yoshiro Kamamura + 274]

I have been reading this title in the US news for about 20 years now. Occasionally, if I want details, I read something from Paul Krugman. 

[Walter Faber + 48]

Good analysis SUZNV, thanks for posting! 

1) I do not believe language is a significant barrier for Chinese research. China is so massive it can build a strong research community within its own borders, and learning one foreign language (English) is not a barrier for most people with academic potential. Some older scientiests may stay be handicapped.
2) People here argue that China can't compete in research and innovation because it is a dictatorship. Free thinking, freedom of research and permittement of creative destruction are necessary conditions for top spots in innovation. These virtues are more likely to develop in democracies while dictatorships tend to suppress them, but it is not a natural law. It is very well possible to have a strict regime in political and ideological questions which still gives the economy and non-political research (e.g. STEM) enough freedom to prosper as long as they stick to their field.
3) Unlike the Soviet Union, China is not primarily challenging the West on the military or ideological field, but on the ground of the economy and technology. It is more subtle, but sustainable and potentially more effective. 
4) The appropriate answer for the democracies of the world is to stand together (for example in EU-like organisations) and show solidarity and unity while making long term investments in innovation and education.

Edited April 22, 2020 by Walter Faber

[Marcin2 + 726]

On 4/21/2020 at 5:21 AM, Douglas Buckland said:

Lucky you don’t take sides...as you posted earlier.

Name 1 example where I took sides not with EU or not with US. But I am not orthodox US fan, without bias, which is healthy especially As a counterbalance of many commenters here.

The fact that you underestimate China is only harmful for us.

 

[footeab@yahoo.com + 2,190]

https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Tourist-arrivals-by-region-of-origin/Europe

On 4/20/2020 at 5:25 AM, Marcin2 said:

United States has skin in the European game: the weaker European Union the easier for US to realize their strategic goal of preserving hegemony.

Remember anything else just does  not matter in comparison to this goal.

The best scenario for US would be break up of EU.

That is the dream that was formulated many times by American commenters at this forum.

I do not blame them, it is patriotic in narrow sense for Americans to want weaker, subordinate Europe.

This is the effect of century of exceptionalism and isolation from the rest of the world.

In comparison to Europeans US citizens hardly ever travel around the world , I mean for leisure, to take interest in diverse cultures.

These are just statistics about number of foreign trips of Americans, I presented the data in the past.

Do you sniff the kool aid instead of drink it?

No one here blames the EU for existing to make a stronger nation state.  No one ever has.  What EVERYONE has always said, and CONTINUES to say, is that the EU as currently conceived, is the WORST of both small independent nations and the worst of a large nation combined.  You want an EU?  Then truly become a single nation where you share each others BURDENS and successes equally along with PRESERVING freedom.  I do not see the EU sharing burdens nor successes, but I do see rampant subjugation of freedoms in the name of the "EU".

As for travel... https://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/stats/Economy/Tourist-arrivals-by-region-of-origin/Europe Europeans actually travel LESS as those "stats" you claim are for anyone traveling across a nations border INSIDE the EU zone.   

Look up Australia travel stats: Equal distance between USA/Europe... China/USA/UK and ... no one else.  Don't like that?  Do Brazil since it is NOT an English speaking country, but Portuguese is close to Spanish/Italian.  And do remember that the EU has a larger population than the USA... hrmm?  Brazil has 3X more EU than the USA right?  EU has no tropics to call its own, USA does-->Puerto Rico, Hawaii, Guam, Samoa.  Want apples to apples truly international comparison?  Fiji.  More people from the USA than all of Europe combined, but most from ANZAC.  Let try Africa and skew results for Europe... Go for Madagascar.  60% are from France because its language is French and was a French colony... UK/Germany also dominate as many know French.

Lets go with a country which does not speak a major western language(English, Spanish, French, Portuguese) and lets go with Indonesia. ........ crickets... no EU/USA tourists to be found...  Plenty from Asia.  Japan... Not exactly fair, USA(does not count military of family of military) still has more than Europe combined.  True it is closer to USA.  Both EU/USA travel to Japan has fallen drastically.  Seen as normal now and not exotic. 

 

[SUZNV + 1,197]

6 hours ago, Walter Faber said:

Good analysis SUZNV, thanks for posting! 

1) I do not believe language is a significant barrier for Chinese research. China is so massive it can build a strong research community within its own borders, and learning one foreign language (English) is not a barrier for most people with academic potential. Some older scientiests may stay be handicapped.
2) People here argue that China can't compete in research and innovation because it is a dictatorship. Free thinking, freedom of research and permittement of creative destruction are necessary conditions for top spots in innovation. These virtues are more likely to develop in democracies while dictatorships tend to suppress them, but it is not a natural law. It is very well possible to have a strict regime in political and ideological questions which still gives the economy and non-political research (e.g. STEM) enough freedom to prosper as long as they stick to their field.
3) Unlike the Soviet Union, China is not primarily challenging the West on the military or ideological field, but on the ground of the economy and technology. It is more subtle, but sustainable and potentially more effective. 
4) The appropriate answer for the democracies of the world is to stand together (for example in EU-like organisations) and show solidarity and unity while making long term investments in innovation and education.

Thanks for your feedback. We may never have a clear answer for this. As always,it is purely my personal observation and experience:

1) If you are a Chinese scientists and learn your STEM in Chinese, to get into good STEM University, you have to compete with others. The high competition give you no time to invest in English STEM because the tests will be in Chinese. So when you are a famous Chinese Scientist. You can perfectly learn English and translate your knowledge into English, which will take time. Then you will need to choose a language to advance your research and then catch up with the other language for communication with your students or co-workers.That is for one field. Nowadays researches need coordination in many fields knowledge together for solutions and you need to invest lots of time in other fields to understand the concepts so you can apply, it will be difficult to back and forth with languages between team members. Yes you can have some translator but there will be some miscommunication in translation process because the gap between the translator and scientists. Again we can have super smart individuals to overcome the bar, but cannot be produced in mass scale.

I tried to advance my Buddhism research in English and boy, it is so hard to keep up. Maybe I will resume that later (I believe Buddhism in my native language is off the track ). I also tried to learn new IT tech by reading my native language book and I don't understand anything. The bigger your knowledge's  investment in one language, the harder and more time investment to switch. It certainly will slow your research down.

2) I think that if you have a strong nationalism or ideology, you can sacrifice your freedom, but you have to truly believe you are not used for any political gain. Scientists live with logic and reasoning so they are not easily brainwashed for ideology along. In a Central control and no free market, everything is political. Your manager/client will have his position because he has a good political background and you are the tools for him to be promoted, or he can steal your research and claim his. By stealing IPs from Western company, they promote a stealing culture among themselves. If you are close to have an IP and your co-work just stole similar IP from  Western company, you wasted your time. The political pressure make you are afraid of failures, afraid of  taking responsibility which hard to lead to successful research, stealing is an easier and much cheaper way. How much investment you need to put on every single step? In the private sector, should you invest money in R&D or Real Eastate with bigger return in short time? Do you want to do R&D to compete with State Companies that constantly got subsidized or bail out by your tax?

The key of 5G which China is leading has the monopoly on is based on Cesium. I don't know why the mainstream just started talking about it in late March, before that they were applauding Chinese 5G technology. Every politicians should know this when consider working with HuaWei but they always talked about "5G development will be slowed down without Hua Wei".

Quote

The only company in the cesium supply chain right now is Chinese, and one of the only companies on the radar for potential commercial cesium supplies in North America is Canadian junior Power Metals, which is hoping to prove that it’s sitting on the world’s fourth deposit of the critical metal. 

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/cesium-most-important-metal-ve-000000550.html

Similarly China "is leading" solar energy or EV because they are monopoly in lithium

Quote

China is increasingly dominating the supply of what’s been described as “white petroleum,” the soft, silvery metal lithium, seen as key to the momentum-gathering electric vehicle (EV) revolution.

https://thediplomat.com/2019/02/china-rushes-to-dominate-global-supply-of-lithium/

So they controlling the resources and thus, the supply chains. And lithium battery production is really bad for environment. I do collect information in mainstream. I just don't really believe what they want me to believe politically. 

3+4) China does challenge the ideological field. A dictatorship country will not accept their people like any Democracy country, so they may never have  healthy relationship like US and Canada or Oz and NZ. They can be negotiable in trade but there is no trust. A domestically warm friendship with US did lead to democracy movement among students in Tienanmen Square in 1989. Chinese students  revered the freedom US had. The demand for freedom among people are as much as the greed for money or power. So CCP will always told that there is nothing good about democracy and don't trust the Western, you should not care about politics, trust us. This isolate Chinese people from the democracy world. They truly believe Western countries try to limit their wealth.

They cannot choose the military way. Their military simply didn't have much modern warfare and logistic experiences outside of China. One child policy in the past makes an adult Chinese shoulders the future of six people: his father,mother,father and mother's father, father and mother's mother, they don't really have a retirements system. Combined with the political corruptions and factions in Chinese military ranking, the soldier is not willing to sacrifice for their country. They joined the army purely for advance their political careers. Chinese military do business as well which leads to even more corruption. They are defending their political system only, as they benefit from it. Unless any country invades China, normally their morals are low in oversea.

It is more subtle, but sustainable and potentially more effective.

Only time will tell.China only started challenging economy and technology since very recently (when Xi came to power in 2013) . China is exporting corruptions to gain power. Its power is feed on corrupted politicians and greedy corporations. So it is only stable if they still have money  to buy and to corrupt domestically or diplomatically. The money they got come from exporting cheap labors, cheap resources/good deals from greedy corrupted governments, stealing IPs, and cheap environment cost. They are not good in normal  R&D or investment/risk management because they are corrupted.

We all know the resources are limited and China is not good in managing their economy, which is like a giant ponzi scheme, like @0R0  said, on their Real Estate Bubble .That is what the Chinese people trade their democracy for, the price of their real estate. Our World Finance Economy base on FIAT system and the bubble size is determined by the efficiency of the investment (dig up the resources, trading goods or services). Because the economies are linking together so China is the weakest point in the chain and the Covid19 maybe the force to break it.

Politicians use public fear and public greed to get voted and execute their agenda (either good or  bad intention, benefit the public or the lobbyists). We are united because of the fear of being stolen the things we have: money, peace, future, freedom yet our greed drive us to have more.

Do they know what Chinese did to their people with all of their spies around? Didn't they know they eat into the future?  Were they really naive to trust  China with all of the intelligence agency and experts they have?  The politicians have a tendency to trading your short term gain for long term lost when they are long gone. They are afraid of sacrifice their career to fix the problem from the cause but to hide it and make it a bigger bubble. If you love your country and have Democracy, vote for the politicians who really show a way to fix the problem rather than depend on "friendship"  or "foreign aids" or "help"or ODA. Beware of free stuff. You can choose a big bubble for years and burst, which is devastating, or can choose many small bubble and small burst cycle. 

Edited April 22, 2020 by SUZNV

[Walter Faber + 48]

@SUZNV
1) I extrapolate from my experience here, I am a student (Bachelor, mathematics) from Germany and for my fellow students and me, it is quite natural to switch between German/English (even though I am not overly talented with foreign languages in general, Chinese<->English is more difficutl than German<->English of course). I expect other STEM subjects (which are the more strategically important, no offence to liberal arts intended here!) to be similar in this regard, although switching may be easier than average in mathematics due to its very formal and symbolic language.I have not yet participated in research, where things may or may not be more of challenge.
Liberal arts in general will likely suffer more from the language/culture barriers of course.
2) I agree that implementing "safe spaces" for apolitical sciences and free entrepreneurship is a challenge to autocratic systems, but I do not deem it impossible, rather more difficult to create and maintain than for a democracy. 
This being said, I believe there is not much disagreement here and otherwise I appreciate the examples [1].
3&4) Again, I appreciate the examples and explanations. [1]
Regarding ideology, I agree that China also covers this field, it appears to be more secondary. While the Soviet Union attempted to convert a country to its ideology, China attempts to convert it to a useful trading partner/source for raw materials.
"It is more subtle, but sustainable and potentially more effective." 
The underlying thinking is that wars between superpowers have become unwinnable due to weapons of mass destruction while military expeditions against smaller powers tend to be not worth the effort compared to writing off losses or exerting power through sanctions. Therefore, military power has declined in relative importance to economic and soft power, and it is the better choice to invest resources in economic developement/foreign investments/education&research instead of a strong military for global interventions (as the US does).
From my perception, the suggested strategy is more or less what China does.

[1] China (and in general Asia) is somewhat underrepresented in German public perception and media, so I i) have only superficial and probably prejudiced knowledge about the region and processes and ii) enjoy reading insights from with experience in this region.
I think many people imagine major Asian autocratic states as perfectly working machines populated by selfless people with ant-like work ethic who precisely execute the directives by the central gouvernement, which methodically plans the future of the country over the next hundred years. (Subconsciously, I am probably guilty of this too at times).

Edited April 23, 2020 by Walter Faber

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

43 minutes ago, Walter Faber said:

no offence to liberal arts intended here!

No, please do!

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

45 minutes ago, Walter Faber said:

I think many people imagine major Asian autocratic states as perfectly working machines populated by selfless people with ant-like work ethic who precisely execute the directives by the central gouvernement, which methodically plans the future of the country over the next hundred years. (Subconsciously, I am probably guilty of this too at times).

This only really describes Singapore.

[0R0 + 6,251]

@SUZNV

Shows precisely the point I am making about the incapacity of autocratic systems to create innovation outside of VERY narrow areas of focus where the political powers actively clear the way for the innovators and innovation to continue unmolested. With the caveat that they need to be capable of distinguishing between the actual crucial actors vs. the many pretenders vying to take the reigns. 

Otherwise, it is entirely as @SUZNV describes it. R&D at non critical general research and innovation is run like a racetrack where microscopic innovation is patented in multiplicity of varied aspects to produce tangible numbers, while nobody takes large leaps out of the trodden path to come up with something new. Akin to patenting each color on a product. The broad inter-specialty cooperation and funding does not happen since it is scrutinized by censors. Language barriers are a problem for broad scientific cooperation internationally. They lower the pace of career development at the top end. 

There is an enormous difference in methodology in creating research programs in EU and autocratic regimes, vs. US and some others, where decisions on what to research and how are largely political and scientist's claim funding by institutional affiliation rather than subject matter, vs. US allocation that is highly competitive and based on other scientists steering the direction of research to a balance between the absolutely new and filling out what remains to be learned in established areas. The allocation is similar to a peer review process. Politics intrude heavily, but it is not the only criterion of importance. 

The ability for open discourse is very much key for advancement. Mass surveillance and censorship find any communications to be suspect simply because they are communications and discuss something whereby someone politically important might be threatened or could find offense. Identical to the well known events around the doctors who were trying to discuss observations of a cluster outbreak of a new disease in Wuhan. The entire mechanism of state suppression went into action and prevented even information flow within the hierarchy of regional government, the medical establishment, and the CCP.