When central planners met to determine resource allocation they were hard-pressed to anticipate the needs of some industry, unless things were simply the same as ever, i.e., no innovation. Compare to the US, where some entrepreneur could see a need for some complex equipment and form a company to design and manufacture it.

Despite the inevitable hurdles from federal, state, and local governments, and the uncertainties of success, the environment was still sufficiently permissive to make many ventures feasible and sometimes very successful.

Without this aspect of economic freedom the efforts of dictatorships to emulate and encourage innovation will always fall short.

” Article 35. Freedom of speech, press, assembly

Citizens of the People’s Republic of China enjoy freedom of speech, of the press, of assembly, of association, of procession and of demonstration. ”

” Article 3. Democracy

The state organs of the People’s Republic of China apply the principle of democratic centralism.

The National People’s Congress and the local people’s congresses at various levels are constituted through democratic elections. They are responsible to the people and subject to their supervision.

”

“Article 5. Constitutional supremacy

…All state organs, the armed forces, all political parties and public organizations and all enterprises and institutions must abide by the Constitution and the law. All acts in violation of the Constitution and the law must be investigated.

”

A copy of China’s constitution can be found at: http://www.usconstitution.net/china.html

Big fish eat little fish. As it should be.

One day a bigger fish will come along…

Our government expresses policy that we are concerned with Chinese military buildup and its view s on Taiwan, but we turn around and prop up their econmony with over $100 billion in trade surplus each year. I find this to be an absolute crock of s*it. We deserve what we get if we do not wake up to this imbalance.

I haven?t had the pleasure of reading the IEEE Transactions for several years (and I was an SPIE guy anyway) , and I?m actually glad to hear that people at Chinese universities are publishing original innovative work ? 10, even 5 years ago, there was little of this; almost none in some technical areas. And yes, the Chinese have always been very good mathematicians, though in general it was held that they have been a cut or two below the Russian academics. And yes, individually, there are just as many excellent Chinese scientists and engineers as anywhere else, and they are certainly quite common inside our technical infrastructure, along with Indian nationals and professionals of many other nationalities.

But what is true of China now, in terms of their technical talent and academic achievement. was also true of Russia, and Russia is now technological backwater that, as of the late 90?s had completely given up even trying to compete with the US, and had settled for the status of a US client state of ever diminishing international relevance. My point is that having talented scientists and engineers, no matter how great their number, is not by itself worth very much. Russia didn?t fail because it?s scientists and engineers were incompetent or not innovative; it failed because Russia suffered from systemic and institutional problems that prevented their scientists and engineers from getting useful things done.

China suffers from the same systemic and institutional problems that Russia has, and in some cases to an even greater degree. For example, on a purely technical level, the Chinese have always had huge problems with the art of systems integration: this has been most evident in their computer networks, telecommunications, and military systems. Up until 2000, it was the case that however good the Chinese were with the various parts, getting them to work together was directed [or actually performed] for a foreign [usually US or Canadian] contractor, or the system didn?t work very well. Perhaps the Chinese have made great strides in the past 5 years in this regard, but the few things I?ve seen since I quit don?t suggest that to me.

On the completely other of the spectrum, it has been shown that technological success depends on having certain legal, political, social, and market conditions, none of which [except a bit of the market part] exist in China ? they are in fact mutually exclusive with China?s current legal, legal, political, and social conditions. A concern often raised is that the Chinese professionals trained and employed here will flock back to China and “leapfrog” China past us. This has in fact been tried ? and probably still is being tried ?and the Chinese government has offered bounties to encourage it. But when the US-trained Chinese take up the challenge, they fail because they do not have in China the vast supporting infrastructure, the necessary social and legal conditions that enabled them to succeed in the US. To the extent these professionals ? who no longer tend to be rusticated or shot as they were during the Cultural Revolution; I suppose that?s progress ? push for social, political, and legal reforms in an attempt to recreate the conditions necessary for them to succeed, this is good thing, because what they are pushing for is greater freedom, greater transparency and accountability, and meaningful laws. In this sense, I suspect that yes, they will remain “loyal” to the US.

To successfully compete with the US, China will have to adopt all of these, and figure out systems integration as well. That is what I meant by transformation. And if they do change all of these they will cease to be much of a threat to us; they will instead be a competitor in the sense Japan and Korea are and Germany was. I welcome this. We need all the competition we can get to maintain our position. Without competition, the US will actually become the lazy, stupid, corrupt, immature, indolent, spoiled society of whiny couch potatoes that some already see us as being. So I would personally welcome a transformed China into the ring to take a shot at the title. We as nation need it.

PS to WichitaBoy: As part of my former job I read the technical journals the Chinese publish internally in several fields and they were in general no where near the caliber of what they published in IEEE and other foreign periodicals; in many cases they were downright embarrassing, especially on topics like network integration and computer security. [You might recall the time that XinHua took an Onion article seriously ? there was stuff at that level. ] Articles for foreign publication were always screened and vetted at the highest levels of the Chinese technical hierarchy; they are not representative Chinese technical excellence as a whole. In fact, for the most part, publication of these articles was intended to inflate China?s technical reputation and enhance their national prestige ? their national face ? by conveying the sense that these were “typical” of Chinese achievements.

The Chinese are immensely smarter than Castro, but then they’re immensely smarter than practically everybody else and practically everybody is smarter than Castro. Although, truth be told, on the “if you’re so smart why ain’t you rich?” scale he’s pretty darn smart.

I don’t know how it’s all going to wash out. I certainly hope that the rosy scenario spelled out by C. Owen Johnson above comes to pass, but I’m very skeptical. I can assure you that the Chinese have plenty of new ideas of their own. I do know that the IEEE Transactions on Image Processing, for example, is chock full of articles written by Chinese guys at Chinese universities. From my previous life as a mathematician, I can assure you that the same thing is true within pure mathematics. The innovations are occurring in China now, not just in the US and Europe and Japan, and it’s not just derivative material. I have no idea what they’re publishing internally in Mandarin, but I presume it’s even more significant and impressive.

It’s true the Chicoms have a tiger by the tail. I don’t believe the China-breaking-apart scenario; that isn’t the way things have worked in China historically. Also, historically, oligarchies or monarchies have fared better than republics. The Chinese government is acting within the market like a monolith while our government is not even aware of the problem, and half of our population wants to shut down industry anyway (it’s so icky).

Then there’s the factor of Chinese nationals inside our technical infrastructure. Stroll down to your local university and observe how many faculty members in the technical subjects are Chinese nationals now. It’s not just in academia. I work for a defense contractor and we have a significant number of Chinese nationals working for us. Funny, huh. They’re cheap and hardworking and the CEO likes it. Helps his pocketbook. While American students are sitting around “deconstructing” Shakespeare and “studying” genders and ethnicities, hardworking Chinese students are inexorably taking over all the sophisticated technical positions in academia and industry. Maybe they will all be loyal to the United States in case of war.

BTW, I gave up drinking August 19, 1987, so you don’t have to worry about my drinking habits!

I admit I do not know how to sacrifice the business done in China, but I know I Detest slavery. Even if it isn’t on our shores, it is wrong. It is evil.

When China does decide to use it’s nuclear weapons, I hope you will understand why I hate commies. I grew up that way for a reason. To stay alive. Thanks. Sorry AJF. Have a good day.

I KNEW that there must be a method behind the madness of the low quality of MS software: it will bring Chicoms to their knees!

Seriously, very insightful post.