But, NO! It's Russia, Russia, Russia!
While China walks away with our intellectual property, floods our markets with counterfeit goods, and brings in agents to work in their paid-for-by-the-Chinese-government 'institutes and both propagandize and turn our students to treat their positions as the only correct ones.
Not to mention the pressure brought upon Chinese students to work for their government as spies. Or, the horrible abuses that the media is ignoring. Or, the repression of the free flow of information that the Chinese government insists on from the tech companies - Google, Apple, et al.
China is not just building those military islands for the nice tropical location. They are extending their reach in the Pacific. Japan, South Korea, and Australia, to just name a few, are quite nervous about this - as they should be.
Read more about the threat that China poses to America and the rest of the Free (or Sort Of Free) World.
Because you sure won't read about it in the Hobbled Media.
First, regarding the so-called theft of our intellectual property: A great deal of that property was invented by Chinese graduate students enrolled in our better STEM programs.
ReplyDeleteGraduate education is not about taking more courses. In principle, one can get a Ph. D. at a prestigious graduate program without taking a single course. Graduate education is an apprentice program in which the students learn how to do research by actually doing it under the guidance of a master. Graduate students write research proposals and refereed journal papers, invent laboratory procedures and theories, attend conferences, etc. They do.
Chinese nationals comprise a significant fraction of the graduate students enrolled in all our graduate engineering and physical science programs, even at our best schools. In some departments they are an absolute majority of the students. When they go home, as they must, they take their skills, inventions and knowledge with them, and they enrich and empower Chinese universities and companies, to our loss.
You might note that until this year, China had the two fastest supercomputers in the world, and they were entirely home grown, chips, circuits, memories, operating systems, all of it. China still has more supercomputers than any other country in the world, including the US.
By the way, where were your cell phone and laptop made?
There actually is theft of intellectual property by the Chinese, but it is focused on military hardware, and it is done over the internet by the Chinese military. Moreover, Chinese graduate students and faculty do act as spies when given the opportunity. My former department had a Chinese national who was a senior, tenured full professor up and quit and flee to China two steps ahead of the FBI. He actually left his wife and children behind. They eventually followed him. He was working on the Mars rovers and had access to the JPL.
But this is small compared to the inventions they make.
The continual denigration of the Chinese accomplishments echos the racist rants about the Japanese in 1940. They were called little, half-blind, yellow monkeys whose ships were made of brittle steel and which tipped over in hard turns. Then came 12/7/41.
Today, in regards to manufacturing, the US is in the same position vs. China as Japan was vs US in 1940. When it comes to making weapons of war, China has a much larger capacity than we do, especially in large ships. If there were an actual trade war, China would have the factories and skilled workers, and we would have the empty store shelves. China's problem would be to find new customers; ours would be the bankruptcy of our largest companies, like Apple and Walmart.
China is a huge problem for the US, especially because they are a rising power and we are a declining power. Our problem is how to manage the changing relationship without sliding into nuclear war. Fat chance that the fake American, war criminal neocons like Bolton can pull that one off.
I'm not meaning to pick on the Chinese residents; I'm merely concerned about the relentless hollowing out of our ability to compete, given the fact that our resources in grad schools go to those who will take that education and leave - to build up their own country. It's just not a good long-term strategy.
ReplyDeleteI realize that the electronics industry, for manufacturing purposes, is based in Asia (and, China has lost some of its status as a supplier to other Asian countries). The cell's components were designed in many places - Israel, the USA, Europe. I'm not in favor of war, or its economic equivalent, trade war.
But, the trade balance has to stop skewing away from the USA. Too many countries put their finger on the scale, through subsidies of their industries, and artificially lower the price to the point that we can't compete.
Where to start? How about limiting foreign students in American-subsidized universities (which is almost all of them)? Why should we pay to dig our own grave?
Vet those foreigners permitted to work in the USA, and watch them. Don't give them the opportunity to take away corporate/government secrets.
I agree that the neocons are too eager to have Americans go head-to-head on the battlefield. I'm tired of American military being used to replace international relations. We need to gut the State Dept. and replace the ideologues with people who know how to negotiate a contract. Maybe some of the guys who've worked out a Teamster contract and come away with some skin.
I like the Chinese people. I think their government badly serves them. Quietly encouraging regional/ethnic identity might be useful; despite the stereotype, their culture is not all the same.
Walmart & Apple going bankrupt might not be the worst thing to happen - into an empty niche, an ecosystem will find opportunity for new organisms. Just realize that the immediate aftermath might be horrible.
The fact is, the American economy is filled with creation and destruction. We shouldn't be so eager to enshrine the titans of today, nor to use government subsidies to favor new industries. Let the government get out of the way - people will step in.
Obviously, a few industries need official oversight - it just might not need to be government. The UL example serves - it's a private enterprise that tests and approves the safety of a number of products. Manufacturers use it because it takes the responsibility of testing off them, and allows them to argue their liability should be limited because UL approved devices they sell.
The FDA could evolve into a non-governmental company. Couldn't be worse than what we have now.