5fish
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You know we are in a contest with China about who will dominate the forth industrial revolution. WE may have lost already... The article is long but it shows, we need to be more competitive more government investment... our new cold war...
Snip... https://www.brookings.edu/testimoni...contest-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/
China believes it is well-positioned to outcompete the United States in the competition for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and that it has four main advantages: (1) heavy investment in R&D; (2) superior institutions and industrial policies supporting China’s ambitions; (3) manufacturing prowess and centrality to global supply chains; and (4) a more robust operation to set the global technology standards that could determine the future of key industries.
Snip... China is investing in the future
First, China has learned from U.S. history in crafting its own approach to basic science research. Beijing recognizes, as the United States once did, that such research cannot be supported entirely by the market and the private sector and instead must be supported by the public. China’s investments have been enormous. The National Science Foundation estimates that China’s total R&D spending is roughly equivalent to U.S. spending even though China’s economy is smaller.[10] By some estimates, China’s government-funded R&D also already exceeds U.S. federal R&D spending. And in the technologies central to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the differences are significant. China spends roughly $2.5 billion annually, a modest sum that is nonetheless estimated to be more than ten times what the U.S. spends in a sector with critical economic and strategic potential.[11] In addition to that annual spending, Beijing also plans to spend some $10 billion to build the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences.[12] Similarly, in artificial intelligence, China spends at least as much as the United States and likely more, according to estimates from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.[13]
snip...
Second, China believes its institutions are better designed to mobilize the state, society, and market to wield industrial policy to achieve the country’s technological ambitions. For example, the Study Times commentary cited previously noted that institutions are key to seizing technological leadership, which in turn buttresses hegemonic ambitions – this is why, it argued, Britain replaced Spain, the United States replaced Britain, and why China might supplant the United States. The commentary followed countless similar commentaries in China arguing that the polarized U.S. political system was underperforming relative to China’s system.[14] As a result, it argued, “the emergence of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is conductive to China’s institutional advantages and to achieving ‘overtaking by curve,’” a reference to sprinting ahead as a competitor slows down or mishandles a turn around a racetrack.
snip... China is setting the standards...
Third, Chinese sources suggest an understanding even though the United States may have superior innovation capabilities relative to China, in many industries, that advantage matters little without manufacturing capabilities and will almost certainly evaporate unless they return. Chinese scholars see the country’s centrality to global manufacturing and supply chains as an enormous strategic advantage; in contrast, they argue that the United States has allowed “the hollowing out of its industrial base” which means it cannot convert its innovations into products without China’s factories. This dependence on China’s manufacturing capability – when combined with China’s large numbers of engineers, its penchant for reverse-engineering, and robust state support – gives it long-term advantages in the competition with the United States.[19] As the researcher Dan Wang notes, “China remains unmatched as a manufacturing site given its numbers of skilled workers, deep supplier networks and the government’s credible public support for manufacturers and provision of reliable infrastructure.”[20] Even amid the pandemic, companies like Tesla are deeply invested in China while others like Honeywell have announced new investments in Wuhan, China.
snip...
Fourth, China is increasingly focused on setting standards in technical bodies relative to the United States. China’s objectives include promoting its industries, earning lucrative royalties when its patents are used, and embedding its values and governance approaches in the architecture of technology. This year, China released its China Standard 2035 Plan as part of an effort to advance its standards globally. Even before this plan was announced, however, China had already grown influential in key bodies like the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and in some cases sought to shift standard-setting discussions to bodies where its influence was greater. Chinese firms are expected to gain enormous royalties from having succeeded in the competition over 5G standards. Moreover, with respect to governance, Chinese companies like ZTE have proposed standards for street light architecture that would allow video monitoring capabilities to be built in; for facial recognition that would require specific and extraneous demographic and biometric data to be stored; and for a new internet architecture that would advantage monitoring, censorship, and control.[21] Beijing’s success in these bodies is in part a product of its successful investments in next-generation technologies like 5G but also the more “hands-on” approach the Party appears to take relative to the more industry-led and “hands-off” approach that the United States takes. Although many standard-setting bodies are primarily comprised of companies that are supposed to vote based on their own interests, at least in China’s cases, companies like Lenovo that initially voted to endorse approaches backed by U.S. companies were criticized by nationalists for doing so and pressured to instead endorse approaches backed by major Chinese companies like Huawei. As Lenovo’s leadership team noted in an apologetic message posted online, “We all unanimously believe that Chinese companies should unite and should not allow outsiders to play them against each other.”[22] If China’s efforts continue to be successful, Beijing may be able to lock-in its approaches and extend its lead in certain key global technologies to the detriment of universal values and U.S.
Snip... https://www.brookings.edu/testimoni...contest-for-the-fourth-industrial-revolution/
China believes it is well-positioned to outcompete the United States in the competition for the Fourth Industrial Revolution and that it has four main advantages: (1) heavy investment in R&D; (2) superior institutions and industrial policies supporting China’s ambitions; (3) manufacturing prowess and centrality to global supply chains; and (4) a more robust operation to set the global technology standards that could determine the future of key industries.
Snip... China is investing in the future
First, China has learned from U.S. history in crafting its own approach to basic science research. Beijing recognizes, as the United States once did, that such research cannot be supported entirely by the market and the private sector and instead must be supported by the public. China’s investments have been enormous. The National Science Foundation estimates that China’s total R&D spending is roughly equivalent to U.S. spending even though China’s economy is smaller.[10] By some estimates, China’s government-funded R&D also already exceeds U.S. federal R&D spending. And in the technologies central to the Fourth Industrial Revolution, the differences are significant. China spends roughly $2.5 billion annually, a modest sum that is nonetheless estimated to be more than ten times what the U.S. spends in a sector with critical economic and strategic potential.[11] In addition to that annual spending, Beijing also plans to spend some $10 billion to build the National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences.[12] Similarly, in artificial intelligence, China spends at least as much as the United States and likely more, according to estimates from Georgetown’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.[13]
snip...
Second, China believes its institutions are better designed to mobilize the state, society, and market to wield industrial policy to achieve the country’s technological ambitions. For example, the Study Times commentary cited previously noted that institutions are key to seizing technological leadership, which in turn buttresses hegemonic ambitions – this is why, it argued, Britain replaced Spain, the United States replaced Britain, and why China might supplant the United States. The commentary followed countless similar commentaries in China arguing that the polarized U.S. political system was underperforming relative to China’s system.[14] As a result, it argued, “the emergence of a new round of scientific and technological revolution and industrial transformation is conductive to China’s institutional advantages and to achieving ‘overtaking by curve,’” a reference to sprinting ahead as a competitor slows down or mishandles a turn around a racetrack.
snip... China is setting the standards...
Third, Chinese sources suggest an understanding even though the United States may have superior innovation capabilities relative to China, in many industries, that advantage matters little without manufacturing capabilities and will almost certainly evaporate unless they return. Chinese scholars see the country’s centrality to global manufacturing and supply chains as an enormous strategic advantage; in contrast, they argue that the United States has allowed “the hollowing out of its industrial base” which means it cannot convert its innovations into products without China’s factories. This dependence on China’s manufacturing capability – when combined with China’s large numbers of engineers, its penchant for reverse-engineering, and robust state support – gives it long-term advantages in the competition with the United States.[19] As the researcher Dan Wang notes, “China remains unmatched as a manufacturing site given its numbers of skilled workers, deep supplier networks and the government’s credible public support for manufacturers and provision of reliable infrastructure.”[20] Even amid the pandemic, companies like Tesla are deeply invested in China while others like Honeywell have announced new investments in Wuhan, China.
snip...
Fourth, China is increasingly focused on setting standards in technical bodies relative to the United States. China’s objectives include promoting its industries, earning lucrative royalties when its patents are used, and embedding its values and governance approaches in the architecture of technology. This year, China released its China Standard 2035 Plan as part of an effort to advance its standards globally. Even before this plan was announced, however, China had already grown influential in key bodies like the Third Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) and in some cases sought to shift standard-setting discussions to bodies where its influence was greater. Chinese firms are expected to gain enormous royalties from having succeeded in the competition over 5G standards. Moreover, with respect to governance, Chinese companies like ZTE have proposed standards for street light architecture that would allow video monitoring capabilities to be built in; for facial recognition that would require specific and extraneous demographic and biometric data to be stored; and for a new internet architecture that would advantage monitoring, censorship, and control.[21] Beijing’s success in these bodies is in part a product of its successful investments in next-generation technologies like 5G but also the more “hands-on” approach the Party appears to take relative to the more industry-led and “hands-off” approach that the United States takes. Although many standard-setting bodies are primarily comprised of companies that are supposed to vote based on their own interests, at least in China’s cases, companies like Lenovo that initially voted to endorse approaches backed by U.S. companies were criticized by nationalists for doing so and pressured to instead endorse approaches backed by major Chinese companies like Huawei. As Lenovo’s leadership team noted in an apologetic message posted online, “We all unanimously believe that Chinese companies should unite and should not allow outsiders to play them against each other.”[22] If China’s efforts continue to be successful, Beijing may be able to lock-in its approaches and extend its lead in certain key global technologies to the detriment of universal values and U.S.