[ajross]

Just to be clear, I didn't read that as a statement of abstract capability but of fact. China (still the second largest economy in the world by a large margin, btw) is not, in fact, capable of manufacturing leading edge microprocessors. They just don't have the fabs, nor industrial knowledge to build them.

So if they want a supercomputer right now (or frankly at any point in the coming decade or so), they need to do it with chips fabbed in the west. So restricting "export" of that technology back to the west does seem kinda funny to me. No?

[meric]

China is the country with largest economy on a PPP basis. They cannot produce leading edge microprocessors but they can produce leading edge supercomputers. They built a supercomputer using their own chips in 2011. http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/29/world/asia/china-unveils-s...

IMO the restriction on exports at this point isn't too important besides notifying everyone else, including you, China can produce chips and can produce supercomputers too.

[igravious]

By at least one accepted metric China is the largest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_economy[*]

That metric is Gross Domestic Product by Purchasing Power Parity, or GDP (PPP). The IMF and CIA Factbook use it as a measure. Economies can be measured in many ways. By GDP alone, which I agree is the more common measure, China is not the largest -- though all indicators point that it soon will be by this measure also.

http://www.euronews.com/2014/12/09/the-american-century-come...

* Wikipedia data drawn from IMF.

[sampo]

> China (still the second largest economy in the world by a large margin, btw)

What is the largest?

[seanmcdirmid]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nomi...

The EU if you count it as a country, otherwise the USA.

[sampo]

Ah, what a difference nominal vs. PPP makes.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28no...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PP...

[meric]

I think the use of PPP is more appropriate than nominal - the former measures how much goods and services the country produces while the latter measures how many US dollars those goods and services sell for. A hamburger is a hamburger - Last time I tried it actually tasted better in a Chinese McDonald's than the Aussie counterpart.

[seanmcdirmid]

A hamburger at McDonalds often costs more than in the states. Many things are more expensive here. You want to drive a car? Ah, that will be $60k please. We spent 120 RMB on a bottle of shampoo and conditioner last week..I told my wife that is almost $20!

[meric]

You're in Beijing - that's like someone living in NYC complaining US house prices are $0.9m each. Accurate for where he lives, but cannot be generalised to the entire country as a whole, where median US house price is only $0.2m each. Things are a lot more affordable out in places like Foshan (where I had my Maccas).

EDIT: Reply to below:

You're talking from your Beijing experience and I'm talking from my visiting relatives in Shunde experience...Maybe it'll be hard for us to agree. Rents, Food, Public Transport, Clothing, Education are all quite cheap compared to the U.S. and those goods are what enable people to carry out their day to day lives. Walmart made-in-china goods are naturally cheaper in China than in U.S. House prices, Car taxes, Luxury taxes are part of government policy in managing monetary policy and exchange rates with the U.S. and has as much relevance as the nominal GDP - not much when you're measuring the average person's income and the goods and services they can purchase. And remember, China's population is several times that of the U.S.

[seanmcdirmid]

Please, let's not even get into housing...I can never buy a house here. But at least rents are cheap!

Quality goods in China are expensive period. If you are in a second or third tier city, its even worse. We schedule trips to Hong Kong for shopping...we aren't the only ones also! Cars are expensive all over China as they are heavily taxed. Only food could be considered a bit cheaper, but you have to avoid the low end completely over food safety concerns (e.g. gutter oil).

All in all, I would save money by moving back to Seattle, I think. More to pay in rent, but houses are cheaper to buy, food is more expensive, but groceries would be cheaper. Taxis are much more expensive, but I could actually own my own car and park it legally without paying a whole bunch of money.

[Tiksi]

It's a comparison of nations' economies, and from the wikipedia article on PPP above:

  It is however limited when comparing the size of national economies; GDP PPP is designed to compare the purchasing power of the citizens of one country against those of another country rather than the total size of national economies.

So it doesn't seem appropriate for comparing the size of national economies.

[ajross]

Uh... The subject at hand is international trade. How exactly is PPP not literally the worst possible metric for comparing the economies?

[meric]

The subject at hand is whether a very large economy can produce certain goods. If we're measuring in goods, we should use PPP.

[fspeech]

Tradable goods should be measured using trade data and GDP is a poor proxy. US GDP is 80% services. Manufacturing value adds in China has surpassed the US since 2013: https://www.mapi.net/china-solidifies-position-worlds-larges...

[sampo]

> A hamburger is a hamburger

But by selling a hamburger in the US, you can buy several hamburgers in China...?