[shadowmint]

Extremely relevant quote from the talented Mr Ng:

> “When the Chinese government announces a plan like this, it has significant implications for the country and the economy,” says Andrew Ng, a prominent AI expert who previously oversaw AI technology and strategy at China’s biggest online search company, Baidu. “It’s a very strong signal to everyone that things will happen.”

ie. There is going to be a tonne of money poured into this.

Will it make a difference, tangibly to economic transformation? Who knows...

...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson.

They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this.

More interesting: will it be as transformative as everyone is hoping?

[monkmartinez]

> ...but anyone sitting here scoffing that China can’t make itself a world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem needs a serious history lesson. They have before, and there is every indiction they will again, here with this.

What are they currently leading?

[eighthnate]

They are leading in solar, renewable, nuclear, patents, electric vehicles, high speed rail, hydropower, # of cities, industrialization, # of new universities, etc.

China is leading in pretty much everything right now. They are the top trading partner of pretty much every significant country. And they are planning on building another 100 cities in the next 10 years.

It is ridiculous how much change china is going through right now. Historically, urbanization/cities correlated with economic/military strength. Will that trend hold.

China currently has 100 million man cities...

https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2017/mar/20/china-100-cit...

They are planning to double that in the next 10 years.

We have 10 cities that are 1 million+ people. Europe ( including turkey and russia ) has 33 million man cities.

Think about that.

[oblio]

China was kind of domineering, but on a global historic scale they could be considered somewhat non-violent. They even got invaded twice while being the top economic power of their time. There are quite a few aspects I don't like about China, but warmongers, they are not.

If anything, the modern era should be a boon to them, since developed countries are virtually conquerable at a certain scale, via modern technology instantly turning that industrial base into a top tier military, if needed, and via the usually strong alliances provided by strong trade relations.

I actually believe China can be a peaceful #1, provided they can be stopped from bullying their neighbors and Africa when the latest political scandal demands a distraction (à la Clinton - Kosovo).

[gurkendoktor]

> They even got invaded twice while being the top economic power of their time. There are quite a few aspects I don't like about China, but warmongers, they are not.

Is extrapolating from the past really useful if the Chinese government has been completely replaced in a civil war, which was followed by the massive changes of the cultural revolution?

Likewise, is Germany a dangerous country right now because "we" have started 100% of world wars within the last century? Honestly, I wouldn't even trust our military to capture Luxembourg right now... (probably for the better!)

This applies to all aspects of China's development, of course, not just their military.

[forapurpose]

> warmongers, they are not

Perhaps they were not, though they were so dominant that they had no security fears and had other levers of power.

Contemporary China has militarily threatened or even had conflicts with most of their neighbors, including Japan, The Philippines, Vietnam, India, and Taiwan, and also the U.S. Communist China fought a war with Russia in the mid-20th century, invaded S. Korea (with the N. Koreans' assent), and invaded and annexed Tibet. They have built-military and quasi- military bases in Sri Lanka (not sure of the status of that one), Pakistan, and Djibouti. They've built infrastructure supporting potential military logistics throughout Asia.

The Chinese government's talking point is in the comment above: China does not interfere in other countries affairs and they seek a 'peaceful rise', citing their history as if President Xi restricts himself to what was done in the Qing, Ming or prior dynasties centuries ago. Almost all warmongers in history, or the ones with any sense, have made the same claims about peace; look up some German propaganda from the 1930s.

[ww520]

One example where they poured money and got ahead is the rail system and the high speed rail system.

[melling]

They have 14,000 miles of high-speed rail with an additional 10,000 coming in 10 years. They move 1 billion people a year.

They are also developing production low-speed maglev trains.

[danmaz74]

That is a proven technology though. A completely different case.

[0xbear]

Their maglev train was built by Siemens and ThyssenKrupp in Germany, the _real_ leader in high speed rail transportation.

[strin]

Their high-speed rail train is not maglev. There is one built by Germany in Shanghai, but it was more of a demo than an actual infrastructure.

[AlexCoventry]

It doesn't work like that. If you sell significant goods in China, you have to manufacture there and your methods will be copied. China is moving towards economic autarchy very quickly.

[rjtobin]

One area is scientific computing: based on, for example, the Top500 list, or their recent successes with the Gordon Bell prize (basically best paper prize for the biggest supercomputing conference).

Of course there are a lot of political factors in both of those achievements. But money definitely translated into results.

(I'm not arguing that China is the best nation in this area either, but they are clearly a leader.)

[noetic_techy]

Any country can literally buy their way to the top in this category.

[sniperjzp]

Internet related area, like payment service, on demand market, cloud computing, etc.

[elefanten]

Scale of deployment is not technology leadership

[TeMPOraL]

It seems we need to agree on a definition of "technology leadership" before discussing it further - otherwise it's too easy to keep moving the goalpost.

[varjag]

A fair definition of technology leadership is you are in the lead and others copy / strive for your achievements.

Not many actual breakthroughs come from China so far, even though they could fill a few Olympic pools with PhDs.

[pavanred]

I would guess manufacturing

[djit]

China is already the first global superpower. To believe otherwise is delusional. China became capitalist several decades ago under the disguise of communism, keeping a tight control over its people, economy and foreign policy.

[DelightOne]

> world leader in a field by simply pouring money and support onto the problem

Look at their debt and then tell me they dont try.

[AndrewKemendo]

Volume Manufacturing

[golfer]

Pollution.

[timthelion]

solar

[gph]

The US has dumped large amounts of money and support behind huge scientific endeavors like the Human Genome Project.

Certainly that example helped advance genomic science and the biotech industry in America. But it didn't quite live up to the hype, and it hasn't exactly saved the US economy from the normal ups and downs of global competition.

Course ya never know, could be the start of the next ARPANET too.