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by yusuke10 3043 days ago
The paper cites a few things

> But now the number of cited AI papers by Chinese scientists is already at 89% of the American level

Every article that wants to claim that China AI is on par with American AI claims this. But US has 10X the amount of AI scientists as China, which means Chinese AI scientists produces 10X amount of papers as American scientists. Quantity over quality, spurred by government cash rewards. Lots of noise, no bite.

> China’s e-commerce sales are double America’s. Chinese firms are collectively 53% as big as America’s, measured by market value

That's because China has 1.3B population, about 4X times more than America's 350B. However, it is projected that China will have peak population in this decade, and will be around 800M population sometimes in 2100. America has alot better demographics, vs China who has one of the oldest, and whose working population will contract by a few hundred millions by 2050

> Chinese non-tech firms are relatively primitive and only 26% as digitised as American ones. As for investment, Chinese tech’s absolute budget is only 30% as big as that of American tech. And it is still small abroad, with foreign sales of 18% of the total that American firms make.

that's the gist of the article. China is nowhere near as big as America's tech currently. And China is on its way to the lost decade (that's why xijingping recently wanted the provinces to focus on things other than GDP, since the local governments are levered to the hill with debt)

2 comments

> However, it is projected that China will have peak population in this decade, and will be around 800M population sometimes in 2100.

WOW! Population declines have hugely negative effects on economics like GDP. I don't know if that has been factored into their GDP estimates but that makes me extremely question their GDP growth.

Other things in the paper

> AMERICANS, and friends of America, often reassure themselves about its relative decline in the following way

The decline is a myth; US is doing really well. US has a 3% gdp growth, which is huge when you realize the base is 19 Trillion! Contrast that with China, whose provinces just announced 20-30% fake revenue and putting the funny consistent 7% gdp growth in realm of accounting fraud.

> Uncle Sam may have ceded the top spot to China in exports in 2007, and manufacturing in 2011

Not with all of the protectionism and tariffs coming to hit China, from US, EU, and Japan. China can't get around import tariffs by shipping from Vietnam, South Korea, or Africa anymore. Solar panel and refrigerators now, steel and aluminum next. Apple's 300B investment amongst others will revitalize US manufacturing.

> China’s unicorns, a proxy for the next generation of giants, are in total worth 69% of America’s,

Xiaomi's 40B unicorn valuation is all the way from 2014. It's losing to Oppo and Huawei in China. Meituan Dianping is burning cash rapidly like Uber, same as Didi Chuxing.