[hyperpallium]

It may be simplistic, but political freedom may influence technological and scientific freedom, necessary for innovation. If you routinely self-censor in one area, it transfers.

For this reason, I think we'll see some relaxation of control in China, as there has been previously.

But I guess the real challenge is having a culture of risk tolerance, and investment infrastructure etc to support it.

[twblalock]

Unfortunately it seems the Chinese government has figured out how to get high growth, investment, and scientific/technological progress without increasing political freedoms. I'd like to be wrong about that, but it seems pretty clear that it's the case.

I used to think that as more Chinese people entered the middle class, they would demand more political rights. It's generally the bourgeoisie that does this -- they aren't poor anymore and they want respect, they resent being looked down on and the monopoly on political power held by the entrenched aristocracy (which in China would be the powerful families in the party), and so on. But that hasn't happened as far as I can tell. Maybe it's because the people in a position to successfully demand political reform aren't staying in China.

[hyperpallium]

The key point of the comment I replied to is that "scientific/technological progress" has only been incremental, not leaps of creativity.

I can't speak to the factual accuracy, and it can be difficult to separate revolutionary from evolutionary, since even the greatest of leaps have antecedents and stood on the shoulders of giants (e.g. Newton)... but with such a huge population, a large proportion educated, there would be many extremely smart people capable of great work. But the only such Chinese people I know of are not in China (one famous e.g. https://wikipedia.org/wiki/Terence_Tao). So, maybe, as you say, there's a brain-drain.

And maybe I just don't hear about the ones in China (and maybe the very best work on sensitive commercial and government/military projects - e.g. CPU designers).

[lamarpye]

Not sure if that is the case. If you create IP, is the Chinese government going to defend your ownership of it? I would think smart people and people who invest in smart people are going to create things in systems where you are rewarded for it.

[hyperpallium]

China has a patent system. I don't know about copyright, but that's less significant for tech progress (and trademarks not at all).

I would guess foreign owned patents would not fare well, because it's not in China's interest (USA did the same thing some time ago), but that reasoning doesn't apply to domestically owned patents.

Apparently, in 2014 patent owners won about 80% of their cases BUT the damages granted are "maddeningly" low. The article isn't clear if that's also true for domestically owned patents. http://maxhamfirm.com/patent-litigation-china/

One mechanism is that it's harder to prove damages under Chinese Law, though people say it's changing. Though none of the cases are about real technological progress, more design/trademark like designs (I guess it's the same in the west though too) https://www.limegreenipnews.com/2018/03/calculating-larger-p...