[thetechlead]

Not just in e-commerce, the convenience living in China has far passed America, such as in mobile payment, food delivery, bike sharing, WeChat with its tremendously useful ecosystem, the subway system, high-speed rails, etc.

Having lived in both China and America, I have to say the living standard in Chinese cities has passed America's in many ways and, more importantly, the speed of China building new facilities is at least 10x of the US. Many American believe there's a competition between two countries, but IMO the competition is already won. Chinese no longer see the US as a competitor in many areas - you rarely hear Chinese Internet companies learning something new from their American counterparts today, or people envying America for their way of living. It's the opposite I found worrisome, that America is losing confidence and becomes more insecure day by day.

[stone-monkey]

Food delivery and bike sharing work well in China because of the scale of the cities and lower cost of living. When you have millions of people densely packed together, dumping a ton of bikes everywhere may be feasible. Even then, there's known issues, like how currently the biggest bike vendors are struggling for profitability. Food delivery is occasionally cheaper than buying at the store, due to VC style subsidies and lower cost of human labor. Delivery logistics are incredibly cool to me though. Real time location tracking for food/package deliveries is impressive. It'd be amazing to see something similar in the US.

[thetechlead]

Advanced logistics technology is a part of the New Retail happening in China that revolutionizes the customer experience in shopping and living daily life, though integrating online, offline services and logistics. It's more than just delivering your food or automated convenience stores. There are quite a few companies utilizing AI and big data to drive New Retail to the next level. Recommend some articles on this topic：

https://www.bain.com/insights/embracing-chinas-new-retail/ https://www.alizila.com/new-retail/

[profalseidol]

One should try to find out why the cost of labor is lower than in the US.

[teknologist]

Those delivery guys in China are under incredible pressure.

[ericfrenkiel]

Per capita GDP and gross GDP easily refute your apologia.

Pro tip: at least try to submit something unrelated to China every now and then, otherwise people may rightly or wrongly call you a troll.

[thetechlead]

GDP per capita can be misleading and doesn't translate well into the quality of life, certainly not how convenient and safe you feel living there. Anyone who lived in China for a while would agree.

I see no problem submitting China-related news since I live in the country and Chinese technology is my focus, and HN folks deserve to know more about the development of Chinese technologies. I should submit more often. The fact that people are 'shocked' to hear Chinese company winning western counterparts as shown in the comments under various China posts in HN proves my point.

[landryraccoon]

I'm curious what you think this confidence buys the west. Like, is it actually beneficial to be overconfident? Let's say you're right and he's wrong. The consequence of overestimating China is slight. So, we were a little worried when we didn't have to be.

On the other hand, the consequences for a nation or a business of underestimating China could be catastrophic. It could mean finding your business or nation suddenly cut off by a competitor you didn't plan for. It seems to me that rational self interest alone should bias the west towards overestimating rather than underestimating China.

It almost feels like an anxious insecurity, as if admitting that China might catch up might make it so, when sticking our heads in the sand about the possible threat is way more likely to ensure we are overtaken.

[omilu]

“Every minute I spent thinking about competitors was a minute wasted” -PG

[landryraccoon]

That's talking about a startup. Europe and the United States aren't startups.

[SZJX]

That's a quite peculiar definition of "troll". Why can't somebody have a particular focus on a certain type of news/discussion? Your comments read much more like trolling.