How did China get so good at chips and AI? Congressional investigation blames American venture capitalists

boem@lemmy.world to Technology@lemmy.world – 348 points –
Investigation ties American VCs to Chinese semi, AI growth
theregister.com
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Let's see, in the 80s we rapidly moved much of our technology manufacturing to China, and now we're shocked that China has this knowledge?

But a lot of shareholder value was created! Won't anybody think of the poor shareholders?

"The capitalists will sell us the rope with which to hang them"

but hey we crushed labor unions and nobody can afford anything anymore except rich people. Win-win-win

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That’s because the Chinese experience was very peculiar. When American and European investors and industry giants went abroad to outsource manufacturing, they brought in the capital and left with the profits. But the capital, and technology or knowledge, never spread in the colonies or neo-colonies. When China “opened up”, they were real clever about it. They said: “sure, you can open your factories here where there is an abundance of cheap labor. But in exchange, we want the knowledge and technology”. And since opening up China to foreign capital has been the wet dream of capitalists and proto-capitalists for the past several hundreds of years, they accepted the deal. So China was left with the know-how to be able to set-up their own national industries. And the profits of exporting manufactured goods was used for strategic industries and infrastructure, unlike most colonial and neo-colonial experiences where the profits are just pocketed by a national bourgeoisie.

And the profits of exporting manufactured goods was used for strategic industries and infrastructure, unlike most colonial and neo-colonial experiences

that's because most colonial/neo-colonial experiences are about raw resources extrativism

where the profits are just pocketed by a national bourgeoisie.

there quite a few billionaires in China

There sure are billionaires in China. But they don’t control the political structure like the billionaires do in the US. They are controlled by the political structure. When has it been the last time the US or EU executed a billionaire for harming the environment?

They just outright broke laws and stole shit.

Chinese are just a lot less honourable and trustworth. If they scam you that's your fault for being stupid, nothing wrong with scamming someone.

Holy shit… bro please don’t be racist like this in public. You should keep this shit to your brain and feel deep shame for it. No one ever taught you that?

The Chinese didn’t break any laws or “steal” anything. China had different copyright laws, and western companies agreed to share technology as part of their agreements with the CPC to operate in the SEZs. If they didn’t want China to have the tech, they could’ve just not taken the deals and go build their factories in India, or Bangladesh, or Malaysia etc.

And what you describe as the “Chinese mentality” is just literally capitalist logic, aka, psychopathy. It’s projection. The Chinese are winning, so you assume they are the apex capitalists, the Patrick Batemans. But you couldn’t be more wrong. They are winning by finding a different game, and playing it better. The rest of the world is following their lead, and your place on the board is soon to be extinct. So you panic and turn to dumbass things like racism.

You're brainwashed.

So many reports of Chinese doing dodgy shit. Just look at how much copy right infringement they do.

People go over there and set up factories and the Chinese will take the machines a part at night and put them back together as they are being installed.

Yeah na

Every time a factory opens in 3rd world the knowledge partially stays.

Holup. So they did it for the experience and that's working for them?

But but they're supposed to be inferior humans! They shouldn't be able to compete with superior Americans!

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