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China vs U.S. in an 'Internet Race' 347

Posted by Zonk from the to-the-tld-alice dept.
avatar4d writes to mention an article on CIO about a new 'space race' on the internet between China and the U.S.. China is currently hard at work at what is being called the 'Chinese Next Generation Internet' (CNGI). With plans to unveil the project at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the network is part of a plan to leap ahead of the United States in innovation and technology. From the article: "The strategy, outlined in China's latest five-year plan, calls for the country to transition its economy from one based almost entirely on manufacturing to one that produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs — using a new and improved version of today's dominant innovation platform, the Internet. 'CNGI is the culmination of this revolutionary plan' to turn China into the world's innovation capital, says Wu Hequan, vice president of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and the chairman of the CNGI Expert Committee, the group overseeing the project. 'We will use it as a way to break through and be competitive in the global economic market.'"
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China vs U.S. in an 'Internet Race'

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  • Good & Bad (Score:4, Funny)

    by Kittyflipping ( 840166 ) * on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:37PM (#16156636) Homepage
    I hear you won't be able to say anything bad about the Chinese government on this new internet; however you can get quite a deal on a Rolex and other brand name items...
    • get quite a deal on a Rolex and other brand name items...

      Not to mention that you'll be able to download Vista in two minutes.
      • When you look at the four thousand years of Chinese history, it can't help but scream one clear message, and that is the message of repeated lost opportunities due to their obsession with preserving the established order at all cost. That is why they are trying to create their own, closed "internet" and that is also why the US is so obsessed with controlling what is really a global resource as well. I think that this obsession with control will profoundly hurt bith nations, although since China's obsession

  • How about China vs. Superstition? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by RobertB-DC ( 622190 ) * on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:38PM (#16156647) Homepage Journal
    While we in the US were watching Atlantis take off on what turned out to be a successful ISS construction mission, the Chinese were launching a quarter-ton of seeds into space [spaceflightnow.com]:
    Shijian-8 carries at least 2,000 types of seed samples from a variety of species including those grown in normal crops on Earth, as well as fungi. In all, about 474 pounds of seeds are stowed away aboard the satellite, according to the state-owned Xinhua news agency.

    Heralded as China's first satellite primarily designed for space breeding, Shijian-8's seed payload will be returned to Earth after about two weeks of flight, the China Daily newspaper reported in July.

    Sounds great, for them at least, doesn't it? Do some basic research. Get ahead of the Americans. So you can imagine the mental double-take at this tidbit from the same article:
    After being recovered, the seeds will be used by researchers attempting to improve the quality and yield of terrestrial crops. Chinese officials contend that seeds exposed to space radiation and microgravity contain more vitamins and other crucial minerals.

    WHAT? China's greatest minds put together a launch and re-entry vehicle, and "officials" load it with almost 500 pounds of seeds so that they will magically become superplants? WTF? Did someone in China not get the memo that their former occupiers are not *really* developing giant robots [mechavskaiju.com], and that Little Shop of Horrors [wikipedia.org] is a work of fiction, not a battle plan?

    The article claims that China will be a country that "produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs". Sending a truckload of seeds to come back as food for the Fantastic Four sounds more like a continuation of the tradition that brought us tiger penis, rhinoceros horn, and bear bile [wikipedia.org] therapies. And here I was, worried we were losing our edge.

    • Sending a truckload of seeds to come back as food for the Fantastic Four sounds more like a continuation of the tradition that brought us tiger penis, rhinoceros horn, and bear bile therapies. And here I was, worried we were losing our edge.

      Damn. You waited until the second to last sentence, and then blew my hopes for a Fantastic Four joke.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by cobbaut ( 232092 )
      While we in the US were watching Atlantis take off on what turned out to be a successful ISS construction mission, the Chinese were launching a quarter-ton of seeds into space:

      And while your shuttle fleet was grounded, they launched two manned spacecraft in orbit.

      And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.

      The whole world knows that China is the real innovator and the next world superpower, when will Americans realize this ?

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by everphilski ( 877346 )
        And while your shuttle fleet was grounded, they launched two manned spacecraft in orbit.

        Yeah, with a copy (they have blueprints) of a Russian Soyuz capsule. They didn't innovate, they copied. Welcome to the space race, 40 years late ...

        And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.

        Since when? And for how long? I'm skeptical of the figure but I will tell you this, rises are followed by falls. And if you think the americ

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by ozbird ( 127571 )
          They didn't innovate, they copied.

          That doesn't seem to have hurt Microsoft at all... Starting first doesn't mean you'll win the race; think of it as intellectual slipstreaming.

        • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

          by nido ( 102070 )
          And if you think the american economy is crappy... well you don't live here and you have no idea. I can't complain...

          If you get out of your little tunnel and open your eyes, you'll find that the economy is not so great. Real wages have been going down since the 70's (following the start of the outsourcing trend [slashdot.org]), and many of our fellow americans have been financing the difference. In the last couple of years, this means Adjustable Rate Mortgages to afford payments on a house, 0% auto loans, growing credit

          • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

            by Y0tsuya ( 659802 )
            China won't get away unscathed. U.S. consumers pretty much financed China's economic growth over the past decade. When the gravy train derails, expect China to be smacked against the bulkhead too. You want to talk about real-estate bubbles? Chinese costal cities are as bubblicious as they come, with housing prices rivaling that of California. Pretty soon, there will be a series of giant popping sounds circling the globe.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by DrCode ( 95839 )
          Any first-year biology student will tell you what happens with irradiated seeds.

          You get tomatoes laced with nicotine?

      • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

        by walt-sjc ( 145127 )
        The whole world knows that China is the real innovator and the next world superpower, when will Americans realize this ?

        Innovator in what, near slave labor? Oppression of it's people? While the US isn't perfect in the way it behaves and treats it's people, it is still FAR better than most countries and Far FAR better than China.

        What China has is cheap labor with lots of foreign inventment because of that cheap labor. That's it. Everything else pretty much sucks. The people that are not in the elite class ha

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by Gulthek ( 12570 )
          Oh, gosh. I don't know.

          paper
          the printing press
              and moveable type
          gunpowder
          the compass

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by Anonymous Coward
        And while your shuttle fleet was grounded, they launched two manned spacecraft in orbit.
        good for china, now they're only 50 years behind the US and Russia.

        And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.
        gazillions?...making up words somehow makes these into facts? The US still has an economy FIVE times the size of China and is still nearly 30% of the world's economy.

        The whole world knows that China is the real innovator and the
      • Absolutelly. After all, without China taking the lead, how would another Firefly season get made?

      • Re:How about China vs. Superstition? (Score:4, Insightful)

        by oatworm ( 969674 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @05:03PM (#16157317) Homepage
        Sorry, but China's growth rate is a prime example of the catch-up effect [wikipedia.org]. In short, China's growth rate is double-digits (or near there) because they were using their labor so inefficiently until recently that they only have one direction to go. Besides, if GDP growth was proof of a country's greatness, perhaps China better look in their rear-view mirror, because Azerbaijan [sportsforum.ws] is catching up fast.

        As for China being the next world superpower, call me when they get a navy [hazegray.org]. Sure, they can nuke us, but they can't even get past Chile's navy to hold the nuked territory, much less our own, and it's not like we don't have a few nukes to play with. Heck, the US has 2/3 of the quantitative aircraft carrier fleet [globalsecurity.org] in the world, and 4/5 of the deck space.

      • And while your shuttle fleet was grounded, they launched two manned spacecraft in orbit.

        We launched more astronauts on the last shuttle mission then China will launch this entire decade. They are also literally groveling [sinodaily.com] to hitch a ride with us to the space station or the moon. We sure as hell don't need them or the Ruskies to get back. They are still 40 years behind.

        And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.

        The US i

      • Yes...but (Score:2, Interesting)

        by sgt_doom ( 655561 )
        And while your country is spending gazillions on invading Iraq and others, they improve their economy with 10 percent each year.

        Now just a second here, all those vile corporations of the military-industrial-corporate-congressional-prison -complex are making a fortune off of this unlawful invasion and occupation of Iraq. And China's economy is only improving so much because all of the American corporations (make that corporateers) keep sending all the jobs - in all categories - over there (along with Europ

    • Re:How about China vs. Superstition? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by timeOday ( 582209 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:59PM (#16156818)
      I wouldn't be too quick to judge China's scientific community based on a translation of a one-line project synopsis by a buearocrat.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Grym ( 725290 ) *

        Well, that begs the question then: Why did they send seeds to space? The interesting thing to do would be to observe those seeds growing in a micro-gravity environment. But they're just sending them up there only to... bring them back down?

        Makes you wonder if the sattelite doesn't serve some other, undisclosed military purposes...

        -Grym

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by Marsala ( 4168 )
        Then you, sir, are at the wrong website.

    • Re: (Score:2, Insightful)

      by ubeans ( 449308 )
      Underestimating a competitor is never a smart move. Remember that the U.S. auto industry was laughing at the first japanese cars to reach our continent. The japanese eventually gave them a good run for their money.

      • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

        by blzabub ( 889163 )
        A good run for their money? American automakers are all perilously close to bankruptcy, struggling with pensions and high healthcare costs. Toyota and Honda are healthier than ever with growing marketshares. Toyota will become the largest automaker in the world by marketshare within the next year. I'd say the Japanese have given US automakers a bit more than just a run for their money.
    • Reminds me of that Family Guy episode where in an effort to stop the mutated Griffins, Mayor Adam West dips himself in toxic waste (and gets cancer.)
    • relatively uneducated communists take over and purge the educated.

      But it really depends when you look. When China had "junks" [wikipedia.org], the West didn't really have anything similar. Same for silk and porcelain. China was making developments towards steel [wikipedia.org] hundreds of years Before Common Era, that wouldn't be matched in the West until medieval times.

      Now, they're considered backwards, for good reason, and probably will be for many decades to come. It takes awhile to recover from such a devastating and calculated blow t
    • ...this is really what occurred? That the seeds were the only cargo, that it wasn't a cover for some other sort of mission?

      wheels within enigmas here....maybe....

      Speaking of launches, they just introduced a new class of road mobile, fairly accurate ICBMs, the DF-31, that can be fitted with a large single or three MIRV type warheads.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Yvanhoe ( 564877 )
      I have seen dozens of news report about Atlantis' launch. Never saw a single report about the fact that China is doing research about breeding crops in orbit (doesn't this give some insights about the seriousness of their plan to build a permanent moon base or is it just me ?). The question is simpel : why do the medias don't report this ?

  • Experts? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by mr_stinky_britches ( 926212 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:45PM (#16156697) Homepage Journal
    Where are they going to get all these expert scientists and researchers for this? IMO, you can't just instantly (4 years, for a country to change its entire economy is essentially instantaneous for that kind of thing) change your entire economy to become a bunch of super duper experts..

    • Same place the US got its rocketry experts (Score:5, Insightful)

      by EmbeddedJanitor ( 597831 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:52PM (#16156759)
      You get them from elsewhere (Europe, etc) .

      The whole idea of "race" and needing decades of experience to get in front is very archaic. You don't need to follow the full technological evolution to get there.

      Besides.... China has an amazing history of technological superiority over the last couple of thousand years or so, with only the last 100 or so years (a mere 5%) being a "glitch".

      • Re: (Score:3, Informative)

        by Grishnakh ( 216268 )
        You get them from elsewhere (Europe, etc) .

        That only works if you can entice those people to move there somehow. It was easy for the US to entice Europeans to come work here: at the time, it was the aftermath of WWII, and while Europe was devastated, the US was completely unharmed (on its own soil) and entering an economic boom. Who wouldn't want to move in those conditions?

        These days, things are a little different: China, while improving quickly, is still a third-world country, and has a very oppressive
      • Besides.... China has an amazing history of technological superiority over the last couple of thousand years or so, with only the last 100 or so years (a mere 5%) being a "glitch".

        Boy, do those jokers get a lot of mileage out of inventing gun powder. What a crock.

    • Where are they going to get all these expert scientists and researchers for this?

      They have 1.3 billion people. You'd think that they have a couple of smart people there.
    • I meant 2 years, not 4

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by bunions ( 970377 )
      > IMO, you can't just instantly (4 years, for a country to change its entire economy is essentially instantaneous for that kind of thing) change your entire economy to become a bunch of super duper experts..

      Well, they changed their entire economy instantly to become a bunch of super-duper peasant farmers not too long ago, so there's some precedent anyway.

  • Let's create a template post (Score:3, Funny)

    by Rotten168 ( 104565 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:45PM (#16156709) Homepage
    1) Complain about US falling behind
    2) blame Christian Fundamentalists and Bush
    3) ????
    4) Profit!!!

  • Copying, not innovating (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PeeAitchPee ( 712652 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:47PM (#16156720)
    Right now, the Asian tech industries excel at not innovation but copying and improving upon existing designs which typically originate elsewhere. This is not just a Chinese thing -- look at the Japanese auto industry or Korean flat panel fabs, for example. It's quite a jump to magically switch your entire economy's sweet spot to one that's based on innovation -- in five years, no less -- but I think the biggest thing that the Chinese are missing out on is the *reason* for that innovation. Here in the States, tech isn't government-mandated and government-controlled, we don't fix our currency rate, and, above all else, it's possible to become very, very, VERY rich if you're successful in tech. Let's be honest -- our tech industry takes advantage of human greed (for better and for worse), something that runs contrary to communism at its core. The negative is that we let failing companies fail, jobs are lost, etc., but the positive is that there's actually a real INCENTIVE to innovate.

    • Re:Copying, not innovating (Score:4, Insightful)

      by king-manic ( 409855 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:52PM (#16156755)
      Here in the States, tech isn't government-mandated and government-controlled, we don't fix our currency rate, and, above all else, it's possible to become very, very, VERY rich if you're successful in tech.

      You can also grow very very very rich in china too. It a different game but the essentials are the same. Connections, hard work, a bit of luck, a few bribes, and exploiting those below you. Same in the US as in China. There are apartments in beijing with a lease price of 500,000+ yuan (~90,000+ US) per mo. It's a sign of wealth when you have such sky high realistate.
    • "the Asian tech industries excel at not innovation but copying and improving upon existing designs"

      Yeah. My cheap 15$ walmart can opener that falls over if anything larger than a soup can is put on it can attest to the faboulous improvents the chinese have made.

      Or the way they save copper by bundiling the shortest USB cables possible with external hard drive enclosures. Truely they are weaving engineering magic.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by bersl2 ( 689221 )
      I agree with everything else you said, but:

      The negative is that we let failing companies fail, jobs are lost, etc., but the positive is that there's actually a real INCENTIVE to innovate.

      is not always so. If you have enough influence, you can get the government to bail you out (airline industry), change the laws (entertainment industry), etc, at the expense of everyone else. Large companies in expensive industries do not respond to market forces gracefully.
    • Here in the States, tech isn't government-mandated and government-controlled

      *points to the subject header*

      enough said..

  • a challenge? (Score:5, Funny)

    by User 956 ( 568564 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:50PM (#16156742) Homepage
    With plans to unveil the project at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, the network is part of a plan to leap ahead of the United States in innovation and technology.

    Given that ours is made of tubes, it can't be hard to come up with something better.

  • Innovation or Propaganda and Lies? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Bryansix ( 761547 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:51PM (#16156749) Homepage
    FTA:
    The technology at the heart of CNGI is an emerging communication standard called Internet protocol version 6 (IPv6). The Internet protocol is the Internet's version of a postal envelope, containing information such as the destination and return addresses, and details about a package's contents. The current standard, IPv4 (IPv5 never made it out of the lab), doesn't have enough unique addresses for every would-be user in the world to connect to the Internet. IPv6 solves this problem, and is also more secure and efficient than its predecessor. For these and other reasons, most experts agree that a shift to an IPv6-based Internet is inevitable.
    So in otherwords they plan to move to IPv6 and call the idea their own? Come on guys. You can do better then that! I've been an advocate of pushing IPv6 adoption for a long time. For some reason there is a lot of resistance to it.

    • Re:Innovation or Propaganda and Lies? (Score:4, Informative)

      by truthsearch ( 249536 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @04:01PM (#16156848) Homepage Journal
      It's not resistance, just a lack of interest. Not enough people will care until after we run out of IP addresses and conflicts occur. Society tends to not be very proactive unless the drive comes from authority.
      • There's a lot of hardware out there that's very fast at IPv4 but not IPv6. We've got a bunch on campus, our whole core. They are combo switches/routers (layer-3 switches if you like). Basically, when using IPv4 they don't have to touch the CPU very much. They can, in essence, route the first packet for a connection then establish a flow and switch the rest. All done in ASICs, very fast. Well these things can support IPv6, if you install a software upgrade, but only in software. There's no hardware backing i

  • This is an interesting experiment (Score:3, Insightful)

    by PHAEDRU5 ( 213667 ) <instascreed@noSpam.gmail.com> on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:53PM (#16156763) Homepage
    So, China wants a large population of smart people, trained and able to ask fundamental questions, who won't question Party Orthodoxy.

    Good luck.

    One of two things will happen: Another cultural revolution, or the overthrow of the regime.

    Given that the PRC is a mature fascist state, I know where my money is.
    • Ah... if it only was that easy. Unfortunately, Chinese have a vastly different idea of country, government and what gives a government the right to govern its people. Watch the Jet-Li movie Hero (or any of the other Chinese kung-fu flicks) to get an idea of that. Yeah, yeah, movies aren't reality, but they do give you an idea of the mindset of the target audience.

      Personally, I don't see the current government changing very much. As long as prosperity improves, as long as there's plenty of opportunity to mak
    • So, China wants a large population of smart people, trained and able to ask fundamental questions, who won't question Party Orthodoxy... One of two things will happen: Another cultural revolution, or the overthrow of the regime.

      In 1984, there was another suggestion. When English was replaced with Newspeak, scientists, engineers, doctors, and other professionals would continue to speak in their usual jargon. "Capacitor", "hypotenuse", and "spleen" have no political connotation, after all.

      I never figured ou

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by retrosteve ( 77918 )
      Up until recently, I might have agreed with you, that a fascist regime can't keep smart people asking questions without either clamping down, or being overthrown.

      But I'm starting to doubt it since talking to some people recently immigrated from China. As I read their attitude, the regime has read its Machiavelli, and is being very smart. As Machiavelli advised, they rule from fear and power, BUT allow people a lot of freedom and even safety within strict limits. In fact, enough freedom to grow rich and b

  • That's funny... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by ShadyG ( 197269 ) <bgraymusic AT gmail DOT com> on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:53PM (#16156764) Homepage
    ...I always figured that today's dominant innovation platform was "getting rich off the stuff you create".

  • Made in China... (Score:4, Funny)

    by Mini-Geek ( 915324 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @03:58PM (#16156807) Homepage
    Now we'll start seeing "Made in China" stickers on web sites.

    This Post Made in China

  • Cultural burdens for China (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Vexler ( 127353 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @04:01PM (#16156845) Journal
    China has historically been competing with the West, at various levels throughout history and national inferiority complex notwithstanding. During the 70's and the 80's, one of the most popular slogans was "Surpass England, Pursue America". Its "Four Modernizations" and various manifestations of five-year plans are simply more of the same.

    It is interesting that China would do anything to give the impression that it is an advanced, highly evolved civilization, while everyone else notices cracks at the seams. The comment about space-born seeds having higher mineral and vitamin content would have been hilarious had they not been so astonishingly revealing about their collective peasant mentality.
    • China has historically been competing with the West, at various levels throughout history and national inferiority complex notwithstanding

      There are missed opportunites throughout history for societies that are dependent on cheap labor.

      You don't introduce machines because machines bring change, machines cost money and machines displace the masses of low-skilled workers who have nowhere else to go.

  • They want to move away from manufacturing? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Cowpat ( 788193 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @04:01PM (#16156849) Journal
    So, er, who's gonna make stuff? Oh, wait, that means that all the western nations who's economies are moving ever closer to being entirely reliant on intellectual property with a real value of nil and are banking on the force of law and international treaties to bouy their economies up whilst shifting the manufacture of real goods to China will have to start making stuff themselves again.
    Right now China has got us all over a barrel because they're where we get the majority of our goods, why would they fritter it all away moving to an economic model like ours?

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Gablar ( 971731 )

      Maybe they realize that the advancements in computing power will eventually erase their edge.. man power. Robots will do the work the chinese people do now for very little money.

    • I predict a rise in the popularity of handcrafted objects from local artisans.

      As basic goods are increasinly manufactured in automated robofabs, people will begin to furnish their homes with cheap, durable, simple objects, and spend their discretionary income on handcrafted wood, ceramic, and metal decorative objects made by local craftsmen.

      Over time, even handcrafted functional objects will become desireable (to those that can afford them).

      A new consumer economy, based on buying the basic and big-ticket it
    • "Right now China has got us all over a barrel because they're where we get the majority of our goods"

      Not to be too critical, but this doesn't make much sense. It would be just as apt to say we've got THEM over a barrel, because we are their biggest market. In other words, they're where we get the majority of our goods, but we're where they get the majority of their *cash*.

      That's "globalization." It increases the degree to which economies rely *on each other*.

          - AJ
  • So, it sounds like dispite the technical challenges, the largest problem you have over there is in dealing with government interference. Look on the bright side, at least your post shows that for all the problems you're having, censorship isn't one of them!

  • Wait a minute, isn't this the same country whose > 1 billion minds can't even design a low-grade CPU without stealing foreign IP [slashdot.org]? Riiiiight...

    China may have the resources and manpower to make it look like the next superpower, but they seem intent on screwing it up at every opportunity.

  • Both are behind (Score:4, Insightful)

    by delirium of disorder ( 701392 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @04:08PM (#16156895) Homepage Journal
    China [internetworldstats.com] and the USA [internetworldstats.com] are behind in the broadband race; each have to catch up with Sweden [internetworldstats.com].

    • Interesting link. And it led to this link [doingbusiness.org], which I'll use to preempt the "Swedish are Tax Commies" talk that's sure to ensue.

      The effective tax that a medium size company in the United States must pay or withhold within a year is shown below. Entrepreneurs there must make 10 payments, spend 325 hours, and pay 45.96% of gross profit in taxes." (To wit, not that much less than in Sweden, which provides better public services.)

  • Innovation isn't defined in an RFP (Score:3, Insightful)

    by hoggoth ( 414195 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @04:12PM (#16156930) Journal
    Innovation doesn't come from having a magic tech bullet like the Internet 2.0. Magic tech bullets come by the hundreds from having a free and open exchange of ideas, talent, motivation, and capital.

    China has lost before its even out of the starting gate.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hoggoth ( 414195 )
      Quiz time. Match the statement with the country:

      "Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am a millionaire and everyone is trying to copy me."
      A. United States
      B. China

      "Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am in a re-education camp having my personality broken down and rebuilt into one more suitable to the party."
      A. United States
      B. China

      • Quiz time. Match the statement with the country:

        1-"Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am a millionaire and everyone is trying to copy me."
        A. United States
        B. China

        1-"Everyone said I was crazy. I said F* everybody and I tried it anyway. Now I am in a re-education camp having my personality broken down and rebuilt into one more suitable to the party."
        A. United States
        B. China


        1- b - Liu Yongxing
        2- a - Abu Zubaydah

    • Re:Innovation isn't defined in an RFP (Score:4, Insightful)

      by Alaska Jack ( 679307 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @06:16PM (#16157739) Journal
      Shortly after Iraq being overthrown, I remember one of Saddam's top guys, who had been captured, being interviewed, and saying something like "America didn't win because of its culture or anything like that. It just won because of its technical superiority."

      I watched this, shaking my head, and thinking, "They will never get it. You could try to explain to this guy, until you're blue in the face, that America's 'technical superiority' DERIVES from its culture -- its freedom to innovate, diversity of ideas, etc -- but you'd just be wasting your breath."

      Of course, that's not to say someone else couldn't create a culture that is even MORE dynamic, inquisitive, vibrant, etc. If THAT happened, I would worry about being surpassed. Otherwise, not so much.

          - Alaska Jack
  • Scientific training, related to maths, physics, chemical, and technological branches, many engineering branches, including computer science, industrial engineering, etc. represents a huge effort, both in time and space (space as people, time as people training periods). Where I live, Europe, most countries have *decades* of continuous science and engineering tradition, not only moved from the individual nor collective desire of making money, but mainly for the desire of knowledge and self growing. There is

  • WTF (Score:5, Insightful)

    by oh_my_080980980 ( 773867 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @04:32PM (#16157092)
    It's nice to know that people's view of China haven't changed in 50 years. US Education system is doing it's normal bang up job.

    Before you laugh too heavily about China's "space seeds," you might want to remember that most American believe:

    1. The earth was created in 7 days
    2. That god created people "as is"
    3. Evolution is a myth

    You see America can trump China in ignorance everytime.

    But let's not also forget:

    1. all the capital investment going into China - China leads the world in foreign investment.
    2. the trade deficit - the US imports more goods from China then we export.
    3. China has HUGE cash reserves, meanwhile the US is running a 6 trillion dollar deficit which will only get larger thanks to medicare and social security benefits, the war in iraq.
    4. almost all electronics and manufacturing is done in china.
    5. china's population - a sellers wet dream. the us' market dominance is fading as more and more chinese have disposable income.

    Kudos to the morons who aren't paying attention.

  • I have to believe (perhaps naively) that this isn't going to happen, at least not on the scale the article might suggest.

    All things being equal (which, of course, they're not, but...), I don't see how a country which pursues censorship and control of information on the Internet to the degree that China does can innovate and get ahead here. The free flow of ideas is a better soil for the tree of knowledge to grow.
  • IMO there is no first mover advantage for IPv6. Besides more addresses, most of the other good features of IPv6 have been backported to IPv4. So the only benefit is more addresses, and you only get that benefit after IPv4 addresses have run out. So switching to IPv6 before IPv4 addresses run out just ends up costing more (since router prices fall over time, the earlier you switch the more it costs).

    The article doesn't mention that there is a new NSF-funded effort in the USA called the Global Environment for [geni.net]

  • CNGI (Score:2)

    by Tancred ( 3904 )
    Can't seem to get to the article at the moment.

    What exactly do they want to improve on, to leapfrog the U.S.? Make it available to more people? Is there anyone in the U.S. that can't get access - at a local library if nothing else? Make it more mobile, so you have access anywhere you happen to be at the moment? I get EDGE service most places I want to be already here. Make it faster? A few megabits per second at home seems like enough to me. Not enough to stream HD content, but probably will be able to by t

  • The whole article is flamebait (Score:3, Insightful)

    by gamer4Life ( 803857 ) on Thursday September 21, 2006 @05:42PM (#16157539)
    Since when does technological innovation have it's roots in "beating the other guy". It's for advancement of society, for curiousity, for problem solving. Just because China does some research doesn't mean it's trying to win a "race". Sure they might have wanted in the past to play catch up in technological progress, but why are we so quick to assume it's a race? Why not just assume they're doing it for the betterment of society?

    Where does all this xenophobia come from? The average Chinese citizen doesn't feel this way towards Americans, but for some reason, we are so paranoid about them. Perhaps the reason is that Chinese people consume a lot of American media, while here in America, we are less open towards foreign entertainment.

  • "The strategy, outlined in China's latest five-year plan, calls for the country to transition its economy from one based almost entirely on manufacturing to one that produces its own scientific and technological breakthroughs -- using a new and improved version of today's dominant innovation platform, the Internet.

    Does anyone else think this sounds like the .com bubble version of government? Five year plan to transition from manufacturing to an economy based on becoming a leader in science and technology,

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by geekoid ( 135745 )
      "hey, if China's economy is going to based off technology innovations and scientific research, guess they'll have to start respecting IP laws..."

      welll, thats a myth. Innovations are far older then IP law.
      Just because we in the west think everything needs to be tied up doesn't make it so.

      China seems to have a booming movie indutry.
  • If they are not using IPv6, how can they really call it "next generation"?

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