Quote"Well as you, Jason, probably know, it's all politics. See the "west" loves to criticize China and earn points for their adoring public, and the insecure, mediocre bystanders love buying into this fallacy of the strong west having China by the throat."

Thanks for reconfirming that you are a wumao. Guess what? I'm Chinese myself and I wasn't always living in the US. I immigrated here. I have both a very ground and high level view of how Chinese people think and how the Chinese government operates, so I'm not some "adoring public" who buys into some "fallacy." Yes it is politics, but it's not one dimensional like the way you're depicting it. It is a stark reality that China is almost exclusively focused on stealing or copying from wherever they can. Anyone who has worked there can attest to this.

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"Simple truth is, China is the best right now. Not just at copying, but at almost every tech, including the A.I, robotics, blockchain and green energy. And all of it is being manufactured and developed directly by the Chinese that are currently light years ahead of the wallowing west. And China is getting better fast. Much better."

Simple truth is that almost all of those inroads were given to China by the West. Like I explained in my first comment, China begs foreign researchers to come to China to establish the hubs to spearhead research into those fields. What China does is that within 10 years, all those foreigners will be expelled and replaced by Chinese workers who can now simply piggy back off of the hard work of others once the heavy lifting is done.

Quote"The word "copying" is such an "unfair generalization" as you've so generously described. See it's rather a inspirational and revolutionary art. And just like everything, it's not really a risk free high return investment. The practice in itself demands you to step outside your comfort zone and painstakingly create new methods. To challenge yourself beyond what you thought possible and adapt against the wind of change. Not everyone has what it takes, certainly not everyone will break through to the other side."

Those weren't my words. Those were Ath's. Copying is both hard and easy, but not for the same reason. It's hard work to just put yourself on that path, just like anything that takes effort is. But it's infinitely easy because almost anyone on that path can do it because the map has already been drawn for them. It's cheating. Period. Cheating is hard in that it takes time and physical effort, but that "effort" is different from the effort of ingenuity and daring that was required to make the initial breakthroughs when no one else did. That's why R&D is costly in terms of money, time, and brain trust. China simply decided they didn't want to put in this effort and bypassed all of these costs. So go ahead, applaud China's hard work in stealing and copying. It's still stealing and copying.

Quote"As they say, it's not who does it first, but who does it best. And absolutely everything is in the execution. Winning the race James, won't have the doves shower down and place a gold medal around your neck in the real world. Instead, being first and sticking your neck out into the open is often times a tragic way to lose your head."

It's both, for different reasons. China was neither first nor are they the best. As for your metaphor, I know my Chinese sayings from my youth, and you just gave yourself away again as a wumao.

Quote"Today, you won't hear the Chinese people complaining about how the west stole their 4 greatest inventions - the compass, gunpowder, printing, and paper - because that's not who they are anymore. Progress doesn't wait for anybody to play catch-up. One day, the west will wake up from their dream and see the world with clear eyes, and by then, it will be too late."

You know why? Because "today" is thousands of years away from that past. It is asinine to utilize the word "stole" to what happened thousands of years ago in the same way as how "stole" is used in today's context. Might as well blame homo sapiens for "stealing" fire from the neanderthals.