The Washington Post has an article discussing the competition between the US and China for pre-eminence in science and technology. While the US is still well ahead, China is progressing rapidly. This reminds me a bit of the space race between the US and the Soviets, after Russia launched the first satellite into space in 1957.
Competition can be a good thing, as long as it’s not a negative sum game. Unfortunately, in recent years the US shows more signs of trying to slow down China, rather than build up our own science and technology:
Under the Trump administration, many U.S. researchers say their work has been devalued, threatened by budget cuts and hampered by stricter immigration policies that could deter international collaborations and the influx of talent that has long fueled American innovation.
“We are in deep doo-doo for two reasons,” said Denis Simon, who has studied Chinese science for 40 years and is the executive vice chancellor of Duke Kunshan University. In his view, the White House, without a science adviser for more than a year, lacks scientific leadership.
And collaboration between U.S. and Chinese researchers is under threat, he said. Recent restrictions on H-1B visas sent a message to Chinese graduate students that “it’s time to go home when you finish your degree.” Since 1979, China and the United States have maintained a bilateral agreement, the Cooperation in Science and Technology, to jointly study fields like biomedicine and high-energy physics. In the past the agreement was signed as a routine matter, Simon said, but that’s no longer the case.
Oddly, recently proposed trade barriers do not seem aimed at protecting sectors with lots of vulnerable low skilled workers, but rather slowing the growth of Chinese technology:
Another bill would specifically restrict Chinese investments in the ten sectors targeted by the Made in China 2025 plan. If America does impose tariffs, they would also mainly focus on these ten industries. Nearly all the proposed duties affect high-tech products such as avionics and medical devices. Low-tech goods that China sells by the shipload would be mostly untouched. He Weiwen, a former diplomat, says that America’s goal is not to shrink its trade deficit but to impede China’s progress. He has a good point.
A good nationalism would focus on making the US better in absolute terms, while a bad nationalism would focus on making the US better relative to countries like China, even if all countries end up worse off.
READER COMMENTS
E. Harding
Jun 10 2018 at 2:16pm
Agreed, Sumner. 95% of nationalism, sadly, as seen and heard in the MSM and among the general public, is bad nationalism. Though lack of nationalism could be even worse.
EB
Jun 10 2018 at 4:49pm
Scott’s starting point is
and then relies on a WP article written by fake journalists to provide evidence that Trump is responsible for trying to slow down China. It’s funny because the two main stories on foreigners moving from the U.S. to China refer to years before November 8, 2016. References to Trump’s decisions that someday, somehow, may have some small effects on the relative growth of science and technology in the two countries are limited to a few lines. Yes, TDS is contagious.
The fake article includes several references to the rapid growth of S&T in China. As many other things in China, since 1994 S&T have grown rapidly. I arrived in Beijing on January 1, 1994, and spent three years there advising on how state enterprises and banks could be reformed. At that time the main strategy was to let foreign companies form joint ventures with state enterprises to access foreign technology. Yes, the Chinese succeeded: the huge investment of the past 25 years embeds the latest technologies. I celebrate China’s recent success as well as its participation in advancing S&T, and I have yet to see any evidence that national governments have been ruining the competition.
Scott, if you have serious evidence of “bad” nationalism, please show it. I’ll be visiting China this fall and I’d like to discuss it while there.
Scott Sumner
Jun 10 2018 at 7:22pm
EB, You said:
“and then relies on a WP article written by fake journalists”
If you want me to take you seriously then don’t start out like that.
Todd Kreider
Jun 11 2018 at 1:15am
I don’t buy this. If you look at scientific papers on something A.I. related coming out of the U.S., it will usually have one if not several Chinese names and many are not Chinese American.
China has also been able to attract some American and British A.I. experts to start laboratories there.
Viking
Jun 11 2018 at 11:30am
What long term effect would a balanced US government budget have on the trade deficit?
Hazel Meade
Jun 11 2018 at 12:44pm
As someone who has worked in the aerospace industry, I cannot over emphasize how damaging the export control regime has been to American technological competitiveness. That is a set of laws which explicitly aims to prevent American military technology (include dual-use technology) from being obtained by foreigners, especially the Chinese, but the result has been that it has destroyed the market for American-made components, because customers (including American ones) do not want to deal with the ITAR regulations that come with them. It is so bad that European and Canadian manufacturers will literally advertise themselves as “ITAR Free”.
Americans must learn that other countries besides America have the same technological capacity we do, and if we don’t trade with the world, they will. They will continue to progress through competition and open markets while American companies stagnate and grow uncompetitive.
peter
Jun 11 2018 at 1:09pm
Possibly what is at play here is less “nationalism” (i.e. that what the workers who are creating the progress are thinking of is their country) but rather their own status. For workers both in the US and China there is the paycheck first, the technical challenge second, and I suspect “nationalism” a distant third.
I believe in this socio-economic light the rapid rise of China is due to the acute shortage of females and the desperate necessity for chinese men to gain status to attract a mate.
In the US males do not have the same impetuous, and thus resort to protectionism.
Ricardo
Jun 11 2018 at 1:36pm
“A good nationalism would focus on making the US better in absolute terms”
I thought you were a utilitarian. A utilitarian would say there is no such thing as good nationalism; we should always choose the utility maximizing path, regardless of where the utils end up. Is that right?
John Hare
Jun 11 2018 at 3:46pm
ITAR in the aerospace industry has stifled innovation inside the country as well. I cut back on my technical blogging when it was pointed out that what I was doing could be considered exporting controlled technologies. Unlikely to happen, but even the remote possibility of State Department problems is stifling to a hobby level inventor.
Scott Sumner
Jun 11 2018 at 3:47pm
Todd, The question is what is happening at the margin?
Viking, It would probably get smaller, ceteris paribus.
Hazel, Good points.
Ricardo, A less bad nationalism?
Viking
Jun 11 2018 at 4:11pm
“Viking, It would probably get smaller, ceteris paribus.”
So, if Trump was serious about the trade deficit, and manufacturing more domestically, he would be serious about reducing the budget deficit?
Jon Murphy
Jun 12 2018 at 7:34pm
@Viking
It doesn’t naturally follow that a lower trade deficit would mean more domestic manufacturing. It might, but it doesn’t have to.
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