ONE ECONOMY TO RULE THEM ALL:

[E]ven without this poor resource allocation, China's chip development still would be hindered by the country's lack of long-term vision.

In 2019 I interviewed a data and AI scientist at Huawei, China's largest and most powerful telecommunications company, which at the time was poised to take over the global rollout of 5G. He told me that despite Huawei's achievements, a hunger for quick success pervaded the company. While Ren Zhengfei, the company's founder and CEO, would publicly encourage new research, he was likely to cut off funding if there were no notable achievements within a project's first two years. This pattern has led to the most consistent innovation at Huawei taking place only at the application level. The company rewards innovations that can make money immediately, but long-term research that might lead to world-changing innovation isn't being done.

This isn't unique to Huawei. It is the norm of Chinese society under communist control. Great innovation comes from free and curious minds. Such minds need nurturing, and, despite all its dazzling skyscrapers and smart cities, China today is incapable of doing so.

China's test-oriented education discourages creativity and independent thinking. The Communist Party uses propaganda to instill a sense of loyalty and gratitude in the people, to the detriment of faith, which encourages broader inquiry. 

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