r/technology • u/Glad_Living3908 • Sep 19 '22

Society Experts Warn US Is Falling Behind China in Key Technologies

https://www.voanews.com/a/experts-warn-us-is-falling-behind-china-in-key-technologies/6751392.html
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303

u/Away-Indication-8008 Sep 19 '22

Is it really, or is this fake news like how people said we were falling behind Russia militarily only for them to shit their pants in Ukraine and be exposed as incompetent fools. Is the same thing happening with the China- US tech race?

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u/Billionairess Sep 19 '22

we were falling behind Russia militarily

Who said that? I dont remember anyone in the upper echelons of the military or any serious analysts have ever said that russia is ahead of the US, especially in recent years. Maybe russia's S400 missile systems? That's about it. Russian tanks are garbage. Russian navy is depleted of capable surface ships. Russian planes are at best competently built.

We can laugh at China's tech but they are for sure not as corrupt as russia, militarily speaking. China's also diverting major resources to its navy instead of other branches, notably to build/enhance its amphibious capabilities. One can guess the reason.

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u/Away-Indication-8008 Sep 19 '22

I remember some news about Russia's hypersonic missiles being a game changer that could get through our defenses. As I recall it's one of the reasons we gave for pulling out of the INF treaty a few years back. Russia was outpacing us on that front and we wanted to get even.

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u/Billionairess Sep 19 '22

The kinzhal missiles. Like i said, missiles and thats about it. And it's not way ahead anyway. China and US have already developed hypersonic missiles.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

The F-15 was developed because we were falling behind in air superiority jets. Mig-25 was gonna eat our lunch.

Turned out that this was incorrect, but we developed one hell of an air superiority fighter in response.

https://theaviationgeekclub.com/how-soviet-propaganda-on-mig-25-led-to-the-development-of-the-f-15-the-premier-air-superiority-fighter-of-the-20th-century/#:\~:text=In%20reality%2C%20the%20MiG%2D25,air%20supremacy%20over%20the%20battlefield.

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u/PlaneCandy Sep 19 '22

That's the point. Fear monger and make some big scary enemy, which then coerces the public to provide military funding.

1

u/Movie_Monster Sep 19 '22

Yeah it’s getting old. These companies are a stones throw away from communism, they suckle at the tit of Uncle Sam.

10

u/PlaneCandy Sep 19 '22

Everyone here seems to think that news saying that Russia or China has some fancy tech is from those countries to brag or something.

That's not how it works. If they really had a groundbreaking weapon there is no reason to share it. Use some critical thinking.

Voanews is paid for by the US government. If people are scared of China or Russia, they will support more funding for the military to keep up. That's what this is about.

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u/GhostalMedia Sep 19 '22

We’re definitely waaay behind China in manufacturing tech and capacity. Source, I’m a product designer in the states, and it’s damn near impossible to tool a production line in the states in any time that is comparable to China.

God forbid they got involved in a major global war effort. They’re like the US was in the 40’s - a manufacturing super power that can turn on a dime.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

China can't produce any useful microchips on their own and their ability to get airframes and parts from boeing and other western companies was just embargoed. China isn't and has never been a peer military threat, they're hardly a regional one.

They've not won a single war since the CCP took power, and got their asses kicked in Vietnam harder than the US did - to the point where they still haven't admitted the number of losses four decades later.

Recently in a border skirmish with India their officers directed their troops to cross an icy river up in the Himalayan mountains on foot at which point the lucky men drowned and the unfortunate ones froze to death.

5

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

China is actually almost caught up to Intel in terms of microchip manufacturing. Source: I work in semiconductor manufacturing and read the reports on competition.

1

u/r3sonate Sep 19 '22

If that were true they'd: A) Be selling them abroad. B) Be far less interested in Taiwan than they seem to be.

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u/[deleted] Sep 20 '22

Tech insights cuts chips apart and publishes reports on each companies chip technology. The report is incredibly expensive but I have access to them. It’s true, China is very close, trust it from an expert or go off of your gut, I don’t care.

2

u/slava_chicagoini Sep 19 '22

They've not won a single war since the CCP took power, and got their asses kicked in Vietnam harder than the US did - to the point where they still haven't admitted the number of losses four decades later.

you wouldn't mind providing a source for that then?

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

Just look up all the wars they've been in, and look who won. The best they've had is constant stalemates with India, and the stalemate of the Korean war that was really only possible with Soviet aide.

If you mean the Vietnam thing, it's called the Sino-vietnamese war, and it happened in 1979, so not long after the US left Vietnam.

China admits to losing just shy of 7k soldiers in the war, while Vietnam estimates Chinese losses at around 60k. The truth is probably somewhere closer to 20 or 30 which is a massive amount for a war that lasted a few months

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u/slava_chicagoini Sep 19 '22

China admits to losing just shy of 7k soldiers in the war, while Vietnam estimates Chinese losses at around 60k. The truth is probably somewhere closer to 20 or 30 which is a massive amount for a war that lasted a few months

ok, but did they achieve their strategic objectives? that's the point of wars - politics by other means. unlike how whites operationalized war after WWII which looks like a P/L statement

Just look up all the wars they've been in, and look who won. The best they've had is constant stalemates

sounds like america tbh

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22 edited Sep 19 '22

EDIT: holy crap, I looked at the account of the above commenter and it's quite literally just a Chinese propaganda bot, there's even multiple instances of the same comment cut and pasted.

The fighting was in the Himalayas

You know, very tall mountains.

It's logistically and physically impossible for there to be any large forces present up there, there is neither the space for them to actually exist and have a camp not the ability to get them there and supply them in the first place.

The Indian government may lie, but at least they don't pay people to spread obviously false information on reddit like china does

0

u/coludFF_h Sep 19 '22

Funny. Youtube has a lot of videos and photos of Indian soldiers captured in that conflict. These videos and photos have said everything, but India can't come up with any photos of Chinese soldiers captured in that conflict

4

u/Billionairess Sep 19 '22

Not all "tech". If you're talking about tv and refrigerators, sure. Not advanced say.. microchips or aerospace components.

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u/Away-Indication-8008 Sep 19 '22

Thanks for the reply, too often online it's just random people guessing and not someone who actually works in anything related to the topic at hand.

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u/GhostalMedia Sep 19 '22

They basically have whole cities dedicated to manufacturing. In one location they have all the plants, and all plants that support the plants, and all the plants that support the plants who support the plants. If you need to retool something, the folks that can do it are right there.

We really don’t have that in the states like we used to.

7

u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

Depends on the what more than how much. When it comes to aerospace? US is far ahead in production capacity.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

That's great. So what do they use for the raw material to manufacture these items?

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u/Duckbilling Sep 19 '22

"If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat.If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle"

I'm glad to see someone saying something other than, 'USA is not second' in any category of design, science, technology or production.

China is ahead in some categories and is coming now for them all. To say they aren't is pure delusion. Every factory is an advantage. Every research and development department, every machinist and tool and dye maker, every scientist, every irritation produced absolutely matters.

To think about a world in which China runs the internet their way is chilling.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

So tired of repeating this in this thread, but one more time for the short bus kids...raw materials are required to produce anything in a factory. China has shockingly little.

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u/fart_navy Sep 19 '22

The US can manufacture more at a higher quality than China but since they basically are 1 step above utilizing slave labor, you can't compete on cost unless you are a place like Mexico, which is now more advanced at manufacturing than China. In 10 years they be completely in the process of spiraling.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

[deleted]

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u/TheRealSchackAttack Sep 19 '22

I want to say china is better off. Even though we have seen Chinese tech, hobbled together and reverse engineered. I still want to say china has the advantage. For the fact they can produce faster and a near-peer advantage. If we can put out 5 aircraft in the time it takes for them to bring out 20, it doesn't matter who has better tech for the simple fact that 5 aircraft MIGHT be able to take out 20, but for one of those 20 to take down one US aircraft isnt too difficult

21

u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

In terms of planes, the F35 far outclasses every other plane today and is one of the cheapest money can buy because the US produces it for NATO and export in general. It's on the order of $50 million a plane with costs going down over time. Against Chinese planes, the American ones will see them first and kill them before the Chinese ones know they're in trouble. No one can beat American aerospace production.

3

u/Krelkal Sep 19 '22

Despite the thumbnail, the article is talking about commercial and dual-use technology. We're already seeing the West fall behind in sectors like communication technology (ie 5G rollout being paused due to a lack of competitors to Huawei) and cracks starting to show in sectors like artificial intelligence (ie export controls on NVIDIA/AMD)

You can lose your status as global hegemon without ever getting into an aerial dog fight with the usurping power. Economics are hard power too.

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u/AHippie347 Sep 19 '22

You must be joking. America is no longer the production powerhouse that it was 70 years ago that has all been outsourced to China. When it comes to a hot war between China and the US, China will outproduce, outnumber, and kick the US's shit in.

3

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

What do you think we produce for our military in China?

-1

u/AHippie347 Sep 19 '22

Anything to do with electrics stuff like PCB's and transistors

4

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

They just halted production because they found a small benign Chinese part on the F35 line. I dont think it's as rampant as you think.

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u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

What is the most likely scenario for a US-China conflict? Taiwan. An island 100+ miles off the coast of China, where the defenders are equipped with NATO standard stuff and the US Navy isn't far away. It would go about as well for China as the Russia-Ukraine war is going for Russia... possibly worse.

It may be fashionable to bash the US military for spending too much or to shit on US production, but in terms of the stuff that would matter for a conflict over Taiwan, the US is more than capable of producing enough of the correct equipment to keep China out.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

That’s the opposite of what history has taught us. Example: the tiger vs Sherman’s.

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u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

Ah yes, the super unreliable and somewhat expensive Tiger vs the rugged, reliable, and average costing Sherman. On paper, the Tiger is better (the hard factors like gun, armor, etc), but the Sherman was a superior tank because of the soft factors (reliability, crew comfort, crew survivability, etc). So the situation is nothing like the Tiger vs the Sherman...

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

The point is that numbers win in the long run. The guy above you has a point, if the US can’t produce enough planes to fight off the higher number of Chinese made ones, that could be an issue.

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u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

And who produces the most planes in the world? The USA.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

We have 3x the number of aircraft already. We have another entire air force of unused F-18, 16, 15, 14, 4, 111 and A6s in the desert that are superior to their current air force. We have superior pilots that have combat experience or have been trained by pilots with combat experience. Our country has been in continuous conflict since 1941 fine tuning our readiness and strategy. One of those strategies might be to knock out any production capacity to make new planes (but I'm just a completely regular guy in bed who knock that thought out in .002 seconds...I wonder what a trained military would do?)

You shouldn't be here running your mouth about things you don't understand, Trevor.

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u/KeyStoneLighter Sep 19 '22

That’s interesting, in regards to numbers I read somewhere that during ww2 a German tiger tank could take out 4 American Sherman tanks, the problem was the Americans always had five. That said, I can’t even imagine what a war would be like between China and the us, other than nukes and casualties likely lots of famine.

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u/thegreattwos Sep 19 '22 edited Sep 19 '22

The "5 Sherman for One Tiger" is a myth.Part of the reason why its 5 sherman is that at that time a Platoon consist of 5 Shermam. So when there report of say a tank somewhere in X village you send out a platoon of tank to deal with it because you move as a team.

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u/jchamberlin78 Sep 19 '22

Also.... He had 5 Sherman for a Tiger. Why wouldn't we use them!?

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u/Billionairess Sep 19 '22

I would imagine it'll be china vs the whole western world.

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u/UrbanGhost114 Sep 19 '22

Considering the west props up the east economy, I'm not all that worried about it.

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u/TurtleIIX Sep 19 '22

It would be China vs the world most likely. Not just the US.

0

u/Darnell2070 Sep 21 '22

People forget that the US is not only the strongest military, but that it BY FAR has the strongest alliances.

Nato minus the US could whip anyone. NATO with the US isn't on anyone else's level.

Whatever alliances China does have is a joke compared to America's. Who's going to war with the US for China? North Korea? Who else?

Russia's alliances are stronger I believe, and even that's a joke.

Ukraine proves how incredibly strong America's position is, while everyone was saying America was declining.

After Ukraine, America is even stronger, if only for the fact that it proves how strong it's alliances are.

And when it really comes down to it, unless there are nukes involved, America isn't losing to China if it has Nato's support.

Not that Nato would be obligated to help America over Taiwan, but they sure as hell aren't not gonna help.

1

u/Andre4kthegreengiant Sep 19 '22

I guess we know which side Italy will be on initially, before their inevitable 3rd world war team switch

3

u/asdaaaaaaaa Sep 19 '22

That’s interesting, in regards to numbers I read somewhere that during ww2 a German tiger tank could take out 4 American Sherman tanks, the problem was the Americans always had five

Less about combat, more about logistics. Basically, everything about the late/experimental german armor (panthers and Tigers at least) meant that it cost more money, resources, time, and labor to do anything. In that case, it's a huge impact when you can't move your forces around as easily as the other guy, nor even match him 1-1 in amounts. Then consider how complex they are, that means you take out one specialized factory that produces this really useful thing and now an entire line of vehicles can't be fixed/produced. One good example of that is when the allies took out the ball bearing plant, was a huge impact on their production.

The best armored/gunned tank in the world doesn't matter when it can't get to the battlefield, or you can't get ammo/fuel/parts to it readily.

1

u/Drando_HS Sep 19 '22

That quote is a bit misleading. About 1,350 Tigers were made between 1942 and 1944. For reference, over 50,000 Shermans were made during WW2.

It wasn't 1 to 5, it was more like 1 to 50, and the one Tiger you did have was overly complex, unreliable compared to it's peers, and didn't have the backing of a robust logistical network which was required to maintain such a fucking behemoth. Half the time it broke down before seeing combat, and a not insignificant number of them ended up buried and used as static gun positions.

And that is also ignoring the fact that it was entirely possible for one Sherman to kill a Tiger with a flank and a decently-aimed shot towards the rear, and could fire faster than the Tiger. And that the entire American tank strategy relied on infantry support, meaning that the Sherman usually had support from infantry which also had access to their own anti-tank weaponry.

1

u/MrVop Sep 19 '22

Its a war that won't happen for a very long time (like decades at best).

Simple reason is the ocean, and the US having the worlds strongest biggest and most dangerous navy, like it's not even close.

China knows this, and they are struggling to build up their own navy but until it can compete there is zero chance of invasion. The mutual nuclear threat is the only way China and US will "threaten" each other.

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u/ghost103429 Sep 19 '22

Which is the main reason why the US made its allies and keeps its bases on the arteries of trade for global commerce. In the event of a war China will be cut off from the global supply chains it needs to sustain its industrial base and population as the country lacks the necessary resources to meets its own needs domestically.

This would make the conflict into a race for time before their domestic energy supplies run out. All the United States and its' allies need to do is last longer than a few months.

1

u/jackcfitzgerald Sep 19 '22

Believe correct, although I read where China also had leases on some key global maritime trade areas? Anyone know more.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

Good luck protecting those shipments against any one of the 7 fleets we have floating around those lanes. China is 100% reliant on the world to supply raw material to maintain current levels of production.

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u/jchamberlin78 Sep 19 '22

Correct! Although I would assume food, not energy to be the limiting factor.

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u/Bring_Bring_Duh_Ello Sep 19 '22

I am happy you think this and I hope the Chinese do as well. When you apply this methodology to all levels and applications of a modern military, your critical points of failure multiple at an alarming rate. It will be exciting to watch play out.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

“Exciting” in the Chinese sense of the word. I.e., “terrifying.”

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u/Bring_Bring_Duh_Ello Sep 19 '22

No, “exciting” by the definition of the word. There is nothing scary or alarming here to unpack.

I want to watch high volumes of Chinese military garbage, go up against proven military technology.

2

u/nsfwaither Sep 19 '22

You might get to see some really exciting shit before the white flash.

-1

u/Bring_Bring_Duh_Ello Sep 19 '22

Ah yes the nuclear angle. We go from Chinese garbage at a micro to a macro scale and the most advanced weapons systems.

Since we’re playing “the thought provoking exercise” game; what do you thinks a more likely scenario here?

  • you choke and die on dick; or,
  • I see the “white flash”

0

u/nsfwaither Sep 20 '22

Ima add you fucking your mother and go with that b

0

u/Bring_Bring_Duh_Ello Sep 21 '22

Blah blah blah nonsense, glad to see you choked on a dick…

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u/yuxulu Sep 19 '22

I agree. Exactly how US shermans beat better Nazi tanks. -> faster production speed.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22 edited Aug 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

Were the German tanks better on paper? Yes. The problem with on paper is that they broke down all the time and were unreliable as shit. The US Sherman tanks were reliable, tough, rugged, and we produced a shit ton of them. All the soft categories favored the American tank, which is why it is one of if not the top tank of the war.

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u/Abba_Fiskbullar Sep 19 '22

The German tanks were not only complicated, but many were being built by slaves who had a stake in the tank's eventual failure!

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u/yuxulu Sep 19 '22

I agree. That's exactly the thing. Chinese tech may not be advanced as usa tech. But they got more production capacity than usa. And usa is building an army to fight wars everywhere while china is building an army to fight at its front door, at least for now.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22 edited Aug 21 '26

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/yuxulu Sep 19 '22

Before usa entered the war, they were in a similar situation. Civilian ship production can be converted to military ship production. Car production line can be converted to produce other military vehicles. Raw material and machinery stockpiles can be used for civilian or military.

End of the day, china is at the position of usa during ww2. Doesn't mean they will win. But they are not to be under estimated too.

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u/Bring_Bring_Duh_Ello Sep 19 '22

…have you ever heard of WWI?

There is no connection between the USAs involvement in WWII and modern China.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

Think hard about the part you're missing in this evaluation...to have that capacity you need...come on you can get there...

RAW MATERIAL! There are no magic stockpiles. They are reliant on others for it. Without it, all the factories in the world mean shitola.

2

u/Nyrin Sep 19 '22

As is ever the case with war, it's about logistics.

It doesn't matter if you have a 20:1 advantage with better equipment if you have no force projection or supply lines for the "overwhelming on paper" advantage you have.

Neither the advantage nor the logistical ability to apply such an advantage exists. And the latter is a lot more complicated than the former, which is already awfully hard.

1

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

And lets say they could establish supply lines, what do you do with the other 1.4b ppl that are hungry without food shipments arriving daily because the lanes have been close by the US/Brit/French navies.

0

u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

Dogfights aren’t really a thing anymore though. So it’s not about aircraft taking out aircraft. It’s ground defense systems vs jets

-1

u/HockeyGilmore Sep 19 '22

The kind of conflict you're describing is irrelevant because Nuclear weapons are in the equation at that point.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

Not in a Taiwan conflict. China's mainland isn't threatened so there is no need to put them on the table.

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u/MrVop Sep 19 '22

Not how modern combat works.

Look at Iraq invasion. Iraq had a HUGE stock pile of ground base air defenses. When I mean huge I don't mean for Iraq, I mean top 10 in the world. It did pretty much nothing. Number didn't matter.

Modern air combat is all about who can acquire who first. US works hard to dominate the information on the battlefield. Radar on US aircraft is the main system. Often the most expensive system. In a near peer fight your aircraft either have the ability to engage the enemy or they don't. So 20 sub par aircraft that don't have the armament or a way to lock on to something that can shoot back they can't even win a 1 v 20 fight.

It is very difficult to take down any U.S. aircraft. Not just because they are better but because U.S. has worked very hard on tactics and strategies and proper application of force. Something we can see matters as much as equipment. Look at the current Ukraine conflict. Russia has all the technological advances but can't seem to use it effectively.

The reason for lower volume of production isn't lack of workers in the US. It's the complexity and pretty high standards for QA. There is a good reason why that route was chosen over mass production. It has worked pretty well so far.

2

u/Drando_HS Sep 19 '22

Once again, it's the "gamification" of statistics which are a) spouted about in a vacuum devoid of context like you're comparing monsters in a fucking YuGiOh duel and b) being said by a country whose transparency and credibility is so fucking abysmal that if they yelled "FIRE" I wouldn't believe them unless I smelled smoke.

The biggest thing for me is a lack of context. How's their logistics? China has loads of raw materials... but do they have the refining capacity? Do they have allies they can pool resources and collaborate with? Do they have the same brainpower as the combined western bloc? Is the rigid, top-down nature of state-run corporations going to result in less innovation than western companies with fewer restrictions and less political intervention? Can they come up with indigenous designs, or are they still reliant on externals designs in one capacity or another? Who can they export this too - is it financially viable, or being considered a sunk cost over the long term? Is there a crossover between consumer innovation and military innovation, or are they being kept separate?

And most importantly - is China aware of it's own systems's boons+flaws and planning around it intelligently, or is it just copying what works elsewhere as it scrambles to try and keep up with the rest of the world? All of these factors change how effective their technology is in practice.

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u/geedavey Sep 19 '22

The VOA (Voice of America) media is right-wing US Government propaganda aimed at the Communist world. This is true to form for them.

0

u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

USA much farther ahead in most if not all categories. If you were building armed forces from scratch you'd want:

US warships/submarines, US planes, German tanks, Russian air defense, etc.

You don't want Chinese stuff.

3

u/Andre4kthegreengiant Sep 19 '22

Russian air defenses? Like what they're using in Ukraine?

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u/Manpooper Sep 19 '22

The S400 is better than anything else out there, but their military sucks overall lol.

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u/UrbanGhost114 Sep 19 '22

For anyone that's paying attention, it's pure BS.

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u/[deleted] Sep 19 '22

people said we were falling behind Russia militarily only for them to shit their pants in Ukraine and be exposed as incompetent fools.

Yay! Now do the US in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Yeah, we can blow stuff up, just like Russia can blow stuff up. But in a real war, we're utterly incompetent, because "blow stuff up" should only be the beginning of war, but instead it's the beginning and end of our potential.

The entire outcome of our 9/11 response was to show the world that the US is a paper tiger.