At 09:28 08/01/2011 -0800, you wrote:
Interesing argument... would you mind referencing it a bit particularly
your argument concerning the role of the script...
Well, for one thing, it was my usual early morning pot-of-tea effort
written in the usual streak. For another, I couldn't really give any
specific references about the script without writing a tome. My comments
really arose from an intensive three or four years when I was writing my
rapid-search Chinese-English dictionary.
(In the area of the Internet, where China now has the largest (and
perhaps most active) number of users, your argument about the lack of
innovation appears to be holding true in that while one would expect to
see a range of world beating innovations starting to emerge what appears
to be happening is the copying and extension (and improvement in some
cases) of existing technologies and even business models from elsewhere.
It is still early days yet but if there was an "innovation" problem as
you suggest it would likely be most visible quickly here.
Yes, I've frequently wondered about this. But as I'm woefully inadequate on
much to do with the Internet and communications, I'm glad that my hazy
intuition has been confirmed by someone who knows more about it. The one
scientific area in which I have a particular interest -- genetics -- is
interesting in the case of China. Although the Chinese are aware of the
importance of genetics (they recently bought the largest order ever of the
latest DNA-sequencer machines from America) and have put efforts into
biology research, almost nothing has emerged from mainland China that I'm
aware of. They're behind South Korea for example. Yet in the scientific
literature, mainly emanating from US labs, anything up to half the research
teams are Chinese! What's more I get the impression that they're reluctant
to return to China -- at least just yet. Arguably the leading geneticist in
the world, Bruce Lahn, Chinese-born, stays stuck at Chicago University even
though he also leads a research team in Beijing. If he were to return to
China permanently he could probably ask for as many facilities as he would
ever need, but he seems to want to stay in the US.
Also, China, like Singapore and to a lesser extent Japan is looking to
open itself to foreign influences in a variety of ways including in the
primary education systems specifically to address the innovation gap.
Yes, indeed. The Chinese government is seriously concerned about the lack
of questioning and creativity in their children and young people -- and
have specifically nailed rote learning (mainly of their written language)
as the main reason.
Keith
M
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected]
[mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Keith Hudson
Sent: Saturday, January 08, 2011 2:44 AM
To: RE-DESIGNING WORK, INCOME DISTRIBUTION, ,EDUCATION
Subject: [Futurework] Why China won't win in this century
The reason why China will never win hands-down in its current economic war
with America is the same as why Japan didn't succeed in the 1980s when all
were expecting that its corporations and banks would eat America up
(Americans included). The reason is that both countries are good at
copying ideas and technologies; neither is good at inventing new ones.
It's their written language that's the main part of their problem. It's
non-phonetic. It means that in order to acquire a basic vocabulary -- of,
say, 2,000 or 3,000 words (the content of their average newspapers) --
children have to learn uniquely-shaped characters (whole words) which have
no, or very little, relationship with their utterance. A Chinese or
Japanese child can learn to speak his language quite as readily as
children do the world over, but learning how to read or write each
individual word takes many years. And there's only one way, unfortunately
for children, and that's by rote learning. And thousands of hours of rote
learning over many years under the strict discipline of slave-masters in
the schoolroom doesn't do anything for the creativity of young minds -- or
for older minds for that matter because the basic mental skills are
aptitudes are thoroughly laid down before puberty.
The Chinese and Japanese governments are well aware of the damage that
rote learning is doing to them -- and say so quite frequently. Although
both countries can churn out ten of thousands of science and engineering
graduates every year, there's scarcely an independent mind among them.
Independent 'garage inventors', as we have in the West, are as rare as
hen's teeth in China and Japan. For example, Japan has been industrialized
for over a century -- only a decade or two less than other Western
countries -- yet it has only won 15 Nobel prizes in the science subjects.
Compare this figure with those of America (261), the UK (91) and Germany
(88). China has only won 10! However, this comparison is unfair because
China's have only been won since it woke up in the 1970s. America's number
also needs to be modified because about a third of its prizes have been
won by foreign-born scientists who became American citizens after
migrating there.
It's all Emperor Qin Shi Huang's fault (yes, the same as is famed for his
terracotta army). Once Qin had conquered several countries and unified
China in 221BC, he standardized as many things as possible from weights
and measures and currency through to the written language. All the various
scholars throughout his empire, speaking scores of different languages
(some with and some without a written form) were forced -- on pain of
death -- to produce a composite, but common, written language. And this
could only be non-phonetic, of course. Even the mighty power of Emperor
Qin couldn't force millions of his subjects to learn a new common spoken
language but he could certainly force his relatively few scholars to
produce a new common written one. One popular penalty in those days was to
cut someone through his midriff, mount him on a platter of hot tar and
take him around the town, gesticulating and shouting before he expired.
And herein lies a paradox, because the industrial revolution in Europe
would never have happened without starting from a basic stock of scores of
innovations -- such as canal locks, differential gears, sowing grain in
rows and so forth -- that had drifted in from China along the Great Silk
Road over a period of centuries. However, this doesn't signify that the
Chinese had been more inventive than Europeans. But its common written
language had meant that when one innovation -- say a wheelbarrow (very
important indeed for both China and Europe) -- had been invented by a
genius in one tucked-away corner of China, then the local mandarin could
write and tell hundreds more all about this wonderful new device.
But what once had been an accelerator for both Chinese and European
civilizations actually became a retardant for China when the Western
Enlightenment and scientific revolution stirred into life in the 1600s and
1700s. The Chinese had no way of encapsulating these new ideas. A Chinese
mandarin visiting Europe in, say, the 1700s or 1800s, and learning about
the new exciting scientific ideas (if he'd learned Latin or another
European language of course) had no way of disseminating them widely in
China because there he had no method of writing them down in Chinese words
that would have been instantly recognizable by fellow Chinese scholars or
engineers. He could only convey the new ideas vaguely by speaking of them
face-to-face when he returned home.
Thus Japan (which had inherited thousands of Chinese words) and China were
left behind by the industrial revolution in England, Germany and America.
They didn't begin to catch up in earnest until the the 1870s (the Meiji
Revolution) and the 1970s (the Deng Xiaoping Revolution) respectively. And
this is still -- largely -- where they are today. Both the Chinese and
Japanese governments are trying to phoneticize their written languages but
only very slowly, such is the cultural conservatism of two thousands years
to contend with.
What might be significant in China (though not yet happening in Japan), is
that all their college and university entrants have to learn spoken and
written English these days. All their top government officials speak
English and most business and science faculties in their universities use
English widely in their seminars. Also, thousands of their brightest
young post-grad scientists go to America or England for research
experience and qualifications. Indeed, once they are here for a few years
they become quite as inventive as Western scientists (if not more so when
you look at the authorship of many papers in heavyweight subject, say
genetics or particle physics). Unfortunately for the Chinese and Japanese
governments many, if not most, of the most innovative scientific minds
elect to stay in their adoptive countries rather than to return.
But the problem is even more serious for China and Japan. Almost as
important as are the original ideas of innovative individuals is the
necessity of other individuals who will give a welcome to new ideas and
help to develop them. And it's this open-minded hinterland which is still
limited because of their deep, conservative, authoritative cultures.
Goodness knows, new ideas often have a hard time being accepted in the
West. Even here, the crazy ideas of yesteryear sometimes have to wait
until its die-hard opponents are dead and buried and a brand new
generation appears. Only then are the ideas seen to be not so crazy after all.
There we are then. Japan came close to hollowing out America and Western
Europe 30 years ago with its superbly made (Western-invented) products.
China is threatening to do the same in the coming years. But the
innovative momentum is still with the West and this sort of cultural
momentum takes a century or two to die down -- if it ever does -- or a
century to acquire -- if it ever does in China and Japan.
Keith
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
Keith Hudson, Saltford, England http://allisstatus.wordpress.com/2011/01/
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