this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2024
21 points (68.4% liked)

World News

38979 readers
2753 users here now

A community for discussing events around the World

Rules:

Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.

We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.

All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.


Lemmy World Partners

News !news@lemmy.world

Politics !politics@lemmy.world

World Politics !globalpolitics@lemmy.world


Recommendations

For Firefox users, there is media bias / propaganda / fact check plugin.

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/media-bias-fact-check/

founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
 

cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/41003385

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Why is this downvoted? the article is based on a REAL report by ASPI:
https://www.aspi.org.au/

The report:
https://www.aspi.org.au/report/aspis-two-decade-critical-technology-tracker

If you like graphs here's a good one:
https://ad-aspi.s3.ap-southeast-2.amazonaws.com/2024-08/ASPI%E2%80%99s%20two-decade%20Critical%20Technology%20Tracker_Figure1.png?VersionId=I5XtNvKHQGJPYNWJieBDAhC_ct8mM57r

But notice they do not claim China is necessarily leading the fields, only that they are doing more research.
For instance an area like advanced aircraft engines, where China is doing what looks like 5 times more research than USA, USA has worked on that for 80 years, and China is probably still catching up.

But have no doubt, China is a major force in research and technology today.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 11 points 2 months ago (1 children)

And let's see who the ASPI is since you didn't really go into that:

In February 2020, Australian Labor Party Senator Kim Carr described the ASPI as "hawks intent on fighting a new cold war."[29][30] Former Foreign Minister Bob Carr (no relation) said the ASPI provides a "one-sided, pro-American view of the world" and criticised the group for taking what he claimed was almost $450,000 from the U.S. State Department, to track Australian universities with Chinese research collaborations, and "vilifying and denigrating Australian researchers and their work." Bob Carr's criticism of ASPI came after ASPI president Peter Jennings had raised questions about the donation of $1.8 million by a Chinese billionaire to a group related to Carr.[31][32] ASPI replied that it "doesn't have an editorial line on China, but we have a very clear method for how we go about our research," and claimed that the true amount of State Department funding was less than half that amount stated by Carr.[33][34] ASPI was criticized by former diplomats John Menadue, Geoff Raby, and Bruce Haigh, with Haigh referring to ASPI as serving the foreign policy interests of the Liberal Party of Australia.[35][36] In July 2022 an article in The Economist described ASPI as "hawkish".[37]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Strategic_Policy_Institute

Maybe that's why it's downvoted.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

Well to be fair, it turned out that we should probably have been more hawkish towards China sooner.
So it seems to me you are arguing against what you say you are arguing for.

Nothing in what you describe shows anything wrong with the report or the article.
There is little doubt that China is spending way more on research than most countries, and being a close #2 in the world on economy, that makes it very plausible that China is in fact #1 in research today, and if we do nothing, China is destined to surpass us.

Silencing that warning is doing work for China.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -3 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Nothing in what you describe shows anything wrong with the report or the article.

This is how people defend articles from Fox News.

When the source has been shown to be severely biased, it is enough to not trust the report on its face. You do not have to vet everything they do once you've already seen they can't be trusted.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago) (1 children)

That's whataboutism, and it's very easy to point to FOX news spewing lies if you want to.
Just saying FOX news is right wing is not a very good argument against Fox news either.

Do you in fact disagree with the main sentiment of the report? And if you do, then why?
I happen to agree with the report on the main issue, that China is surpassing us on science and technology research.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I can see that China has made major strides in just about every field. For instance China can make their own quality ball bearings, which Russia can't.

Just as an example of a seemingly minor thing, that has had a major impact on Russia when the west embargoed them because of Ukraine.

It's OK to warn the report may be biased, but downvoting because you disagree is bad practice.
Downvoting it because it has false info however, is perfectly allright IMO, but nobody has shown that.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

I disagree with the concept that you can accurately measure who is leading the way in science overall based on specific individual technologies that you may be the industry leader in at the moment.

Engineering superiority is not scientific superiority. Your ball bearings example is not suggestive of scientific superiority. China isn't making massive technological strides in ball bearing studies which are furthering science as a whole.

Frankly, I disagree with the idea that it is possible to, as The Register puts it, beat the world at science because science is a global endeavor and the scientific method requires it to be in order to make sure things are verifiable.

[–] Buffalox@lemmy.world 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Yes I mostly agree with that, but it's also proprietary technologies, and those technologies are based on local scientists working on them.
I admit I didn't read the whole report, but as I understand it, the report doesn't claim China is leading in for instance "advanced aircraft engines" but it claims China is investing 5 times more than USA in research on it.

I mention this as an example in a previous post, that it doesn't mean they are leading the field now, because for instance USA has worked on that for 80 years already, and China is probably still catching up.
But unless we up our own game, China will surpass the west.

I have read other reports stating that China spend about twice the percentage of GDP on research compared to USA, and most western countries spend less than USA. I've been arguing for more education and research for my own country every chance I get for more than a decade now, but everybody is too busy making money, and that's going so well they think we don't need it. (Denmark)

Maybe the report is alarmist, maybe I am alarmist, but I'm not sure I want China to take the role USA has had since WW2. Xi and China are becoming hostile and arrogant in international politics, if this is the way of China going forward, it does not bode well IMO.

[–] boyi@lemmy.sdf.org 4 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Whats the need to involve Fox News into this? We are dealing with science and technology matters. At least I expect something more academic in nature.

Anyway, is this not good enough source for. you? SJR - International Science Ranking

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -2 points 2 months ago (1 children)

That would certainly be a better source, yes. There is absolutely no reason to ever trust a source that you already know isn't trustworthy. On anything.

However, that source does not really give a full picture.

For example, who is citing who? Are the Chinese papers all just citing each other? If so, that would be a pretty poor measurement.

[–] boyi@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 months ago (1 children)

Man... that's based on Scopus index. Do you even know what you're talking about.

[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world -5 points 2 months ago (1 children)

If you won't answer my questions, please at least refuse to do so without violating our civility rule as listed in the sidebar.

[–] boyi@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)