Is China Beating the U.S. at Innovation?

China’s old reputation when it came to tech was that of being the premier global manufacturer of knockoffs, not a site for innovative development. But China today is adopting new tech at truly incredible rates that surpasses most other countries. Rather than just talking about drone delivery, companies like JD are actually doing it. More people in China use mobile payments and participate in one-stop-shop digital ecosystems than almost the entire population of the US and Europe combined.On the other hand, while the technology economy in China is thriving, the political economy remains restrictive. Google had its secret plans to cooperate in the “Great Firewall of China” internet censorship scheme leaked. However, Chinese activists have used the blockchain to get around official media blackouts on vaccine scares and sexual assault scandalsWhat is WeChat? Do we view ourselves as the leader of technological advances? What is leap-frogging? Is our established infrastructure getting in the way of our own ability to innovate? Does China represent the new “right way to do things”? What is Google’s Dragonfly Project?Further Reading:How E-Commerce Is Transforming Rural China, written by Jiayang FanLetter from Shenzhen, written by Xiaowei R. WangChinese Citizens Are Using Blockchain to Warn Each Other of Unsafe Vaccines, written by Kristin HouserNorth Korea’s Hidden Revolution: How the Information Underground Is Transforming a Closed Society, written by Jieun BaekThe Art of Escaping Censorship, written by Jessica LoudisThe employee backlash over Google’s censored search engine for China, explained by Alexia Fernández CampbellRelated Content:Fifty Years after the Cultural Revolution, written by David BoazInnovative Maintenance, Maintaining Innovation, written by Pamela J. Hobart Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.