In living memory of most of us, China was just a deeply impoverished nation known for little more than exporting cheap unreliable crap. Any achievement they did make was framed as being stolen from somebody else. Yet now, their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted. Funny how quickly things change! The status quo of the world is constantly shifting. Those nations which strive to advance, will. Those nations which rest on their laurels of achievements past, will gradually find themselves with little left to cling to beyond those laurels.
I think it's awesome to see previously neglected nations beginning to be able to take part in major space programs. They also come with unique benefits. Like somebody else mentioned, for one thing Venezuela is in a dream scenario for launches. Eastern exposure to the ocean and substantially closer to the equator than e.g. Florida. This means ships taking off from there are able to more optimally sort of 'sling shot' off of Earth's rotation - the Earth rotates Eastward, and fastest at the equator. Same reason that in Andy Weir's Artemis novel, Kenya ended up being a world leader in space. And there's no logical reason this wouldn't happen. Countries can be developed, but they can't be moved.
> Any achievement they did make was... stolen from somebody else. Yet now their successes in space, industry, science, and technology are completely taken for granted.
The two aren't necessarily in contradiction, you may note. Do we have reliable evidence showing Chinese IP theft has slowed?
Many nations "bootstrap" internal industry with organized mass IP theft. The US extensively (and quite intentionally) stole from Britain's industrial IP, for instance.
Besides the often quoted IP stealing from GB, there are also more recent examples.
At the end of WWII, not only the Soviet Union has moved piece by piece many industrial factories from Germany to Russia, but also USA and GB have "stolen" massive amounts of IP from the occupied Germany.
One of the most notorious cases in how the American industry of making magnetic tape recorders (e.g. Ampex) and of making magnetic tapes for them has been founded based on the samples brought back from Germany.
The case of the liquid-fueled rockets directly connected to this Apollo story needs no further mention.
Whenever they could get away with it, no country has refrained from copying foreign better technology.
While there in no doubt that China must have done this frequently in the past, in recent years there are little chances for them to benefit from this, because now in many domains their products are much more innovative than anything made in USA, and also in research publications they have many that are also more innovative.
I do not believe that sabotaging the Chinese companies that were on the brink to take most of the market share from US companies like Qualcomm and Micron has been the right strategy for counteracting the Chinese threat.
This is just a temporary setback for them and there is the risk that they could emerge from it stronger, no longer fearing any US blackmail.
This should have been either saved for a more critical moment, when it could have a greater effect, or the so-called "sanctions" should have been real sanctions, and not just anti-competitive measures, i.e. they should have been tied to some political demands made to China, e.g. to recognize Taiwan as an independent country, or to give up their claims to extend their maritime borders.
>not only the Soviet Union has moved piece by piece many industrial factories from Germany to Russia, but also USA and GB have "stolen" massive amounts of IP from the occupied Germany.
Not just the Soviet Union. The USA also moved factories piece by piece.[0]
The reverse example occurred during inter-war period, when US companies extensively outsourced to (cheap labor in) Germany. The US companies who exported their factories all made huge profit on paper, which promptly evaporated the moment war broke out. A lesson for the modern age, perhaps?
China faced a significant deficit in fundamental science infrastructure and knowledge during the transition from the Qing dynasty to modern times. Couple that with Africa-tier GDP and some truly horrendous setbacks (civil war, cultural revolution) they had no choice but to absorb knowledge from foreign nations (legally and illegally - copy, steal, learn) if they wanted any chance of competing with them.
They've made a lot of progress but still lag behind in these fundamental areas, for example bulk, precise fabrication of exotic materials for more complex items (jet engines). There is an enormous gap between having the specifics of the design and implementing it effectively when it comes to advanced fabs. There is a bit of 'arcane magic' to it unfortunately.
>I do not believe that sabotaging the Chinese companies that were on the brink to take most of the market share from US companies like Qualcomm and Micron has been the right strategy for counteracting the Chinese threat.
I knew a lawyer in DC who was part of a defense team for a US aerospace company accused of assisting China with their missile and space program. Among the things he learned were: 1) China is working pretty hard on improving its technology without necessarily relying on tech transfers (although they still at the time required certain Western machining tools), 2) sincerely concerned US members of Congress have no understanding of the technologies involved so they messed it all up and 3) there are many who are not so sincere and are just grandstanding and most importantly 4) it's never going to be a matter of stopping China's progress, just a matter of saying a couple of years ahead of them (ie. does it matter if they have 7nm chips when we have been using them for a decade already?)
Aehm… living memory of an impoverished nation that didn’t export anything else than propaganda - not even cheap crap yet. It’s been incredible to watch Capitalism and hard work rescue and empower a nation that was literally completely destroyed by communism in the past 50 years.
I think it's awesome to see previously neglected nations beginning to be able to take part in major space programs. They also come with unique benefits. Like somebody else mentioned, for one thing Venezuela is in a dream scenario for launches. Eastern exposure to the ocean and substantially closer to the equator than e.g. Florida. This means ships taking off from there are able to more optimally sort of 'sling shot' off of Earth's rotation - the Earth rotates Eastward, and fastest at the equator. Same reason that in Andy Weir's Artemis novel, Kenya ended up being a world leader in space. And there's no logical reason this wouldn't happen. Countries can be developed, but they can't be moved.