Sierens China: progress “Made in China”

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The West is astonished by China’s rapid rise and its power of innovation. Chinese consider, however, the last 200 years than the exception. It is time to throw old clichés overboard, says Frank Sieren.

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When I came 25 years ago to Beijing, was the opening-up policy, the reformer Deng Xiaoping already in full swing. However, I Would have at that time, in August 1994, which was written in China in the year 2018 would look like – I would have been kept for a Spinner. The breathtaking speed with which China particularly in the past ten years compared to the West, has caught up, but I’m not dreaming. Long a power reigned balance between the West and China. The West had the technology, the Chinese big market and the factory of the world. Your copies of our products could not be long dangerous.

Deceived by their own prejudices

In the meantime, however, the Chinese themselves are innovative. Revolutionize the money and banking system with the Smartphone payment apps WeChat Pay, and Alipay. The Huawei phones are so advanced as Apple’s and have left in the global sales of the iPhone numbers. Last week, the Chinese probe Chang’e 4 landed on the far side of the moon. The has managed to no other country. In China, electric buses are far from everyday life – in Germany, nor is it a model experiment. And what concerns the Artificial intelligence, the Chinese are on par with the Rest of the world.

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Astonished, we ask ourselves: How could this have come from? We are simply on our own prejudices. Indeed, we believed that Chinese can only copy. This idea – that we must recognise in retrospect – was a little naive. It would also be very unlikely that there are 1.4 billion people, a large group of young, creative people who become noticeable. And indeed: Hardly the conditions were favourable, it went wrong with the innovation.

In the past, China was innovative

That was more surprising than for the Chinese. Because you have a different perspective on your country: While we were in the West, the backwardness of China, considered the Chinese as a temporary phase of weakness. China was in its history, economically strong and innovative. Now it returns after 150 years of UPS and downs, in a sense, back to his usual level. Even in 1820, China made up almost a third of the world’s economy. The following “century of humiliation” with the Opium Wars, colonial foreign rule and the Japanese invasion rate than the trailer, which has now been overcome, fortunately, at last.

DW-columnist Frank Sieren

About the causes of that break-in is today, nothing more. The West China could force in the knee, was due to the Arrogance of the Chinese Imperial court, was too long for the navel of the world. And it was thought that the technical progress, which broke out in Europe rail, the back. Beijing was convinced that it is games apart from any competition. And so the Empire of the Qing, the delivery time of the industrial Revolution. Reformers such as Kang Youwei and Liang Qichao had to leave under the threat of the death penalty in the country. In the first half of the 20th century. Century, China was ungovernable, and was nearly broken. Only exactly 40 years ago, in December 1978, it has opened itself to the world again.

To the politicians, who govern, today, in China, you can criticize a lot. You can’t blame them, however, is that you have the international technological competition. You company very much, to catch up, and in some areas even more innovative than the Rest of the world. Because you have learned your lesson the bitter.

Germany’s rise began with copies of

In the first step, copyists were supported by the copy added something New, often to the domestic market tailored. So Apps like WeChat could Express controls from Messenger, and services such as Meituan multi-function platforms of delivery with which you can book flight tickets and visits to the doctor – “remote for our lives”, as Connie Chan of the American Venture-Capital company Andreessen Horowitz.

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For a long time by the way, forget that also Germany has once copied the locomotives of the British and “Made in Germany” as a derogatory designation by the British for cheap German copies was meant to be. The industry is technologically out of Nothing. China, by contrast, was for centuries one of the most innovative countries in the world, with inventions such as paper, porcelain, gunpowder, and compass. We should adopt so as soon as possible from the cliché of the uniform ants, the people fulfilled without his own will, plan goals, and the West, with cheap fakes of our own products to roll over – a cliché, by the way, the West is projected in the 1980s is quite similar to Japan.

China’s progress is based more and more on his creative minds. And it looks like shaped their ideas of the development of mankind significantly. Particularly amazing is that the innovation exploded in an authoritarian state. But, obviously, the freedom is at least large enough for Innovation. Because you can’t copy commands, creativity and innovation. In the meantime, is clear: Every day the Chinese to be a bit more independent of Western technology. The West is not independent from the Chinese market The Chairman of the Board of Volkswagen has brought in these days to the point: “The future of VW will be decided in China.”

Our columnist Frank Sieren has lived for more than 20 years in Beijing.