A Post-USA Ruled World; Yes, the rest of the world can develop new technology

In response to https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2021/05/three-thousand-years-and-115.html

The biggest lie obstructing Chinese-American repatriation to China is that Chinese somehow owe America for their success.

Chinese haven’t even gotten all that much from America. 
Sure, some Chinese studied in America, including in STEM, before 1949. People like Qian Xuesen. Also humanities people like Hu Shih and Soong Mei-ling (Chiang’s wife) and Hsiang-Hsi Kung.

That class of humanities graduated people from Ivy League who entered higher echelons of KMT eventually lost the war and fled to Taiwan or America.

Also, for STEM, Europe was much better (to learn from and be educated in) than America especially in the early 1900s.

Chinese students would have benefited much more from studying STEM in Europe at that time. Unfortunately, it was the situation that arose after the suppression of the Boxer Uprising in 1900 (by Eight-Nation Alliance) that resulted in the Chinese studying in America over studying in Europe.

Modern China, especially the practical aspect of it, was far more influenced by USSR and Japan.

PRC had its industrial base in its Northeast region simply because the invading colonized Japanese colonized and industrialized it. It did so during its over 14 years of occupation.

As far as the military goes, the PRC’s military technology is based upon the very generous Soviet transfers in 1950s. And then again by the Russian ones in 1990s.

China also acquired some basic high speed rail technology from Japan and Germany in 2000s.

And most of the Chinese chemical industry technology came from Western Europe back in the 1970s.

There is little in terms of concrete practical high tech that China has gotten from America.

I think it’s without doubt that even though people like Qian Xuesen, Guo Yonghuai, and Deng Jiaxian (who were leaders of PRC’s nuclear and missile programs) had American PhDs, the Soviet influence on technology was substantially greater.

After all, USSR transferred to the PRC a missile that was an upgrade of V-2 in the late 1950s.

Without that, even with all those top talents in aerodynamics who had been professors or postdocs in America, it would have taken much much longer for PRC to develop its own missile program.

In contrast, if not for those top American returnees…

… as long as Soviets transferred the base technology…

… the other smart people in China, who never set foot in America, would have sooner or later figured it out too.

Provided, of course that the Chinese government made the decision to invest in that technology, (which I believe Qian influenced substantially).

I believe Qian after returning to China did not actually directly work at the “nuts and bolts” details level.

He was more of a strategist and administrator.

As well as the primary decision maker with respect to the PRC missile/rocket/space program.

He convinced the PRC political elites to invest in missiles instead of fighter aircraft.

And in hindsight, was an extremely important and correct decision.

And done at a time when the future of China was still uncertain.

The guy who actually most qualifies as the pure technical leader of PRC missile/rocket/space program goes by the name of Sun Jiadong. And he graduated from a Soviet university in the 1950s.

The thing is that those Chinese educated in America would have been just as good had they done their PhD or masters in Europe or Soviet Union.

Only that pre-1949 at that time, American graduate schools had more spots for Chinese students than European schools.

What China needed the most then was practical technology, and in this area, America did not really have any direct effect.

Actually, it was more like a negative effect.

This is because of the American embargo after the Korean War.

There were a few Chinese who studied in America who had actually did serious work in the American industry.

There were few Chinese who did not settle in America, and who ended up returning to China. And these precious few did not make any major contributions to Chinese technology. The historical record is quite clear on this.

However, after they returned to China, they obviously had to work from a much lower technology base to work with. And as such they ended up adapting their expertise and experience obtained in America for China.

There were certain things that could easily be done in America…

… a much richer country then…

… that was not really practically feasible in China due to lack of resources.

The Chinese who studied in Europe and USSR pretty much all returned.

While perhaps most of the Chinese who studied STEM in America pre-1949 stayed there instead of returning back to China.

China at that time, when STEM human capital was very important and needed, the government basically wasted a bunch of money and resources giving those “best and brightest” a higher education. They left China. They went to America. they learned technical skills. They obtained work, and they stayed there.

So I have a good reason to believe that America’s net effect on China in 20th century was rather negative.

I won’t even go into all the ideological and cultural “garbage” that America exports to the world.

Modern America.

The difference between theoretical and practical uses in technology.

Also, doing a higher degree abroad is not necessarily to great work in STEM in China.

Even during WWII, China already had some top or at least very good theoretical mathematicians, fluid dynamicists, or theoretical physicists.

The guy most responsible for PRC’s hydrogen bomb, Yu Min, never went abroad until he was pretty much retired.

As I’ve said, what China needed most then was the practical, industrialtechnology.

There were many top-notch theoretical brains. For the theoretical stuff, you need a top brain, access to books and journals, and an environment that let’s you concentrate on that stuff.

The practical stuff, on the other hand, despite being less g-loaded, is in practice much harder.
For China, America was more of an obstruction in that regard.
America enforced the embargo on PRC the most after the Korean War.
In contrast, in the 1950s and 1960s, while China could not get any help or technology from America, they were still able to obtain technology from Japan and Europe.

Unfortunately, so many people see the American PhD as a symbol of being technically top-notch.
It’s a fallacy.

It’s a legacy of America’s having been the default destination for study abroad from 1900s on.
Many also studied in Japan, and there were good number of Japanese educated people who made it to the elite of CPC.
But, take particular note, there were no American educated ones.

The CPC simply cannot trust any American educated Chinese to any position of political decision making power.

They are considered to be contaminated by far too much cultural and ideological toxin.