The US is cooked. China is the new world superpower
this post was submitted on 11 Oct 2026
408 points (97.0% liked)
Technology
88803 readers
3662 users here now
This is a most excellent place for technology news and articles.
Our Rules
- Follow the lemmy.world rules.
- Only tech related news or articles.
- Be excellent to each other!
- Mod approved content bots can post up to 10 articles per day.
- Threads asking for personal tech support may be deleted.
- Politics threads may be removed.
- No memes allowed as posts, OK to post as comments.
- Only approved bots from the list below, this includes using AI responses and summaries. To ask if your bot can be added please contact a mod.
- Check for duplicates before posting, duplicates may be removed
- Accounts 7 days and younger will have their posts automatically removed.
Approved Bots
founded 3 years ago
MODERATORS
To be clear, that’s a good thing. China hasn’t been involved in a war since the Korean War.
Nah, both countries suck
load more comments
(10 replies)
load more comments
(4 replies)
The US is busy figuring out how to charge a monthly subscription for an AI that summarizes emails. China is making the batteries, solar panels, and drones everyone actually needs. At some point Silicon Valley will announce a breakthrough: a chatbot that explains why manufacturing moved overseas.
The US has not only put all their eggs in one basket, they've taken out loans against the eggs that those chickens will lay once they're hatched.
And they've promised ostrich eggs, but invested in chicken coops.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The Chinese play the long game, and play it well. The U.S. is about immediate gain. The future isn't here, so why worry?
Don't wanna sound like that guy, but this pretty much due to all the manufacturing capacity we shifted over to China. I mean they certainly got a jump start, yeah? It doesn't hurt that the whole place is a building machine.....wonder where they'd be if we never moved all that manufacturing there to begin with....
Absolutely, outsourcing manufacturing gave China a massive head start. But the West also outsourced decades of expertise, supply chains, and industrial know how while congratulating itself on becoming a service economy. China didn’t just inherit factories: it invested, learned, innovated, and built an industrial ecosystem. We handed them the starting line, not the finish line.
It's worse than most realize. When I went to Guangdong 10 years ago, I expected to meet fabricators and technicians making our products, but I instead met engineers probing our customers and capabilities.
That company has since been acquired for pennies on the dollar by Google, to the surprise of no one.
And the irony is that China has moved far beyond copying Western technology. It’s now a global leader in research output, including fundamental research in materials science, chemistry, and physics. The West outsourced manufacturing, underestimated the transfer of expertise, and somehow assumed China would remain the world’s assembly line forever. That assumption aged spectacularly badly.
Which is extra ridiculous after having just gone through the same thing with (much smaller) Japan only a couple of decades prior and having domestic auto, heavy and precision machinery markets trounced.
Once they see a few dollar signs in the short term, all long term vision becomes blind.
China has 1 billion more people than the US. And they're graduating PhDs in STEM at twice the rate.
Frankly, if you don't expect them to surpass the US in the coming decades, you'd have to be delusional, the numbers bare it out. A billion more people.
Also, currently they have proportionally fewer elders and children. So the adults can fully focus on creating stuff rather than care.
America is not falling behind because y’all are caring too much for each other 🤣
load more comments
(1 replies)
Invest in academia, get the best new tech.
This is not surprising - the west has some serious university investment to do if it wants to catch up!
There's much more to it than that. If you invent a brilliant new thing that everyone will want... how are you going to make it at scale, at a price people will pay for it? The cheapest, quickest, most efficient way by far would be to make it in China. Sure, maybe you could build the factory and distribution networks in the west, and maybe persuade investors to let you do that, but China will imitate and undercut you astonishing quickly.
LOL… “Smart people don’t like me,” said Trump. Also, this administration has sped up brain drain like none other (because of stupid, hostile policies — toxic nationalism shit) in our lifetimes.
Sorry best we can do is bank bailouts and a depression.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The US and EU are seriously fucked. The energy shortage / prices (LNG) seriously hurt e.g. Germany too.
If we don't start to massively invest and make economic plans and return to partially planned economy and nationalize shit we're seriously fucked.
We need especially invest into next gen automation and production and robotics so we can build all the shit people need here not in China.
That is actually good news. World shouldn't be 100% dependent on US technology. I want alternative. So go China, go Japan, go EU, go Canada.
load more comments
(44 replies)
The US is mag dumping into their own foot.
They elected y'all Qaeda and expected to compete with china. No..the ideology you voted into power puts you on footing with Afghanistan.
load more comments
(1 replies)
The US and its O&G and car industries absolutely let China become the main manufacturer of batteries and EVs.
Like Exxon, the US knew electrification was the future because of climate change, but tried to dismiss it. China seized the opportunity like a true capitalist, while the US government interefered with the free market to hinder electrification. This has been going on for over 20 years now.
load more comments
(5 replies)
They're in rapid technological development cycles that's reminiscent of the late 20th century USA. Often producing hilariously odd or bad gadgets, which people take as evidence that China sucks. As it's said when it's anything not-China, "you have to crack a few eggs to make an omelet".
load more comments
(1 replies)
I was telling my husband I'd move to China in a heartbeat. That's how far we've fallen.
Are you of Chinese Han descent?
No? Then you will never get the citizenship. China gave fewer citizenships total than Poland does every year.
load more comments
(1 replies)
China always marches forward silently while everywhere else squabbles. Ive been on the "move to china" train since 2024
load more comments
(3 replies)
view more: next ›