Democratic or Authoritarian

You might not want to, but you probably remember the Bush administration’s Neo-Wilsonian democracy agenda. Considering how badly the Wilson administration did in its effort to make the world safe for democracy, you would expect future presidents to offer a different approach to foreign policy. And yet, bad ideas and specious ideals die hard… especially when implemented by people who lack basic competence.

You probably also remember the Common Core education program promoted by a High Tech billionaire who knew nothing about pedagogy and the Obama administration. Today, we are happy to report, the Trump Education Department just declared that Common Core has failed. It is officially dead.

Among the non-innovations coming to us from Common Core was the Platonic idea that authoritarian teaching methods are bad. In the Meno Socrates allowed his pupil to believe that he could learn geometry without it being taught, that is, without having to take it on anyone’s authority. It’s an enticing notion: you possess all knowledge but do not know that you possess it. Your teacher will help you to discover what you already know, and you will accept it unquestioningly because it was not imposed on you by any higher authority.

You might not want to think that this pedagogical technique contains the germs of democratic governance, but it is certainly more democratic than the authoritarian mode, practiced previously in America and currently practiced in the Far East.

In a Chinese classroom, the teacher’s authority is absolute can never be questioned. You might imagine that students who respect such authority are better behaved and you would probably be correct. Too many American schoolchildren are so undisciplined that they cannot learn anything. Moreover, as studies have suggested, it is easier to learn math and science by having the teacher teach it than to have students pretend that they can figure it out themselves. In the authoritarian classroom, children are told the rules, they memorize the tables, and they are drilled until they master the technique.

As it happens, said students generally outperform their American peers, but such is life. American pedagogues will retort that the Chinese authoritarian method produces robotic children who cannot think creatively. In the language of the tech world, such children will never be able to innovate.

Within this frame we report on a new study of technological innovation. The news, as Robert Samuelson reports in the Washington Post, is not good for us:

The National Science Foundation and the National Science Board have just released their biennial “Science & Engineering Indicators,” a voluminous document describing the state of American technology. There are facts and figures on research and development, innovation and engineers. But the report’s main conclusion lies elsewhere: China has become — or is on the verge of becoming — a scientific and technical superpower.

We should have expected nothing less. After all, science and technology constitute the knowledge base for economically advanced societies and military powers, and China aspires to become the world leader in both. Still, the actual numbers are breathtaking for the speed with which they’ve been realized.

We will console ourselves with the thought that we are still No. 1, but China is fast catching up. Uh, oh.

In several areas:

China has become the second- largest R&D spender, accounting for 21 percent of the world total of nearly $2 trillion in 2015. Only the United States, at 26 percent, ranks higher, but if present growth rates continue, China will soon become the biggest spender. From 2000 to 2015, Chinese R&D outlays grew an average of 18 percent annually, more than four times faster than the U.S. rate of 4 percent.

There has been an explosion of technical papers by Chinese teams. Although the United States and the European Union each produce more studies on biomedical subjects, China leads in engineering studies. American papers tend to be cited more often than the Chinese papers , suggesting that they involve more fundamental research questions, but China is catching up.

The key is not that China has overtaken us, but that China, for having been significantly behind us, is gaining significant ground.

Why is this a problem? Samuelson answers:

One danger is military. If China makes a breakthrough in a crucial technology — satellites, missiles, cyberwarfare, artificial intelligence, electromagnetic weapons — the result could be a major shift in the strategic balance and, possibly, war.

Even if this doesn’t happen, warns the commission, China’s determination to dominate new industries such as artificial intelligence, telecommunications and computers could lead to economic warfare if China maintains subsidies and discriminatory policies to sustain its firms’ competitive advantage.

“Industries like computing, robotics, and biotechnology are pillars of U.S. economic competitiveness, sustaining and creating millions of high-paying jobs and high-value-added exports,” the commission said in its latest annual report. “The loss of global leadership in these future drivers of global growth” would weaken the American economy. Chinese theft of U.S. industrial trade secrets compounds the danger.

How can we catch up? Perhaps if Silicon Valley was not torturing its collective soul over diversity it could focus more intently on innovation. Not because it does not innovate, but because it could do better.

Samuelson adds that we should overhaul our immigration system in order to make it more merit-based. We should accept fewer relatives of current immigrants and focus on admitting those who have a higher skill level. Where have we heard that before?

Call it a wake-up call. Strangely, it coincides with a story in today’s Wall Street Journal. Chinese high tech innovators recently visited Silicon Valley. Their reaction will surprise you. It surprised me:

Silicon Valley has loomed large in China’s tech world in the past two decades. China’s internet industry started by copying Silicon Valley technologies and business models. That’s why there’s the Google of China ( Baidu Inc. ), the Uber of China (Didi Chuxing Technology Co.) and the Groupon of China (Meituan-Dianping). Some of the biggest Chinese internet companies, such as e-commerce giant Alibaba Group Holding Ltd. , were funded by Silicon Valley money. Translations of best-selling books by Silicon Valley sages, such as “Zero to One” by Peter Thiel and “The Hard Thing About Hard Things” by Ben Horowitz, became instant best sellers in China too….

But for most of the 18 entrepreneurs and investors, and especially for those in their 20s and 30s, last week’s visit largely failed to impress. To many in the group, northern California’s low-rise buildings looked shabbier than the glitzy skyscrapers in Beijing and Shenzhen. They can’t believe Americans still use credit cards and cash while they use mobile payment for almost everything back home, including settling bets for their Texas Hold’em games one night in Palo Alto.

As China’s internet industry has grown larger and its companies have become more competitive and confident, Silicon Valley’s allure is fading.