The US trade war can’t derail China’s development – SCMP

The South China Morning Post has written that China’s tech progress has already reached a turning point and that the trade war won’t change any of this, arguing if the US trade war aims to hold back China’s development, it may already be too late. 

Key notes:

China has already reached critical mass in technological capacity. 

Kai-Fu Lee, former president of Google China and an expert on artificial intelligence, believes China is rapidly becoming a global leader in AI and may surpass the United States – 5G is only one of several crucial technologies where the US has fallen behind due to policy missteps.

The size of the Chinese domestic market provides important advantages when it comes to innovation. 

China has the world’s largest fintech market, where digital payments are 50 times larger than the US, while its three biggest internet companies – Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent – are investing in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

China's advantage is no longer low-cost labour but its enormous pool of hands-on technicians and engineers able to turn blueprints into prototypes, sometimes in a matter of days.