alt Hacker NewsChina took over exports and manufactoring capacity 5 fold of what germany was doing in core industries: manufacturing, machine building and chemicals.
Its not just innovation, we missed and our stubbornes of just keep doing what we good at, its also china catching up and steam rolling us.
When I bought an EV, people around me told me the same thing and still do: they like the sound of engines, these EVs are not suitable for daily use, EVs will burn down, we hate renewable, we hate cables, we hate...
To match china, we would not only need to work a lot more, we would also need to work on saturdays, break a lot of labor laws we build up, reduce salary despite working more, reduce energy costs massivly and automate as much as possible.
A nitting machine from germany costs 60k. In china, with the same quality (because they catched up) is 20k. 20k!
And were i'm from (bavaria) most young man want to become Mechanical engineers because of BMW and co. No one wants to do IT (lets ignore the AI elephant in the room).
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China buys the bulk of its precision machining capacity from Germany, Japan and Italy. Domestic designs are not up to snuff.
For that you also need to reduce the bureaucracy.
Copy the model of ASML. Build something really complicated that no one else can easily copy.
This reminds me of ䷀ Qian (Heaven), one of the 64 hexagrams from the I Ching — one of the most ancient books from China, written 3000 years ago. I think it speaks directly to this:
上九："亢龙有悔" — The arrogant dragon will have cause to repent. Honestly, what you described — people around you hating EVs, hating renewables, hating cables — that's exactly this. This arrogance always leads to regret.
用九："见群龙无首，吉" — A flight of dragons with no single head brings good fortune. China catching up isn't zero-sum — it's 群龙无首 in action. Multiple strong players competing drive knitting machines from 60k to 20k at equal quality. No monopolist — the consumer, the market, humanity wins. That's literally what the I Ching calls "good fortune."
天行健，君子以自强不息 — Heaven moves with relentless power; so must we strengthen ourselves ceaselessly. The answer isn't protectionism or nostalgia. It's joining the flight of dragons.
Competition, when no single dragon monopolizes the sky, brings fortune for all.
Curious about the I Ching and want to know more? Visit https://ichingdao.love/i_ching/hexagrams/01 ^_^