Is China Winning the Technological Arms Race?

If we don’t build it, China (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/topics/china/) will. That’s the rallying cry of the tech companies and governments racing to develop artificial intelligence (https://www.theglobeandmail.com/topics/artificial-intelligence/) as fast as humanly possible. The argument is that whoever reaches AGI first won’t just be dominant technologically, or economically – they’ll be the world’s next super power. But, if I’m being honest, I don’t know if that framing holds up. And part of the reason for that is that we don’t really understand China. Enter Keyu Jin. Jin is a Harvard trained economist who splits her time between London and Beijing, and her book, The New China Playbook, is her attempt to “read China in the original” – to provide a firsthand look at the forces that shaped the country’s unprecedented rise. China’s success is a puzzle. How did one of the poorest nations on the planet become the second richest in less than a century? How did an economy without free markets birth a tech sector that rivals – and in some ways surpasses – Silicon Valley? The answers to these questions aren’t academic. China became a global power without capitalism and without democracy, which means its success has profound implications for both. And as Canada sets out to find its footing in a rapidly changing world order, one thing is abundantly clear: we need to start reckoning with the Chinese playbook.  Mentions: The New China Playbook (https://docs.google.com/document/d/1-90bk624n1FlI-wViYZcwjnmn4ZCm4UlbvS6U-j18oM/edit?usp=sharing) , by Keyu Jin Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.