Thread by @ruima

I think the confusion over “China tech” is due to lack of specificity:
1. consumer tech platforms & brands
2. service biz tech / B2B
3. tech for supply chain / mfg
4. chokepoint tech (China doesn’t have it, can be sanctioned)
5. frontier tech
5a. Climate / carbon reduction tech

1. Consumer tech platforms were too lightly regulated before with respect to antitrust. But many provide digital infrastructure on which domestic consumption (dua circulation!) relies. So the biz *practices* are curbed, the biz itself is not problematic. Brands are doing v well.

2. Basically SaaS / enterprise software. Huge area of upgrade for the economy, easy to unleash a lot more productivity. VCs already all over this for past few years. A great overview on it here:

podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tec…

3. Tech related to manufacturing has more importance in China relative to prob anywhere else. China wants to retain & improve manufacturing abilities. Sees giving up manufacturing for easier gains from svc as a natl security & grave economic mistake.

4. Chokepoint tech is hugely important for obvious reasons. But it would be nuts to think that nothing else is important to China. Also, these are *known* problems, take a look and tell me if you can get just any engineer to pivot to making the below:

insider.techbuzzchina.com/c/policies-and…

5. Frontier tech. No one has this, and China would love to develop it, esp in cases where it doesn’t it may become another chokehold tech. But these are unknown, so you have to get a bit lucky too. Govt will help, ie autonomous driving infrastructure. & climate tech a priority.

Just bc #4 seems like a burning fire doesn’t mean the others aren’t important or that resources / talent interchangeable. Judge China’s needs independently, not vs West where needs are totally different, and you see the govt is nurturing all 5, in diff ways.

I don’t really understand why having a diff balance from West means it’s doing only one thing all of a sudden. Good thing ppl thinking that aren’t running countries bc that requires balance & parallel processing?

Takes like this one pretty much ignore the reality of both China and how tech works but 🤷🏻‍♀️ fiction does sell better than nonfiction usually 😜

https://twitter.com/techmeme/status/1419490322694823939

I forgot to conclude:
- there are already some tech under categories of 4 & 5 that are restricted to foreign investment. (Makes sense tho?)
- Will ALL 5 kick foreign investment out? Am doubtful, not consistent with current stated strategy, not pragmatic.
Not investment advice!

I also broke out 5a as a category bc it's an emerging category that I am really excited about. But for most of frontier tech there's actually plenty of foreign capital. Autonomous driving, biopharma, you name it. Cybersecurity is the main no I can think of.