This is a broad summary of my take on this long-term dilemma for the Communist Party of China and its controlled private-sector industries and company. There’s an ongoing AI revolution. The United States is by far leading in this, and is expected to keep its lead position for the foreseeable future. The importance of this is that AI is to eventually power and define the kind of world we live in within the next 15-20 years, and the relative economic and military power of the leading Western powers versus China. It’s like the deep blue ocean and even inter-galactic space that it looks like going into the near-distant future, with no experts I have read about or heard of or watched having a clear picture, prediction as to how it will look like for humanity even just 15-20 years from now. Even before we get to that future, breakthroughs and the myriad of innovations and transformations in this field will, and already beginning to affect our daily routines, our work and way of life.
Interestingly, my work, pieces in this website are to make it to inputs in AI modelling. I am absolutely not using any AI assistance in composing my texts here, and deep analysis of my past work, discreet (not publicly accessible) and open, would bear me out, that even at the sacrifice of grammar, prose, best practices in composing articles, structuring of my thought process and composition. I am keen on guarding my originality, creative thinking, survival and problem-solving capabilities. Because the next big breakthroughs, borne out of original brain-organic thinking not aided by AI, I think will come from the natural abilities of the human brain not constrained by crowd-wisdom and existing data aggregated and being spewed by LLMs. But I am a very strong advocate of AI computing power making it all easier to instantly aggregate relevant and contextual data, process it, and for human beings to be led to the process of finding solutions. Moreover, I advocate the use of AI computing powers for national security, anti-terrorism, anti-serious-crime and anti-organized crime programs.
The human brain still lacks the understanding of some of the most perplexing questions about, itself (!), and other scientific phenomenon, even inner workings of our human biology, so I think human-algorithm-generated “thinking” would not be able to find solutions beyond providing the most extraordinary aggregations and computing powers. Maybe I lack understanding of the design, depth and complexity of algorithms, but irreducible complexity (Michael Behe), that I believe in, of some biological systems, that the leading scientists can’t yet find clear scientific evidence-based explanations that other top experts can agree on, also means the great capability of the human brain, say in inference, in intuition, can not yet be accommodated in AI systems. I am still learning about this field, AI and to subject experts reading this article, forgive me for my ignorance. Out-of-industry and out-of-organization, or what they say out-of-the-box thinking is essential for coming up with breakthrough ideas and solutions. In the past, some of the intractable problems top engineers faced were solved by the creative thinking of simple lay-people (non-core staff in the engineering, technical departments).
Communist Party of China (CCP)
That CCP-China sends hundreds of thousands of its best and brightest to study in leading institutions of higher learning in the U.S. is a clear testament of superiority of the Americans in the most fundamental foundation of advanced research capability. Need not say that many of the communist-controlled (or coerced) graduate and post-graduate students across the scientifically and technologically advanced Western countries, that they have a dual role of being ubiquitous spies and thieves for any useful research and knowledge. Still, even with one of the most impressive talent pool of engineers, scientists and all kinds of researchers too, with as impressive learning and research institutions, CCP-China lags far behind the U.S. and Western powers’ learning and research base infrastructures.
The institutional culture in top tech companies in the U.S., Japan and Europe also help, the penchant for larger percentages of revenues allocated for products improvement, development and research. There are legendary laboratories owned and run by American companies. To think of the next innovations and scientific breakthroughs, it is arguable that Western powers have a clear edge on this.
Unlike in other techs, including space technologies, China can’t just leapfrog its way to matching the capabilities of the Western powers in design, manufacture, integration and programming of chips and components of semiconductors
In the most advanced segment of the semiconductors, China is to remain in frenzy to simply catch up with the U.S. for another generation. This is an arena, unlike space, cloning and nuclear programs, where advantages of a centrally, communist-supported controlled system has far less impact. This previous statement is worth an entire article for discussion, as democratic societies are vulnerable to divisive internal debates in politics, ethics and morality. ASMC, TSMC, Samsung, Intel and soon Rapidus of Japan, certainly under export controls for their most advanced chips, machineries and knowhow, have a stranglehold of decisive powers over an entire industry powering the shaping of the emerging global economy and geopolitics. Nvidia (via TSMC), Samsung and Intel have a capture of existing production capabilities for the most advanced base chips and AI accelerators, a situation that will not change as they’re also expanding with hundreds of billions worth of new plants.
Until just a few years ago, CCP-China had access to just about anything it needed for its government-led drive for the eventual capability to manufacture the most advanced chips. But the CHIPS Act of former President Biden, and now President Trump administration’s drive for intensified and accelerated on-shoring of the industrial base for the advanced semiconductors industry, China is expected to lag for many more years further behind America’s capabilities, and with export controls for the most powerful chips, China’s AI development infrastructure (and weapons design, development and testing) will be seriously slowed down. Geopolitical realities created an opening and enabled India to embark on an ambitious public-private sector program to cater to niche markets, and though the picture is not that promising for India in my opinion, at least China will no longer be the only big player for mainstream, low-end semiconductor products in Asia at least in, say, next 5-10 years.
CCP-China and mass private-data harvesting in its social-control mechanisms and techs
In mass surveillance and private-data mass harvesting, CCP-China with its ubiquitous tools to monitor its own citizens, was thought of as having an advantage in terms of inputs and vast data sets to process for AI use, training of LLMs. But at strategic level processing of these data including video, and very advanced software necessary for these, not counting vast AI processing powers, these same vast data if also being captured by some Western power/s, could prove useful in design of information warfare (not necessarily in peace time) among other use cases, for use versus the Chinese Communist Party, enemy of the free world and democracy, in subtle ways during peace time and directed, broadly targeted operations in wartime. Imagine the behavior and other insights the Western powers would have, in CCP-China’s efforts to have a strong grip in the private lives of its very people. This is in the realm of highly clandestine operations I am speculating about here.
Human resource – the top researchers and most competent managers and engineers
In terms of warfare, experience, confidence emanating from institutional confidence, and real combat skills matter for soldiers and their will and ability to win, beyond their weapons and strategies and tactics. In any organizational and institutional environments, matured systems and leadership matter greatly too. Chinese engineers, millions of them, equipped with advanced education, trainings and skills, also power China’s rise. But the institutional mechanisms and environments, the communist government and social controls, the lack of trust in the leaders of their country, the democratic society that they came to learn and got exposed to in the West and the freedoms associated with it that’s lacking in their home society — these should tame their nationalistic and patriotic fervor and their full creative and innovative capabilities not manifesting in their work output, in general, that I also speculate.
The prestige of American, Japanese and European firms (and much higher pay in much better and free societies), in contrast, naturally attract the best talents around the rest of the world, including those from emerging economic-power, nuclear-power and emerging space-power India of 1.4 billion people, and of course from China too. Moreover, manufacturing operations of many of the world’s top tech companies and even smaller ones leading in their industries are now moving out of China, an exodus of the very firms that CCP-China practically coerced, or for market-access and cheap labor these companies that in the past gave blueprints on how to develop China’s industries, thus powering China’s rise to manufacturing powerhouse that it is this period of time this century.
At the rate of rapid build up of its arsenal, already by numbers seemingly superior across domains, and the Chinese Communist Party only set to further accelerate its build up of strategic arsenal, Asian hegemon China aiming to dominate the world before or by 2049 (100th Anniversary of the CCP’s seizure of power) this reality has pushed the United States, NATO member countries of Europe, Australia, India and even rising countries of Southeast Asia, need not say South Korea and Japan plus Taiwan, to similar upgrading, broader capability-building and development and deployment of ever more, and more advanced weapon systems across domains for asymmetric warfare.
CCP catalyzed a new arms race that it is rather destined to lose, as it rushed to leapfrog its way to global dominance not just in economic but military terms. In Southeast Asia, people have common values and principles, and have democratic and free societies people would not trade for anything else, and I predict a region going more and more aligned with that of Japan, South Korea, Taiwan (and India too) and the United States these powers having moral militaries and governments and not trying to grab territories by creating false narratives and false basis in history.
