（二）崔娃采访华裔专家：中国给企业砸巨额补贴，西方望尘莫及。中国不是殖民帝国，对入侵他国没有兴趣

The other day I I read an article where they said the Chinese government put forward a law saying that companies cannot fire people only to replace them with AI.

I saw many Americans, British people were going like, "Oh my god, yeah, why is the Chinese government doing this for its people but our government you can do this, you can just make a law." And the Chinese government is like, "Yeah, you

cannot replace people, you cannot fire them just because of AI." That again to me seems like the Chinese government again pragmatically looking at a situation

saying, "On the one hand we have to modernize, but on the other hand if the people are completely left behind then this thing falls apart." Is Is Is that like how they think about everything? Is

that even how they think about this situation?

Physics physics challenges doing like impossible things most of the time.

Like in in every I was reading about BYD the other day. Oh, maybe this is yeah, this is you the perfect person to talk.

BYD for a long time was considered the laughing stock of car manufacturers, right? I There's like one video of Elon

right? I There's like one video of Elon Musk in particular like laughing in an interview they go, "What about BYD?" And

he's like, "Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Well,

have you seen their cars?"

[snorts] And then you you fast forward a few decades and BYD you see not only do they have one of the most successful cars, one of the best

electric cars, they've got superior battery technology, and and then I was I was reading this really interesting story about like how they were saying, "Oh, it's not going to last. BYD's not

going to last like this because right now they're being subsidized by the government, and the Chinese government is doing a good job of propping up many of its industries to make it seem like they're doing better than they actually

are."

are." Now, I'm not an economist, that came to my mind was like, "Yeah, but many countries subsidize their industries.

So, I I I I couldn't really understand what the issue was, but I I I wondered if there's any truth to the House of Cards-ness in China's economy, or if this is being overblown."

So, to unpack that, you can't deny the fact that BYD is now the biggest producer and exporter of EVs. It's overtaken Tesla in the last couple months.

And if you've been in one, you understand why it's so appealing. It's

Yeah, I was my first one was in Singapore. It's insane.

Singapore. It's insane.

It's a great user experience both as a driver and and a passenger.

Yes, there are huge subsidies that have been put in place to support the EV sector. That has been part of the

sector. That has been part of the ability for the EV sector and particularly BYD to scale so quickly.

Okay.

But they are starting to walk that back.

So in the last couple of months in particular, they're trying to get rid of some of the subsidies, the export tax rebates. They're again trying to make it a bit more competitive

domestically and globally because they now understand, "Hey, the Europeans and Brazilians don't don't like the fact that we're, you know, giving them cheap EVs." We would have thought they would like it cuz this

is great for green technology. But now

they're starting to understand it's not just about green technology and and market competition. It's also about a lot of

competition. It's also about a lot of these countries fearing the the flooding of Chinese goods. And so now you're starting to see them get unwind some of

these subsidies for but for the sector.

But in general, I think the the problem is that the subsidies are so large.

This is the subsidies that China puts on in whether it's solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, batteries.

Much larger than say even the Europeans or other countries put on on to support the sector.

That it is no longer seen as fair competition by a lot of these other countries. And because China is still

countries. And because China is still acting in the framework of a developing economy even though in many respects because of its technology boom, it's no longer a developing economy. It uses

that as an excuse to have the massive subsidies that it has for the green technology sector. And that's the big

technology sector. And that's the big that's the problem that the Europeans in Brussels have, I'll say the Brazilians or the G7 countries like Canada or Australia have about sort of the flood

of of cheap uh, electric vehicles is that the government um, has historically done huge, you know, amounts of subsidies to support its local industry.

It's a, it's a, it's such a fascinating time because China always seems to be looming, but you never know when the threat will

ever be realized or if it is even a threat because what, you know, sometimes people talk about China as if it is waiting to take over the world.

Mhm.

But then whenever I listen to what Chinese politicians will say publicly at least, they're like, "China has no interest in taking over the world.

China's interest is in making China the best in China." And they'll always say like, "We've been around for 5,000 years. We have no interest in going

years. We have no interest in going anywhere.

Look at how big we are.

Our goal is just to make this the shining beacon in the world. And And

it's, it's interesting to see how different those two viewpoints are.

Mhm.

Where does the truth lie as you see it?

Historically, it's control the home base.

Yeah.

Um, and now more in, in the last couple decades it's about having influence globally. You know, we talked about

globally. You know, we talked about commodity supply chains, even to some extent geopolitics. But I I look to

extent geopolitics. But I I look to history. So, the last time China um, you

history. So, the last time China um, you know, went out to Africa uh, in the imperial history was in the Ming Dynasty in the 1500s. There was this

um, Muslim unique uh, captain who was uh, you know, an amazing figure in Chinese history who went out all the way to Africa and brought back a giraffe to the the uh, the emperor's, emperor's court. And that was the last time, after

court. And that was the last time, after that they decided, "Hey, why are we going to Africa? It's too expensive. We

should just focus on our own, you know, great culture and economy and and system." And the other thing that I

system." And the other thing that I would say is that I don't think this is understood enough.

Historically, China has been controlled, if you go to imperial history, by non-Han people. Han, so the Han Chinese are the majority of the Chinese. This is,

Chinese. This is, you know, I think close to 90% of the population. But,

population. But, you know, you look at the Qing Empire, which was the last empire in China, that was the Manchurians. You know, that area that is border as is the Korean Peninsula

and Northeast China.

They are not ethnically the same as the Han people. They were basically

Han people. They were basically foreigners who invaded and, um, you know, took over the country uh and imposed things like the queue.

You know, that the in Chinese you've got the shaved head and the long braid. That

is not uh a Han Chinese. That is not a That is a complete Qing Manchurian.

And then you also know that the Mongols took over centuries before that and founded their own dynasty. So, so I China doesn't have

own dynasty. So, so I China doesn't have that same historical legacy of going out and wanting to invade other countries and have an empire. In fact, it has more of a a historical experience of other

countries wanting to try to take it over. Take it over. The British tried

over. Take it over. The British tried obviously and and to some extent failed uh in the 1800s, but they did manage to take Hong Kong for instance. So, it's

just a different It It's a different frameworking, a different historical legacy.

But, I think in the last two decades, the Chinese understand, and I think this has really been born out by the Iran crisis, is that you need to have influence a little bit everywhere. Like with the

Gulfis, with the Africans, with the Russians, you know, have negotiations and deals everywhere so that if like this is Strait of Hormuz crisis and 50% of hydrocarbons gets

taken off the table for a period of time, then you can find resources to to replenish your stock piles and import from other places around the world. So,

that's the That's the way that I look at it is it's less of an empire and it's more of a network of influence on trade, on geopolitics, on supply chains.

The other day I I read an article where they said the Chinese government put forward a law saying that companies cannot fire people only to replace them with AI.

Mhm.

The the the perspectives that people have or or perceptions that they have of other I saw many Americans, British people who were going like, "Oh my god, yeah, why is the Chinese government doing this for

its people? But our government you can

its people? But our government you can do this, you can just make a law." And

the Chinese government was like, "Yeah, you cannot replace people you cannot fire them just because of AI." That again to me seems like the

AI." That again to me seems like the Chinese government again pragmatically looking at a situation saying, "On the one hand we have to modernize, but on the other hand if the

people are completely left behind then this thing falls apart." It is Is that like how they think about everything? Is

that even how they think about this situation?

Mhm. Exactly. And there were two court rulings which you're also referencing in the last year or so, one in Beijing and one in Hangzhou in which they the court ruled on both accounts it was illegal to fire someone on the basis of AI.

You're right.

And um China in the last couple years has been at the forefront of AI regulation in terms of data protection, but also in terms of deep fake technologies where I don't

think we're getting enough attention.

Like you can't just copy somebody else's voice or or or use somebody else's image and impersonate them uh and monetize off of that. There's

regulations against that. And I don't know if that's the case in the US as of yet.

No.

But There's there's a few states that have imposed a few laws but they they obviously they apply to pornography and then the other one but they but it's not like a federal thing yet.

Yeah. So the the Chinese government look at technology uh with a kind of I would say more balanced approach, but also they have the power to do that in the way that

I as I understand it in America they don't because there's a lot of you know invested interests, tax get funded, there's lobbying from Is that not a thing in China?

No, if you lobby the government, uh if you're lobbying an official, you will that official will probably be asked at for anti-corruption.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's cuz in most of the world what we call they call lobbying in America, we call it bribery.

Yeah.

Yeah, here it's legal. You you can lobby people with gifts and trips and everything and that's just normal.

And it's so funny cuz when I was growing up, I always used to think Africa was the most corrupt continent cuz that's what we were told.

Yeah.

They'd be like Africa corrupt, there's so much corruption, so much corruption.

And then when I moved to America, I was like, "Oh, yes, you are right. There is way more corruption in Africa because we didn't think of calling it lobbying."

Mhm.

You are completely correct. You got us on that one.

You got us. You know how you get rid of crime? You just stop saying it's a

crime? You just stop saying it's a crime. That's the number one way to get

crime. That's the number one way to get rid of crime.

You just say it's not a crime and then now your crime has gone down. What are

the questions you think people should be asking about China that they're not asking?

I love that question. I think that people should do that more in general. I

would say in especially in the AI realm, talent flows really matter and I don't think people because they're such a in such a haste to focus, this is my other pet peeve on compute. You know,

everyone's saying, "Oh, US compute is the biggest in the world. We have an advantage in the frontier models."

But at the end of the day, what really matters is having top-tier AI talent.

And the fact that the plurality and actually in some respects the majority of top-tier AI talent is Chinese nationals in the US Really?

is astounding. So, 38%

of top-tier AI talent in Silicon Valley is Chinese nationals. They're not even American-born Chinese. They're just

American-born Chinese. They're just Chinese nationals and 38% American-born engineers and then there's the rest of the world.

Uh so, if you think about that alone and then you couple that with the fact that China has 40% of graduates every year in STEM as opposed to in the US, it's

of graduates every year is in STEM.

Uh 5 million of STEM graduates graduate almost every year in China and enter the workforce.

I don't think people understand enough how important that just scale, but also the talent of these top-tier researchers are for for AI development, for technological development. I think

technological development. I think that's really understated and does not really capture the economic models, but super important when we think about innovation in the next frontier.

And and what do you think some of the questions are that we're not asking about like China's vision and its demographics and its sort of future plans as a whole beyond the space of AI

and technology?

So, uh beyond AI and technology, I think the big question is what is going to happen to and again, it's tied to to youths. Uh is like what is going to

to youths. Uh is like what is going to happen to the Gen Z in China? Because

the boomers and the millennials kind of really got to ride the coattails of China's economic rise. And in the next couple years, I believe there'll be upwards to 5 trillion US dollars of

intergenerational wealth transfer from the boomers to Gen Z in China. So,

that's a lot of change that is going to be transferred over and the question is how are they going to invest it? What

are they going to do with the money? Um

are they going to decide to work as hard as their parents?

it affect their work ethic, yeah?

Yeah, you know, are they going to be motivated to get married or not? You

know, how are they going to think about um their economic development, you know, in a slowing China? I think that is the big question. We haven't figured it out

big question. We haven't figured it out yet because both narratives of like the youth are checked out and mailing it in, but also the youth are really hard working and excited about AI. Both

realities coexist.

And then it the big question is which pathway do we take? Like will would will Chinese youths and the industry get super excited about AI and will China be uh not just a near peer competitor with

the US, but a leader. Because maybe it's not just LLMs that matter. And maybe

there are other innovations that that young Chinese people can design. Because

they've already shown Chinese companies have already shown that they're not just good at iteration, but also good at innovation and making very viral stuff.

Like who would have thought a couple years ago that the most viral videos and content AI generated would come out of China?

Yeah.

From TikTok.

Mhm.

No one would have thought that and that gave birth to a whole rise of content creators and influencers.

Damn.

It really is going to be exciting.

Very exciting.