Battle of the Moons – China 4, U.S. zero?
By Ann Flan Kirwin | Monday, September 27th, 2010 | InternationalHaving just returned from a trip to Beijing, I came across an op-ed yesterday that I found particularly interesting. It discussed the “moon shots” of China versus those of the United States. Of particular interest:
China is doing moon shots. Yes, that’s plural. When I say “moon shots” I mean big, multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing investments. China has at least four going now: one is building a network of ultramodern airports; another is building a web of high-speed trains connecting major cities; a third is in bioscience, where the Beijing Genomics Institute this year ordered 128 DNA sequencers — from America — giving China the largest number in the world in one institute to launch its own stem cell/genetic engineering industry; and, finally, Beijing just announced that it was providing $15 billion in seed money for the country’s leading auto and battery companies to create an electric car industry, starting in 20 pilot cities. In essence, China Inc. just named its dream team of 16-state-owned enterprises to move China off oil and into the next industrial growth engine: electric cars.
Not to worry. America today also has its own multibillion-dollar, 25-year-horizon, game-changing moon shot: fixing Afghanistan.
Outside of the fact that it came from the NYT (apologies), and was more a commentary on Afghanistan than anything else, I found his statement about moon shots quite intriguing. And quite disturbing.
Regretfully I submit that what Beijing has that the United States, and perhaps Virginia, does not, is two things – patience and vision.
When I was a child I grew up learning that Gen Xers like myself were nicknamed the “microwave generation”. Who had time for water to boil the old fashioned way? We had short attention spans and were known for needing instant gratification, much to the chagrin of our parents who often struggled to keep up with us.
Well, the microwave generation has now yielded to the “instant-everything generation” and craving for instant gratification has become epidemic. In a world where you can download software in seconds, have the answer to any question immediately at your fingertips, all with little to no effort required on the part of the user, “short attention span” becomes a given.
And so it is how our politicians – and their policies – have evolved. Every politician is thinking about what they can do while in office that they can brag about in the next campaign. This is especially true if they are looking for higher office. Who has time to think about “moon shots”, to plan and invest and strategize for what will be the big thing for the next generation, when you have to focus on the instant gratification requirements of the electorate? Come campaign season, your ads be competing with some of the best ads of the year (football season, after all), so you can’t afford to get lost. Everything must be flash and a soundbite. Dumb it down for the American people. And for goodness sake, have something worth bragging about. I accomplished this, I reformed that, I built this, I destroyed that…
So is it justified? Do Americans need to be treated like 6-year olds in order to get a message?
Better question – can you accomplish anything truly worth bragging about in the matter of a couple or even a few years in office?
Where are our moon shots? Where is our long term vision and investment in plans that, while they may take decades, will put America on top, an indisputable leader in an industry that we have the foresight to see is just around the corner?
We’re good at paying lip service to such ideas: we want to train more scientists, engineers, mathematicians, etc. We want to advance the use of renewable energy. We want a world-class manufacturing/transportation/fill-in-the-blank system. The federal government may throw a few dollars at something for a while (but just so they can brag about how they supported fill-in-the-blank in the next campaign).
So are Americans capable of that kind of vision? I think so. We certainly know that we cannot afford to fall behind China in vision and investment for the future if we want to remain a leader on the world stage. Unfortunately, we seem to be coming up short on the leadership or statesmen with the attention spans to carry it off.
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Ann Flan is a government relations consultant in Virginia Beach.
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3 Responses to "Battle of the Moons – China 4, U.S. zero?"
Ann,
This is a tremendously thought-provoking post. I would like to put it in historical perspective.
I am one of the early baby-boomers. I grew up in the late 1950s era of Sputnik and Nikita Khrushchev when he famously proclaimed to the UN General Assembly that “your grandchildren will grow up under Communism.” We went through national fads that alternated between nuclear air raid drills at school (“duck and cover,” as if climbing under a desk would protect you from a thermonuclear fireball) and Science Fairs in high school that were supposed to increase the interest in technology among America’s next generation. Most of it was baloney and all of it was hype.
If you read the primary history of Americans and other western neo-socialists who traveled to the Soviet Union during the Great Depression, you will find glowing reports of an organized economy that seemingly defied economic cycles. A worker’s paradise of full employment, centrally managed factories that exceeded all production goals and collective farms that ensured an end to hunger. It, too, was mostly baloney and all of it was hype.
There is no question that China poses a threat to the West. That threat will materialize in action when China can no longer sustain the Ponzi scheme that is her present economic development. The day of reckoning with China will come, and most likely when China decides to seize the economic assets of Taiwan under a guise of “re-unification.” However, I have faith in this continuing experiment in enlightened democracy called the United States.
In the end, we will prevail. The only question is how much national treasure in blood and wealth will we sacrifice to do so. Just as we were asleep in the 1930s as the militarist Fascists took control in Europe and Japan, I suspect that we are napping while China arms.
But, they have nothing on us.
Ann,
Thought provoking yes, but is the solution, which you imply, for our political leaders to lead this challenge? We already have a modern air-port network, as well as the top P.h.D programs for research for all manners of programs including bioscience. The reason we don’t have high-speed rail is that it’s not a profitable venture. The cutting edge for the U.S. is tele-commuting. The jury is still out on electric cars as well. These are not projects that in and of themselves will leap-frog china past the U.S. These projects are signs that China is still trying to catch up to us, and they are decades behind. Look at the per-capita GDP numbers which helps to control for population size differences.
I would pit our millions of business leaders and entrepreneurs against China’s bureaucrats any day, and that is the conservative solution to keeping America ahead. From an economics standpoint, Gov’t will never be able to efficiently allocate resources this includes airports, trains, bioscience, and cars. China’s Gov’t is going to be wasting resources through these projects. The U.S. needs to let our private innovators create the next technology, which they are doing now even with all sorts of Gov’t intrusion.
The picture of China’s economy as being run by bureacrats is somewhat outdated. The way China has moved ahead is by turning to more free market principles and allowing it’s business sector more leeway.
The idea in the original post, that America’s short-term focus and extreme partisanship in politics keeps us from doing the big things anymore may be correct.
We have billions in decaying infrastructure that needs to be replaced, but few polticians who can put national interest or long-term planning ahead of their own interests.
Is it possible to get Americans to shoulder the harness and pull together for the national interest as we did in winning World War II or going to the moon?
We briefly pulled together after 9/11, but that mood was soon shattered. It’s a good question.
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