How much do you think it costs to make a pair of Nike shoes in Asia?

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries.

We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is that a world where “Designed by Apple in California, Made in China” still makes sense? What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario?

What seems most likely to me in the future is that the US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now. Dominating finance and services won’t mean anything when both the IP and the physical products are being produced somewhere else.

Competitive edge is new innovation and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The rules and culture favor it in the US, more so than anywhere else on earth.

China didn’t invent the iPhone or chat gpt. But they excel at optimizing.

DJI is the premier drone company in the world.

Also in places where Chinese electric cars are not being blocked they are really taking off. In 20 years for billions of people the most common car will be a Chinese one.

China is able to build nuclear reactors while the US is floundering.

The Chinese may well be the first to produce electricity from fusion.

People come back from Shenzhen now to the US and say that the US now feels less advanced.

The US certainly leads in some areas. But not longer all areas and things are moving toward China.

Those things are all optimizing…

Fusion would be something totally new.

The other thing to look at is the number of high impact papers in Materials Science, Chemistry, Engineering, Comp Sci and Physics and look at where they are being written. Check the image from The Economist in the article below :

https://asiatimes.com/2025/03/behold-chinas-innovative-golde...

It's great for the world that China now has hundreds of millions of people who are able to have much better lives and tens of millions who are making great contributions to the world.

China has done what the US did in copying Europe 150 years ago. The US copied Europe and then went further. China is now doing that.

If fusion is successfully done in China rather than the US it will still be great for people in the US. The US can copy it.

The only thing is that the US's dominance is ending.