That financing estimate of $49 to $72 billion for COMAC from Scott Kennedy is not actually the development cost. In fact by far the largest amount of money in that estimate comes from a single investment fund from which only around 2% have actually been withdrawn. The actual development cost appears to be around $12 billion, based on COMAC's financials. Here is a Twitter thread digging into the details. https://x.com/GlennLuk/status/1767770559599743063
… but it is important to also keep in mind that 1) technology was injected into COMAC at formation (including ARJ development) and 2) COMAC is itself supported by an ecosystem of science academies and research institutes.
This has been going on for several decades - large and small scale. It happened to our small JV in the early 90s. They walked right out the back door with our capital equipment designs after we provided the tech and capital. They never once had the intention to be a 'partner'.... trust is so stupid sometimes.
I appreciate your expertise but tread carefully when you're outside your area of expertise–China and its critics in this case:
1. "China appropriates the multinational company’s technology, through some combination of joint ventures, acquisitions, reverse engineering, and espionage”. Joint ventures require one party of contribute their (usually previous generation) IP in exchange for access to China's market. That certainly beats America's outright theft of Alsthom et al. China paid $22 billion in 2024 dollars for HSR technology, if that's what you mean by 'acquisitions'; reverse engineering is both legal and far more difficult than non-engineers make out. There is not a single case of Chinese theft of significant technology in any IP court on earth, let alone a conviction.
2. "The appropriated technology makes its way into the hands of Chinese domestic companies”. Duh.
3. "The Chinese companies squeeze the multinational company out of the Chinese market" unless, like Siemens, Hitachi, et al, the multinational stays ahead of the technology, which is part of God's Great Technology Plan.
4. "High-speed rail and wind turbines are two industries that have gone through at least steps one through four of this cycle”. Yes, China paid for the tech to save time and then developed it further and better than its competitors. God's Great Plan, again.
5. "The result is that while China has had some success with the China cycle playbook in commercial aircraft, it’s nothing like what we’ve seen in other industries. It’s taken far longer, and cost far more, for China to develop commercial aircraft manufacturing capabilities”. Pratt & Whitney's F119 engine, which powers the F-22 Raptor, develops 156kN and took 26 years to develop. China’s WS-15 jet engine started development in 2006 and began mass deployment in early 2023. The WS-15 provides 181 kN of thrust, giving the J20 fighter-bomber fuel-efficient supersonic cruise speed without afterburners.
A tip: Noah Smith is an ignoramus, full of popular opinions and little else. If you want to quote someone about Chinese tech, start with subject areas specialists, like Jim Farley and automobiles..
What sort of IP courts are going to rule against the CCP? Not their own, that's for sure.
China does steal tech all the time. I worked at a major tech firm that was insanely careful about doing anything in China, because there were cases where datacenters were being raided and imaged and then the staff there would lie about what happened, etc. Or look at how ARM China basically went rogue and stole everything available to it, because of some bullshit over a rubber stamp. China has risen largely by grabbing tech, often "willingly" given by naive companies. But I think that era has ended. The skeptics were proven right, those who figured they'd get access to a big market and it'd all end happily were proven wrong.
Its the CPC, the CCP was the USSR communist party. The days of China only being able to copy ended long ago and they are moving ahead in many areas. You forget also that the US stole much of the technology it uses, in WW1 it voided all German patents and in WW2 it stole much of the German scientists. Its like the kettle calling the pot black.
Except in the case of WWII, Germany declared war on the US (when frankly it had no good reason to do so). So fair game, compared to an invitation to joint venture to an ostensible non-belligerent.
Great book about it for all of $3 on Amazon, "The American Trap: My battle to expose America's secret economic war against the rest of the world", the US uses its laws to blackmail foreign companies to give up strategic entities.
It’s not like we took those technologies and sold them on elsewhere. We have laws that state up front that we have manufacture rail equipment here for domestic use. It was known up front.
"If it continues to push, there’s a good chance it will eventually succeed."
Of course they will continue to push, and yes, they will eventually "succeed" in creating a viable industry standard....albeit what success looks like in the next 10 years is open to a lot of discussion.
This is a fantastic article, especially for a novice like me. The history of Chinas attempt to wrangle technology by various methods has been known for a while. But, this really filled out so many things. Thanks.
Pete is a nut job. He grabs onto highly debatable points absent the time necessary to validate such points and voila...another Peter Zeihan Youtube Production positing the inevitable collapse of China.
I live in Wuhan. I have a lot of friends that think Pete is righteous. China is giant mess that somehow keeps keeping on. I am continually amazed on a daily basis that it all holds together. Collapse? Sure, it's the easiest thing to predict. If it doesn't happen, just keep pushing the date further into the future.
The continuing question for me, having been perched in Beijing for years, with family ties all over Hubei, and friends and classmates all over the country, is this:
If this playbook is working so well that industrial competitiveness is no longer reliant on huge implicit and explicit subsidies, why are manufacturing wages not rapidly converging on at least South Korean and Japanese ones, if not German, Dutch, or American ones? And why arent the proceeds of this productivity being reinvested in a services economy (not restaurants and travel amenities but medical care, insurance, public education, and old-age provision) that would bring security and comfort to hundreds of millions of people?
The point of development isn’t supposed to be exporting a bunch of physical goods in exchange for various financial constructs that amount to IOU’s, it’s supposed to be for your own populace to afford the fruits of their labor, enjoy security of income and standard of living, and sell abroad to have forex to buy things people desire from abroad.
The continuation of this level of industrial policy expenditure, supported by undermining collective bargaining and suppressing wages, amounts to picking the pockets of my friends and family on a grand scale.
Chinese manufacturing workers cost their employers about the same as American manufacturing workers cost their employers when you account for massive bennies, productivity, etc. That's why 90% of Chinese manufacturing workers own their homes and have 4x greater net worth than American manufacturing workers.
Bingo. I can answer this but that would entail my blowing large amounts of cover and opening myself to problems because yes, 50 centers really are everywhere. I've run into them in obscure internet corners and been excoriated in the most fiendish manner for blatantly telling the truth about governance, remuneration, and political clout in China. I don't want or need the aggravation.
Cai Xia says to know, one has to be able to trace family, lineage, clan, bloodlines, and all the related monetary chicanery that engages in those connections to actually understand China.
Don’t expect you to discuss specific experiences but the underlying structural issues are readily apparent for those who have lived there and apply a critical eye.
And...if we're focusing on structural issues, America's aren't particularly attractive. Americans love casting the critical eye on every other country except our own. I continue to be amazed over the last couple decades on how my critically eyeing and opining on all the apparently awful structural conditions in China...keep getting proved inaccurate, clumsy, or wrong.
Some of the highly educated folks I know that hate the Party the most are the first to step up and show me how my views on "apparent structural issues" are confused at best. It's a complicated place. Americans don't do complicated, so we come up with all sorts of stuff to rationalize conditions to conform to our notions.
Strange comment. I’m thinking you may be somewhat jaded . Many criticize our country ad nauseum. Matter of fact, in my opinion everybody attempts to find something missing, needed, etc. with our country. Now you define Americans as “ we don’t do complicated “ interesting, seeing how china has ongoing problems reverse engineering our aviation tech. But, it is fashionable to denigrate our society. So, you are right in line. How fashionable…
The make-up of the global financial system has unfortunately given the US a comparative advantage in the export of Treasuries and other financial instruments, along with perhaps excessive faith in the soundness of our currency.
This particular advantage is in turn largely cancerous to our other historical comparative advantages.
Whether the global financial regime changes rapidly enough to end that comparative advantage before it has crippled our other remaining strengths is unclear.
Yes...those pesky underlying structural issues that are so "readily apparent"...except I'd argue appearances are deceptive. That doesn't mean I'm in one camp or the other. I've just learned through experience that predictions about the imminent decline/collapse of China are premature.
Structural issues in no way equate to an imminent collapse, but they do contribute in great measure to the “pressure cooker society” in which young folks exist and thus to the very large birth dearth China faces.
Were the development initiatives proceeding as advertised, the transfer state would already be about redistributing the proceeds of industrial productivity from the SOE sector and private capital to the citizenry in the form of improved social benefits that free them to spend hard-earned money buying the produce of their own hands and some of the finer things in life.
Instead it continues to constrain wage growth and use fiscal repression to supply cheap credit and factors of production to suppress export cost structures.
The unfortunate reality is that China is already capable enough to switch tacks and pursue a Fordist model that pushes income and consumptive power to the citizenry, but the Party, like the Japanese LDP before it… in the main it doesn’t trust this to be true, and those voices which believe it don’t know how to enact such a vision into concrete policy.
the typical wage in taiwan, the world's undisputed chip fab leader, is about ~$1200 per month and the typical college educated worker drives a scooter. wages on the eastern coasts of China, especially in tier 1 and 2 cities, have already converged with taiwanese wages. (~+100 million people vs ~23 million people) wages in inland China is no where near that amount. however, in recent years, the amount of low-end manufacturing that has moved to inland China has dwarfed whatever has moved out.
keep in mind that unlike the east asian tigers and japan, China will not be able to export medium to high-value-added products to America, and probably most parts of the EU, so that undermines their ability to earn higher wages. Almost all high tech companies from China have been sanctioned by the usa, forcing companies to either limit or severe trade with america (wuxia pharmaceuticals is an excellent example).
Low margins for majority of industries, a significant minority of the population still in low productivity agriculture are the main reasons. And besides manufacturing wages are increasing it was just this year that byd + saic new grad roles converged with Toyota
True, but.... Reserve currency....China has staggeringly high reserves. The "financial situation" may or may not be as dire as Pete proposes. Or it is. Or...some other curveball. Prognostication is a fools game.
> Peter Zeihan thinks China will not be a manufacturing powerhouse within 10 years due to the demographic collapse.
I think that's just silly - China's manufacturing capacity is equal to the ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD: https://imgur.com/a/VUtGSPL
Even cut in half, it would still be as big as the next two largest manufacturing output countries *combined* (USA and Japan).
This is like saying "the US will be irrelevant to the world economy in 10 years because politically they're so divided they can't get anything done" or similar.
Where does that chart come from and what data was used to produce it?
Unless China gets serious about automation with Europe and US withholding technology, I don’t see how they could continue to be producing at their current level.
In 2010, Peter predicted the collapse of China by the end of the 2010s. He's now saying the same thing but pushed the date to the end of the 2020s. He's a fraud.
Perhaps the more interesting question is whether that's directionally correct.
Recall that the USSR collapsing took everyone by surprise, and appeared to happen out of nowhere. But in hindsight it was fairly obvious it couldn't continue. If the USSR could just .... disappear ... one day, then, why not the PRC
"Building a successful commercial aircraft is more difficult than building spacecraft. In fact, China had built a successful and reliable space launch program by the late 1990s, long before it came anywhere close to building its own successful commercial aircraft."
This is conflating the difference between building individual bespoke spacecraft, and building a "successful commercial" aircraft.
Boeing can build an aircraft production line. Boeing can also build individual spacecraft. Boeing has not yet figured out how to make a successful commercial spacecraft. NASA, EASA, China, no one has figured out yet how to build a commercially successful spacecraft. The only company to date who has built semi-reliable, reusable spacecraft is SpaceX.
It is absolutely harder to build a "successful commercial" spacecraft than a successful commercial aircraft. Boeing is the exhibit A.
SpaceX has built commercially successful spacecraft, no? Unless you're using an odd definition of commercially successful in which selling to the government doesn't count.
Sure, to a degree. But to compare Falcon to any modern aircraft: the highest use, record breaking Falcon B1062 collapsed and finally died on its 23rd flight.
So the bar that Falcon has so far set - a hugely hugely impressive bar!! - is 23 flights before explode.
Comparing that to aircraft... clearly spacecraft are harder!
The IP theft problems remind me of the comment from the old Russian Communists that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope they would hang them with. China intends to be THE world power. We need to wake up.
That financing estimate of $49 to $72 billion for COMAC from Scott Kennedy is not actually the development cost. In fact by far the largest amount of money in that estimate comes from a single investment fund from which only around 2% have actually been withdrawn. The actual development cost appears to be around $12 billion, based on COMAC's financials. Here is a Twitter thread digging into the details. https://x.com/GlennLuk/status/1767770559599743063
Appreciate this, updated.
$12B would be the upper bound within COMAC…
… but it is important to also keep in mind that 1) technology was injected into COMAC at formation (including ARJ development) and 2) COMAC is itself supported by an ecosystem of science academies and research institutes.
This has been going on for several decades - large and small scale. It happened to our small JV in the early 90s. They walked right out the back door with our capital equipment designs after we provided the tech and capital. They never once had the intention to be a 'partner'.... trust is so stupid sometimes.
What was your technology, what were the terms of your JV, and when and where did this happen?
I appreciate your expertise but tread carefully when you're outside your area of expertise–China and its critics in this case:
1. "China appropriates the multinational company’s technology, through some combination of joint ventures, acquisitions, reverse engineering, and espionage”. Joint ventures require one party of contribute their (usually previous generation) IP in exchange for access to China's market. That certainly beats America's outright theft of Alsthom et al. China paid $22 billion in 2024 dollars for HSR technology, if that's what you mean by 'acquisitions'; reverse engineering is both legal and far more difficult than non-engineers make out. There is not a single case of Chinese theft of significant technology in any IP court on earth, let alone a conviction.
2. "The appropriated technology makes its way into the hands of Chinese domestic companies”. Duh.
3. "The Chinese companies squeeze the multinational company out of the Chinese market" unless, like Siemens, Hitachi, et al, the multinational stays ahead of the technology, which is part of God's Great Technology Plan.
4. "High-speed rail and wind turbines are two industries that have gone through at least steps one through four of this cycle”. Yes, China paid for the tech to save time and then developed it further and better than its competitors. God's Great Plan, again.
5. "The result is that while China has had some success with the China cycle playbook in commercial aircraft, it’s nothing like what we’ve seen in other industries. It’s taken far longer, and cost far more, for China to develop commercial aircraft manufacturing capabilities”. Pratt & Whitney's F119 engine, which powers the F-22 Raptor, develops 156kN and took 26 years to develop. China’s WS-15 jet engine started development in 2006 and began mass deployment in early 2023. The WS-15 provides 181 kN of thrust, giving the J20 fighter-bomber fuel-efficient supersonic cruise speed without afterburners.
A tip: Noah Smith is an ignoramus, full of popular opinions and little else. If you want to quote someone about Chinese tech, start with subject areas specialists, like Jim Farley and automobiles..
What sort of IP courts are going to rule against the CCP? Not their own, that's for sure.
China does steal tech all the time. I worked at a major tech firm that was insanely careful about doing anything in China, because there were cases where datacenters were being raided and imaged and then the staff there would lie about what happened, etc. Or look at how ARM China basically went rogue and stole everything available to it, because of some bullshit over a rubber stamp. China has risen largely by grabbing tech, often "willingly" given by naive companies. But I think that era has ended. The skeptics were proven right, those who figured they'd get access to a big market and it'd all end happily were proven wrong.
Its the CPC, the CCP was the USSR communist party. The days of China only being able to copy ended long ago and they are moving ahead in many areas. You forget also that the US stole much of the technology it uses, in WW1 it voided all German patents and in WW2 it stole much of the German scientists. Its like the kettle calling the pot black.
Except in the case of WWII, Germany declared war on the US (when frankly it had no good reason to do so). So fair game, compared to an invitation to joint venture to an ostensible non-belligerent.
What's the story with Alstom?
Great book about it for all of $3 on Amazon, "The American Trap: My battle to expose America's secret economic war against the rest of the world", the US uses its laws to blackmail foreign companies to give up strategic entities.
It’s not like we took those technologies and sold them on elsewhere. We have laws that state up front that we have manufacture rail equipment here for domestic use. It was known up front.
"If it continues to push, there’s a good chance it will eventually succeed."
Of course they will continue to push, and yes, they will eventually "succeed" in creating a viable industry standard....albeit what success looks like in the next 10 years is open to a lot of discussion.
This is a fantastic article, especially for a novice like me. The history of Chinas attempt to wrangle technology by various methods has been known for a while. But, this really filled out so many things. Thanks.
The 'history' is one of unsubstantiated allegations, nothing more.
"The last strategic decision a lot of our former competitors made was to deal with China"- local CEO on why they don't sell to China.
China is just the latest in a long line of countries that have done this. See the US getting UK loom technology or steel manufacturing.
Peter Zeihan thinks China will not be a manufacturing powerhouse within 10 years due to the demographic collapse.
Pete is a nut job. He grabs onto highly debatable points absent the time necessary to validate such points and voila...another Peter Zeihan Youtube Production positing the inevitable collapse of China.
I live in Wuhan. I have a lot of friends that think Pete is righteous. China is giant mess that somehow keeps keeping on. I am continually amazed on a daily basis that it all holds together. Collapse? Sure, it's the easiest thing to predict. If it doesn't happen, just keep pushing the date further into the future.
The continuing question for me, having been perched in Beijing for years, with family ties all over Hubei, and friends and classmates all over the country, is this:
If this playbook is working so well that industrial competitiveness is no longer reliant on huge implicit and explicit subsidies, why are manufacturing wages not rapidly converging on at least South Korean and Japanese ones, if not German, Dutch, or American ones? And why arent the proceeds of this productivity being reinvested in a services economy (not restaurants and travel amenities but medical care, insurance, public education, and old-age provision) that would bring security and comfort to hundreds of millions of people?
The point of development isn’t supposed to be exporting a bunch of physical goods in exchange for various financial constructs that amount to IOU’s, it’s supposed to be for your own populace to afford the fruits of their labor, enjoy security of income and standard of living, and sell abroad to have forex to buy things people desire from abroad.
The continuation of this level of industrial policy expenditure, supported by undermining collective bargaining and suppressing wages, amounts to picking the pockets of my friends and family on a grand scale.
Chinese manufacturing workers cost their employers about the same as American manufacturing workers cost their employers when you account for massive bennies, productivity, etc. That's why 90% of Chinese manufacturing workers own their homes and have 4x greater net worth than American manufacturing workers.
I’ll rate this as worth a soft chuckle of the sort one might hear in a library. Have a nice day, Godfree.
Bingo. I can answer this but that would entail my blowing large amounts of cover and opening myself to problems because yes, 50 centers really are everywhere. I've run into them in obscure internet corners and been excoriated in the most fiendish manner for blatantly telling the truth about governance, remuneration, and political clout in China. I don't want or need the aggravation.
Cai Xia says to know, one has to be able to trace family, lineage, clan, bloodlines, and all the related monetary chicanery that engages in those connections to actually understand China.
Don’t expect you to discuss specific experiences but the underlying structural issues are readily apparent for those who have lived there and apply a critical eye.
And...if we're focusing on structural issues, America's aren't particularly attractive. Americans love casting the critical eye on every other country except our own. I continue to be amazed over the last couple decades on how my critically eyeing and opining on all the apparently awful structural conditions in China...keep getting proved inaccurate, clumsy, or wrong.
Some of the highly educated folks I know that hate the Party the most are the first to step up and show me how my views on "apparent structural issues" are confused at best. It's a complicated place. Americans don't do complicated, so we come up with all sorts of stuff to rationalize conditions to conform to our notions.
Strange comment. I’m thinking you may be somewhat jaded . Many criticize our country ad nauseum. Matter of fact, in my opinion everybody attempts to find something missing, needed, etc. with our country. Now you define Americans as “ we don’t do complicated “ interesting, seeing how china has ongoing problems reverse engineering our aviation tech. But, it is fashionable to denigrate our society. So, you are right in line. How fashionable…
The make-up of the global financial system has unfortunately given the US a comparative advantage in the export of Treasuries and other financial instruments, along with perhaps excessive faith in the soundness of our currency.
This particular advantage is in turn largely cancerous to our other historical comparative advantages.
Whether the global financial regime changes rapidly enough to end that comparative advantage before it has crippled our other remaining strengths is unclear.
Yes...those pesky underlying structural issues that are so "readily apparent"...except I'd argue appearances are deceptive. That doesn't mean I'm in one camp or the other. I've just learned through experience that predictions about the imminent decline/collapse of China are premature.
Structural issues in no way equate to an imminent collapse, but they do contribute in great measure to the “pressure cooker society” in which young folks exist and thus to the very large birth dearth China faces.
Were the development initiatives proceeding as advertised, the transfer state would already be about redistributing the proceeds of industrial productivity from the SOE sector and private capital to the citizenry in the form of improved social benefits that free them to spend hard-earned money buying the produce of their own hands and some of the finer things in life.
Instead it continues to constrain wage growth and use fiscal repression to supply cheap credit and factors of production to suppress export cost structures.
The unfortunate reality is that China is already capable enough to switch tacks and pursue a Fordist model that pushes income and consumptive power to the citizenry, but the Party, like the Japanese LDP before it… in the main it doesn’t trust this to be true, and those voices which believe it don’t know how to enact such a vision into concrete policy.
the typical wage in taiwan, the world's undisputed chip fab leader, is about ~$1200 per month and the typical college educated worker drives a scooter. wages on the eastern coasts of China, especially in tier 1 and 2 cities, have already converged with taiwanese wages. (~+100 million people vs ~23 million people) wages in inland China is no where near that amount. however, in recent years, the amount of low-end manufacturing that has moved to inland China has dwarfed whatever has moved out.
keep in mind that unlike the east asian tigers and japan, China will not be able to export medium to high-value-added products to America, and probably most parts of the EU, so that undermines their ability to earn higher wages. Almost all high tech companies from China have been sanctioned by the usa, forcing companies to either limit or severe trade with america (wuxia pharmaceuticals is an excellent example).
Low margins for majority of industries, a significant minority of the population still in low productivity agriculture are the main reasons. And besides manufacturing wages are increasing it was just this year that byd + saic new grad roles converged with Toyota
In the loooong history of China, a single unified state is the exception.
The demographics are not encouraging nor is the financial situation.
Things can seem fine and then …
China has been a unified state for approx 87% of the last 2000 years. Do the math.
You exist in a parallel universe in your head that is utterly disconnected from reality.
Oh snap! 🧌
True, but.... Reserve currency....China has staggeringly high reserves. The "financial situation" may or may not be as dire as Pete proposes. Or it is. Or...some other curveball. Prognostication is a fools game.
Regardless, I still think Pete is a goofball.
“ prognostication is a fools game” seems that many commenters are already treading that road.. et tu?
I lapse into it occasionally. The longer I live in China, the more I understand how little I know.
True.
> Peter Zeihan thinks China will not be a manufacturing powerhouse within 10 years due to the demographic collapse.
I think that's just silly - China's manufacturing capacity is equal to the ENTIRE WESTERN WORLD: https://imgur.com/a/VUtGSPL
Even cut in half, it would still be as big as the next two largest manufacturing output countries *combined* (USA and Japan).
This is like saying "the US will be irrelevant to the world economy in 10 years because politically they're so divided they can't get anything done" or similar.
Where does that chart come from and what data was used to produce it?
Unless China gets serious about automation with Europe and US withholding technology, I don’t see how they could continue to be producing at their current level.
In 2010, Peter predicted the collapse of China by the end of the 2010s. He's now saying the same thing but pushed the date to the end of the 2020s. He's a fraud.
https://www.businessinsider.com/stratfor-predictions-for-the-next-decade-2010-1
Demographic decline and it's impact on China is overexaggerated.
https://x.com/hsu_steve/status/1620765589752119297
Perhaps the more interesting question is whether that's directionally correct.
Recall that the USSR collapsing took everyone by surprise, and appeared to happen out of nowhere. But in hindsight it was fairly obvious it couldn't continue. If the USSR could just .... disappear ... one day, then, why not the PRC
Noah Smith on China is like quoting the KKK on MLK, don't expect people to respect you if you do.
Again, Machiavelli:
"Don't use mercenaries. If they are bad, they will lose your country for you
if they are good, they will take it away from you. Don't use mercenaries "
- Machiavelli
Dean's corollary: Offshoring, outsourcing & subcontracting are the mercenaries of today's business world
"Building a successful commercial aircraft is more difficult than building spacecraft. In fact, China had built a successful and reliable space launch program by the late 1990s, long before it came anywhere close to building its own successful commercial aircraft."
This is conflating the difference between building individual bespoke spacecraft, and building a "successful commercial" aircraft.
Boeing can build an aircraft production line. Boeing can also build individual spacecraft. Boeing has not yet figured out how to make a successful commercial spacecraft. NASA, EASA, China, no one has figured out yet how to build a commercially successful spacecraft. The only company to date who has built semi-reliable, reusable spacecraft is SpaceX.
It is absolutely harder to build a "successful commercial" spacecraft than a successful commercial aircraft. Boeing is the exhibit A.
SpaceX has built commercially successful spacecraft, no? Unless you're using an odd definition of commercially successful in which selling to the government doesn't count.
Sure, to a degree. But to compare Falcon to any modern aircraft: the highest use, record breaking Falcon B1062 collapsed and finally died on its 23rd flight.
So the bar that Falcon has so far set - a hugely hugely impressive bar!! - is 23 flights before explode.
Comparing that to aircraft... clearly spacecraft are harder!
Wrote about this a few months ago: https://open.substack.com/pub/thestupideconomy/p/the-c919-a-masterclass-in-technology?r=i7v1h&utm_medium=ios
Wrote about this a few months ago:
https://open.substack.com/pub/thestupideconomy/p/the-c919-a-masterclass-in-technology?r=i7v1h&utm_medium=ios
The IP theft problems remind me of the comment from the old Russian Communists that the capitalists would sell the communists the rope they would hang them with. China intends to be THE world power. We need to wake up.