reSee.it Video Transcript AI Summary
We have underestimated Chinese power in the world. The trains are fabulous: Beijing to Shanghai in four and a half hours, roughly a thousand kilometers, unlike Amtrak’s typical long-haul experiences. The infrastructure strength is one key advantage. A second is their scientific and technological capacity, which is crucial for the coming decades. The question is: which society will turn out more scientists and engineers? A data point: 34% of first-year students in Chinese universities study engineering or a STEM field, while the United States is at 5.6%. And they are a much bigger country. At Harvard graduation, when we ask our graduate students to stand up as a class, chemistry majors, biology majors, physics majors largely consist of Asian Americans, or Americans of Asian ethnicity, or Chinese American citizens. Last week, when President Trump gathered all the tech titans of the United States in the White House, a tremendous number of those tech titans are Indian Americans and Chinese Americans.
We’re not competing when it really matters for the future, and that’s on technology. The PLA, some have said, well, it hasn’t fought since 1978. What is it worth? I’ve seen the PLA and I think we’ve underestimated their military strength and their technology strength.
And one other thing: the Communist Party of China is strategic, and they don’t have to worry about what the press says. That can be a good thing to have the press challenging the government, but they have nobody opposing them, so they can make big bets over ten, twenty, thirty years. Mary and I were mentioning one of them.
For thirty-five consecutive years, the Chinese foreign minister, whoever that person is, has made his first trip of the year in January to Africa to show the Africans you are our priority. I think President Trump never went to Africa in his first term. President Biden went once to Angola for two or three days at the end of his term, just before he resigned. They’re strategic, and we’re not competing on that level. So, actually, I think the Chinese in technology, military, and economics are stronger than we think they are, and we’ve underestimated them, and we can’t do that any longer.