Tesla’s astonishing few months are a reminder not to speak too soon
The rise of Chinese tech heavyweights, such as Alibaba and Huawei, has invalidated many a liberal tome such as 2007’s The Writing on the Wall by journalist Will Hutton. Now gathering dust in my store-room, the learned work explains why innovation will prove beyond China if it remains authoritarian.
Just how accurate that proved is testified by the World Intellectual Property Organization, which said that 58,990 applications for patents were filed from China last year, ahead of the United States with 57,840. For the first time since the patent system was set up in 1978, America has lost its lead.
The fear that the US is losing its edge to the communist giant is now bi-partisan. The Biden campaign’s “Innovate in America” strategy launched even as the Trump administration banned TikTok, a popular Chinese social media company. The media is full of talk of America’s “Sputnik Moment” — a realization that America is about to lose the innovation arms-race.
But for anyone inclined to eulogize American innovation, Elon Musk and Tesla’s astonishing few months are a reminder not to speak too soon.
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