I feel like we should at least consider that DJI is a mainland Chinese company and nearly all drone innovation in the past decade has originated there. They are no strangers to extreme manufacturing or advanced automated drone technology.
Quadcopters are actually insanely simple devices. I dont think the west would have any issue making hundreds of thousands of them without the help of china. Maybe the chips could be an issue but im sure taiwan would be happy to provide.
I dont think the west would have any issue making hundreds of thousands of them without the help of china.
Insanely simple devices still require a certain minimal amount of materials and manpower to assemble. The terrible secret of the Chinese economy is that they simply have more people doing more manufacturing labor. Sure, they often have state of the art equipment and a robust, heavily industrialized logistics system (one reason why western efforts to pivot off-shore manufacturing to Indonesia, Malaysia, India, and the Indochina Peninsula haven’t been particularly successful). But first and foremost, you need physical labor. Americans don’t have a superabundance of domestic labor, so they’re not capable of rapidly churning out lots of low-cost, disposable weapons systems at a rate comparable to the Chinese mainlanders.
And that’s before you get into the cost of deploying, maintaining, and upgrading a large network of low quality units over a long time frame. Imagine building and deploying an entire fleet of Mark 1 Defense Drones to the island, only to discover a major security vulnerability that renders them easily inoperable. You’ve got hundreds of thousands of these units in the field, all of which need to be recalled, patched, and re-tested. That takes manpower, too.
The reason these low cost easily distributed systems work for, say, Houthi Rebels and Palestinian dissidents is that they’ve got these diffuse cells of insurgents with very little else to do except fight. These large ad hoc guerrilla forces are more a consequence of the deplorable state of the local economy than the fighting power of the region. Idle hands, etc.
Americans don’t have that. We’re at near full-employment. We can’t peel off a tens of thousands of young men to go work on the drone assembly lines without suffering economic shortfalls. Hell, neither can Israel, which is why their domestic economy is tanking while they try to make war with virtually all of their Arab neighbors.
The Chinese economy has capacity to spare. The American economy does not. That’s the same problem the Japanese ran into during WW2, and a big reason why they got washed in Mainland China after a decade of horrifying genocidal occupation.
Its funny but when I think of drones and innovation I don’t think of china. China just mass produces but for the most part when the current class of true drones were being created I remember a lot of amateurs working on it and others, china being one of them stealing the base tech. Just like 3d printing.
When I think of China I think of serious medical innovations including the cure for fucking HIV and herpes. Idk that they are so great with robotics but I wouldn’t really underestimate them.
I think of thieves and I am not underestimating them nor am I giving them credit for most of things they ‘discover’ Since its based on tech they stole. I also know that much of the HIV research did not originate in china.
Hmm, sounds bigoted. One way I can tell this is bigoted, is that you’re making Chinese people out to be both ultra competent (at stealing) while also being ultra incompetent (at science). This boogeyman who will “get you,” but is also way beneath you and who you obviously can “get back,” has existed towards Jewish people, black people, Islamic people, Latinos, women, gay people, etc etc.
All innovations are based on the people who came before us. Or are you saying the West should give all Arabic people the money we make in hospitals since the origin of the hospital is from there and they were originally free. The origin of our numbers themselves comes from Arabic countries.
Do you think America’s patent system is just? Do you think the patent system stifles innovation? Do you think the inventors of Crispr Gene Editing have more rights to this bone marrow transplant cure for HIV than the actual people who thought of it and implemented it?
Or are you saying the West should give all Arabic people the money
That’s sort of been our policy with the Petro-dollar since the 1950s. But, tbh, we shouldn’t just stop at hospitals. Since our numeral set is Arabic and modern mathematics is routed in Al-Jabr: The Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing…
Do you think America’s patent system is just?
Absolutely. Here, let me dig through my PLEX server, I’ve got thousands of hours of legally acquired videos and pdfs arguing this very point.
Do you think the inventors of Crispr Gene Editing have more rights to this bone marrow transplant cure for HIV than the actual people who thought of it and implemented it?
The people of China should pay the patent holders of the modern iterations of Penicillin, Insulin, and Hormonal Contraception eleventy zillion dollars forever an into perpetuity or voluntarily choose to fuck off and die. Otherwise, I’ll call them thieves and make farting sounds in their general direction.
This, I believe, is what the original pioneers of these medications would have wanted. Same goes for any kind of treatment for current and future epidemics. If an American thought of something first, Chinese people aren’t allowed to have it. And if a Chinese person thought of it first, no they didn’t, they’re not smart enough.
China just mass produces but for the most part when the current class of true drones were being created I remember a lot of amateurs working on it and others, china being one of them stealing the base tech.
Wait… you think amateur hobbyists out in the American suburbs are inventing new forms of independent flight technology from kits they bought on Amazon. And then some of the largest and most well-financed universities in the world are stealing the technology?
Just purely out of curiosity, who do you think Mingjing Qi, a professor of energy and power engineering at Beihang University stole this schematic from?
Nope. I was involved and it was people all over the world who started building autonomous and semi autonomous drones them starting back in the mid 2000’s when cheap inertial and gyro stabilizers started appearing. I remember the open source projects that eventually matured into commercial products. China was by no means at the forefront of that. It was hobbyist the world over. Some were students at universities. Some lived in the suburbs and villages and big cities. The world over. Way before the alpha tech in that article. That they have taken those first steps and mass produced them by no means implies they invented it all.
it was people all over the world
:-/
What planet is China on?
China was by no means at the forefront of that.
I’m assuming you’re saying this as a Beihang alumnus?
Ever notice how Ukraine has to beg for support but Taiwan has a blank check against a far more capable potential enemy?
Just noticing that maybe Ukraine should start making semiconductors.
What a stupid fucking comment. How about you open your eyes bud? We have a lot of business with China, China isn’t posturing with war and crying about NATO expansionism and threatening to use nukes.
Get it yet? Probably not, so I’ll help you some more.
The US can build up the defenses of Taiwan because they have no active warzone/conflict. Taiwan isn’t wanting to strike inside Chinese territory. The US cannot give Ukraine everything they want without restriction (because they DO want to strike inside Russia, and rightly so) without triggering Russian escalation WHICH INCLUDES VARIOUS NUCLEAR WEAPONS.
When NUCLEAR WEAPONS are used, the rest of the world WILL get involved. NATO is not just being a jerk about things for fucks sake.
Archive link here https://archive.is/kJlQW
China has no incentive to invade Taiwan. Geographically there’s nowhere but the heavily fortified western side of the island to land an amphibious assault. And even if you get a beach head there, it’s not Normandy, there’s sheer fucking cliffs, and then MORE mountains. China doesn’t have the Navy to setup a blockade or the carriers to setup an air bridge and if they did it’ll be Antoniv all over again.
The Taiwan government isn’t trying to unify the “two Chinas” anymore as Chiang Kai-shek and Sun Li-Jen have been dead a long while. The PLA or what’s left of it does not want control over mainland China and the current ruling Taiwanese government are happy to create 60% of the worlds super conductors. In fact they have Thermite and other destructive charges setup in the fabs in case china invades. There’s other fabs in the US or EU they can spin up with engineers and personnel that will likely be swept away by the US or Japan or South Korea.
This is saber rattling from the Pentagon and a distraction from Pooh Bear’s own internal problems. Nobody wants war in Taiwan most of all the Chinese.
However it would be very profitable for defense contractors. Hey, I should write an article about that.
Edit: sorry if it wasn’t clear in my tone, I do not like China and do not support their foreign policy. People in Taipei and across Taiwan are very very worried. And likely as not it’s so Xi can feel big after the Olympics. It’s terrible that they’re taking advantage of such global strife to pull this again. With Iran and Israel playing brinkmanship, the genocide in Palestine, the ongoing war in Ukraine… A German naval vessel is waiting for the go ahead to cross international waters.
Edit 2: I have sprinkled references to support my points throughout my comment to hopefully form a cogent thought from the word salad I originally wrote. Further reading for those interested:
https://www.cfr.org/article/why-china-would-struggle-invade-taiwan
China has no incentive to invade Taiwan.
I hope you are right, but your post is giving me big “herr Hitler is not going to invade Poland” vibes.
They can’t wait to start another proxy war, this time with China. They are encircling China with military bases and outposts and then constantly harp on “China’s aggression”. Fucking disgusting.
Chinese aggression like ramming ships in international waters where they are making imperialistic claims to territory that doesn’t belong to them? Yeah.
And the many many ‘shipping ports’ they’ve built for poor nations with contracts that state they will gain control in the event they can’t pay. Just a coincidence all those ports are also capable of docking war ships.
Must be coincidental that China has a tendency to forgive foreign loans
If any countries need to have an eye kept on them and a contingency plan for them should shit go south it’s fucking China and Russia.
List the number of wars, conflicts or proxy wars China was involved with the last 50 years. I wonder what it is about those people that makes you think they are so untrustworthy and dangerous? Like contrary to actual historical facts of who is dangerous and kills people and destroys countries.
yes… to “defend” Taiwan, LOL
Yes. Defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion that threatens their sovereignty. One that is continuously threatened by China and one Taiwan actively prepares for.
Yes. Defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion that threatens their sovereignty.
Yes. Defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion that threatens
their sovereigntythe USA access to the main semiconductor manufacturer in the worldFIFY
Why not both!
Fair… But you really can’t have a democracy when it’s results depend entire on pleasing your modern day colonizer
Just look at South America
The US just want to be the next China for Taiwan…
That would be dumb. Taiwan is a better asset if they have an independent government that’s on the same page geopolitically. Australia bucked the USA’s geopolitical agenda, and they got couped.
That would be dumb. Taiwan is a better asset if they have an independent government that’s on the same page geopolitically
Which is why the US wants to “defend democracy” there, that is clearly what I mean… they want a Taiwan that is subservient to the USA, not an independent Taiwan that would actually be independent
Australia bucked the USA’s geopolitical agenda
I don’t understand what “bucked” means in this context
In this context the Australian people voted for an administration that would no longer “co-operate” with the USA’s geopolitical aims, they “bucked”/rejected the agenda. The USA responded by pressing those in power to create a constitutional crisis and replace the administration.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Australian_constitutional_crisis
I guess my point is that America doesn’t engage in the same tactics as China does in regards to Taiwan, or that hemisphere, probably because of distance. The USA favors regime change over making a new colony.
Dude. Don’t pretend to be bad now. Our best drones are regularly being shot down by goat herders. Lol.
Exciting new rendition of the “You’re about to find out why this country can’t afford healthcare” meme is about to drop.
