Many people ask why there are no people like Musk in China. In fact, among the 1.4 billion people in China, there are many talented individuals. For example, in the field of simple medical care, there are many skilled individuals in the community who can solve difficult and complex medical problems that hospitals cannot. These traditional doctors use ancestral remedies that cost only a few hundred yuan, but they are the targets of suppression and can never see the light of day. There was once a story circulating on the internet about a returned PhD who saved many cancer patients with his own formula, but he was eventually arrested and imprisoned. Only after all the patients jointly requested a reexamination did he receive a lighter sentence. These strange phenomena are incomprehensible in mainland China. Clearly, they are saving lives, but they are labeled as illegal and against the rules. Perhaps only politicians can understand the meaning behind this. The key point lies in GDP.
We know that GDP has always been the main focus of the Chinese government's annual discussions. This year it's 6%, next year it's 5%, and the year after it's 4%. Basically, GDP has become the goal pursued by leaders at all levels of provinces, cities, and counties. This leads to many anomalies, such as sacrificing the little money in the pockets of ordinary people to pay for expensive medical expenses in order to drive the local GDP. Therefore, after three years of the pandemic, the general public has also started to learn how to take care of their own health. I believe this is the awakening of the ordinary people. Despite paying for medical insurance and social security, ordinary people still cannot afford medical treatment. This is the norm, so poverty alleviation in China is actually a false phenomenon. So far, the government has only done more than 90% of the face projects to protect their own positions, such as connecting roads in every village and urbanization. Is true urbanization based on sacrificing the basic security of the people? I don't think so. It should be designed from the perspective of the people to meet the needs of urban development, rather than just listening to experts and professors. Therefore, currently, about 90% of local officials in China lack urban planning ideas. They only consult some ineffective advisers and sit in ivory towers, which can be called "ivory tower politics" and "ivory tower economics".
With these thoughts in mind, we can understand why it is difficult to find entrepreneurs like Musk in China. Ordinary people are pushed to the point where survival is difficult, and they basically have no time to think about how to unleash their talents. Moreover, in mainland China, there is a phenomenon that even if you have talent, you may not shine. Why? It's a systemic problem. In mainland China, most politicians still lean towards Western culture, systems, and ideas, while state-owned enterprises and public institutions tend to follow the centralized control ideology that has been passed down for thousands of years. There have been cases where students in certain units revealed that their patents were eventually usurped by their superiors, which resulted in experts on the front line not being valued and their works being claimed by their superiors, leaving them powerless. This greatly hinders innovation. While talking about innovation, they are also suppressing it. There are countless examples in mainland China, such as the mobile internet after 2010. While talking about the sharing economy, it was labeled as a pyramid scheme, leading to the bankruptcy of many companies. If the government is in charge of law enforcement and supervision, and cannot provide solutions and guidance when companies violate the law, then it should not be classified as illegal. You can say that the company is breaking the law, but if you cannot provide corrective measures, then a blanket ban is not the solution. This stifles innovation. Therefore, over the years, most people have witnessed the government's stupidity and irrational law enforcement, and they can only tread water and watch, afraid of becoming a slaughtered lamb. The attitude of law enforcement agencies determines the difficulty of innovation. That's why we haven't seen any amazing innovative companies in China for so many years. The only ones are institutions like the Chinese Academy of Sciences and engineering universities, which are state-owned enterprises. Private enterprises dare not talk about innovation, and even if they innovate, it can only be minor innovations or improvements to product structures. Any major innovation is too easily punished, which is why innovation is fundamentally stifled.
On the other hand, local governments are afraid of taking responsibility and are not willing to be too radical in order to protect their positions. I personally witnessed a county mayor who wanted to rest but did not allow construction work to be stopped during the day because it would disturb his rest. In the end, the construction was halted. So the suffering falls on the grassroots people.
Therefore, based on this inherited system, innovation is also impossible in China. China can only do things that catch up with other countries. For example, after AI became popular overseas, Chinese companies cautiously started to do it because the Chinese government at that time did not intervene too much, knowing that they were already behind and would be replaced if they didn't catch up. However, in mainland China, there is a major problem, which is the chip problem. Chips are an important facility for the development of AI, as well as GPUs. AI requires a large amount of computing power, and with the current computing power in mainland China, it is impossible to catch up.
Many netizens wonder if a country with a population of 1.4 billion can really not solve the chip problem. I believe it's not that they can't, but it's a systemic problem. As mentioned above, in state-owned enterprises and public institutions, there have been no major inventions and innovations for decades. They have only been imitating foreign technologies. Any bold attempts are suppressed by superiors. This is the reason why chip technology has not made a breakthrough for decades. Senior leaders are not willing to take risks because there is a risk of demotion if they fail. Therefore, it is impossible for great inventions to emerge within this system. On the other hand, innovations in the private sector have repeatedly stood out. So if China wants to have innovation, it needs to change this system. Only by activating the grassroots can the genes of innovation be stimulated. Otherwise, talking about innovation is just empty talk, no different from paper tigers.
Of course, on the other hand, we need to improve the ideological awareness of law enforcement personnel and guide companies to comply with regulations, rather than simply cracking down. This may be the only effective way to activate the seeds of innovation. Suppressing innovation will only allow it to take root elsewhere, bringing more problems to oneself. Perhaps control and suppression have become the inertia of those in power, and they will only wake up when they are hit hard.
Note: The translation provided is a direct translation and may not be a perfect representation of the original text.