The China Factor

Foreword

Just a few weeks ago, we held a special event at the Rosewood Hotel, in the heart of Silicon Valley: “Innovation 2015: From China to Silicon Valley, Expert Analysis and Inside Look into the Future of Innovation in China and the U.S.” Conferences with titles like this one, unthinkable only a decade ago, are becoming commonplace. The course of events has seemingly catapulted us into a new era. Similar to the shifting of tectonic plates, the old world order is being ground down and is gradually giving way to a new one. The developing world, until only recently viewed as incapable of the kind of innovation that would enable a nation to gain prominence, is rising; and at the forefront is China.

There are now stronger players than ever before from developing countries. The era in which British Petroleum, aided by the CIA, can depose a Mossadegh and replace him with a Shah in order to head off nationalization is gone forever. Instead, the economies of the developing world are beginning to produce global companies themselves, which are challenging the hegemony of the Western giants. China, and eventually the entire so-called developing world, is no longer exclusively on the receiving end of Western policy and competitive action. China in particular is now beginning, in some areas, to dictate policy to the West.

Not all aspects of this ultimately massive shift are proceeding at the same rate. This is why we are experiencing what many of us perceive as a kind of schizophrenia ...