48 BEIJING REVIEW FEBRUARY 13, 2020 http://www.bjreview.com
Swapping One Tech Hub
For Another
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The author is a Yenching Academy scholar at Peking
University from the United States
Copyedited by Rebeca Toledo
Comments to [email protected]EXPAT’S EYE
W
hen I moved to Beijing’s
Haidian District in August
2019 to begin my studies at
Peking University, I hadn’t foreseen
how my lifestyle would be so funda-
mentally altered by the city’s deep
technological interconnection. Yet
only a few months later, the thought
of handling payments with cash or
debit/credit cards instead of WeChat,
China’s popular multipurpose app, via
a QR code seems practically arcane.
In the United States, we often still use
chip readers and sign our receipts,
drawing puzzled looks from Chinese
tourists.
I wasn’t entirely ignorant to
the innovations propagated in cit-
ies such as Beijing, Shanghai and
Shenzhen, but rather unprepared
for how central these technologies
would become in my daily life. After
all, my childhood was spent in Palo Alto,
California, the center of Silicon Valley and
home of renowned tech firms. I attended
school alongside children who aspired to
follow in their parents’ footsteps as employ-
ees of companies such as Facebook and
Microsoft. Self-driving cars were tested by
Waymo on the street in front of my house.
Naturally, I supposed I had experienced the
unequivocal pinnacle of technological im-
mersion. However, my time in Beijing has
demonstrated that technological sophistica-
tion manifests itself in a multitude of ways.
Although technology takes center stage
in San Francisco Bay Area’s cultural ethos and
its residents believe they have the tools and
wherewithal to create a fundamentally bet-
ter world, Beijing possesses many innovation
hallmarks and other surprises. The presence of
emergent connective technologies transcend
culture to make up the urban landscape.
One can scarcely glance down the street
at any time of day without spotting countless
scooters laden with food or parcels, ordered
seamlessly through one of several Chinese “su-
per apps.” That is, if the view isn’t obstructed by
the ubiquitous rows of shared bikes which can
be unlocked by the mere scan of a QR code.
The Zhongguancun area in Haidian hosts
an abundance of tech-related establishments,
a consequence of China’s initiative to put top
public universities, research labs and state-
owned enterprises in close vicinity. Most visible
of these efforts is government-sponsored Inno
Way, a startup ecosystem that provides dozens
of incubator and Internet company offices at
subsidized rents. Situated just south of Peking
University, it is emblematic of preferential poli-
cies aimed at fostering globally competitive
private tech firms. While government invest-
ment has been significant, the returns have
been substantial.
Though Silicon Valley also enjoyed
government subsidies and preferential poli-
cies in its nascency, it has since embarked
on a more organic development pathway.
Today, its companies sometimes even ex-
plicitly defy the will of the U.S. Government.
Contrast this with Zhongguancun, where pri-
vate-public collaboration has led to a mass
operationalization of technologies visible at
every intersection. Although Silicon Valley
remains the spiritual center of tech iteration
and has inspired a generation of innovators
the world over, it cannot claim the same
level of public investment in tangible, inter-
connective technologies. For this reason, Ithink attempts to directly com-
pare the merits of Zhongguancun
with Silicon Valley or any other
tech ecosystem are generally un-
informative. On a practical level,
technology impacts the lives of
local people in fundamentally dif-
ferent ways.
As my curiosity with Chinese
technology has grown throughout
my own academic progression, it
has been fascinating to observe
the increasing linkage between my
native Silicon Valley and the Middle
Kingdom. People on the Chinese
mainland have long purchased
property, attended university and
supplemented the high-skilled
labor force in Silicon Valley. But in
the last few years, Chinese tech
titans Baidu, Alibaba and Tencent
have all set up research outposts
within the area. Chinese haigui, profession-
als who have gone overseas and returned,
migrate fluidly between the two locales in
search of the greatest opportunities.
While many U.S. companies find their
efforts to enter the Chinese market com-
plicated by market restrictions, a number
of tech firms including Google and Intel
still maintain varying degrees of presence
in Zhongguancun. After years of deriding
Chinese tech firms as simplistic copycats,
Silicon Valley’s increasing adoption of ideas
minted in Zhongguancun and the flow of
venture capital to Chinese ventures have
signaled a newfound respect for the merits
of Chinese innovation.
Concurrently, my own conception of how
innovation manifests in people’s everyday life
has been altered, providing one of many rea-
sons why experiencing life in Beijing has taught
me more about China than any number of
classes could.QA robot product on display during an innovation exhibition at Zhongguancun,
Beijing, on June 13, 2019XIN
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