Earlier this week Nigel Cameron wrote about China’s increasingly competitive position in the space race. The Chinese are currently well-placed to beat the Americans to Mars – a possibility that is many decades away, but which would humble the West.
Less understood is China’s technological prowess at the opposite end of the scale: the sub-atomic world.
When things get very, very small, the laws of physics as we normally experience them give way to the weirdness of quantum mechanics – whose strange properties, if fully harnessed, would create game-changing new technologies.
As Ryan Kenny explains in a briefing for Foreign Policy, there are huge strategic advantages to be had from establishing a lead in quantum tech:
“Quantum technologies are those that make use of some of the properties of quantum mechanics. Features such as quantum entanglement, quantum superposition, and quantum tunneling can be applied in new forms of computation, sensing, and cryptography. Many are convinced that whoever masters this esoteric field will gain a similar dominance both in codebreaking and advanced sensors. These advantages will tip scales both in the ongoing cyber war being carried out daily over the global internet and in future state-on-state combat.”
Kenny isn’t talking about a mere technological edge here. Rather, quantum tech has the potential to overturn fundamental assumptions about what is and isn’t technologically feasible.
For instance, current encryption methods make it all but impossible to decode encrypted communications. If that were to change the military and commercial implications would be enormous:
“Today, communication networks pass digital information over public infrastructures, such as fiber optic pathways and wireless airwaves… The only thing stopping eavesdroppers from decrypting this traffic is the mathematical complexity of doing so.”
Quantum computers operate on a fundamentally different basis than conventional computers. Not being bound by the same physical limits, they could in theory crack codes that were previously uncrackable. Just how this might work is beyond the comprehension of all but a tiny number of specialists, but anyone familiar with the story of Enigma in the Second World War will appreciate the importance of being able to read the enemy’s signals.
The Chinese government is putting $10 billion into establishing the world biggest quantum research facility. The National Laboratory for Quantum Information Sciences is due to open in 2o2o and will firmly establish China as the leader in the field. Ryan Kenny, a major in the US army signal corps, says this “should raise alarms.”
Quantum tech, reports Foreign Affairs, can also be used to protect communications:
“The extreme sensitivity of quantum technologies enables them to detect anomalies such as when an eavesdropper attempts to copy or siphon off data. China has already tested a 2,000km long quantum communication pathway from Beijing to Shanghai that employs this powerful new means of detecting man-in-the-middle eavesdroppers.”
The ability of quantum tech to detect the smallest changes has other important applications:
“China claims that it has already created a new form of quantum radar capable of defeating the electromagnetic stealth technologies employed in the $1 trillion F-35 program. This would render much of the strategic investments sunk into this platform tragically outdated and call into question the future viability of this already controversial program.”
Exactly how much progress the Chinese have made on these technologies is uncertain, and it’s in their interest to keep their rivals guessing. However, from time-to-time, we in the West would do well to remember that there’s nothing guaranteed about our technological superiority.
While our foremost tech companies compete to beguile us with digital diversions, other countries are busy changing the real world.
Peter Franklin is Associate Editor of UnHerd. He was previously a policy advisor and speechwriter on environmental and social issues.
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SubscribeFang’s argument would be more persuasive if one could credibly believe that CFPB was and will be impartial in applying its rules. That is not the case. It was and remains fully a creation of the Democratic Party, and was part of the “weaponization of government” we witnessed over the last decade.
Anyway, the fundamental problem is much deeper, going back to legislation and rules that empower the federal government to oversee and direct how banks conduct business, not with the purpose of preventing fraud but to use banks as tools to attack disfavored entities without going to the trouble of developing and presenting criminal cases. It started with drugs, prostitutes, terrorists, and illegal guns, which most saw as worthy goals.
But, as we should all have learned long ago, such power, once granted to the government, is NEVER limited to the original purpose or scale. Any promises to the contrary are always hollow and ultimately disproven, and often surprisingly quickly.
This is false:
” … crypto — the sector that, more than almost any other, yearns for looser regulation.”
For the past decade the crypto industry has been bending over backwards asking for clear regulation, on every possible front. The absence of which gave carte blanche for tradfi propagandists and unwitting propaganda parrots—author Lee Fang apparently included—to whine about the crypto baddies and their made-up demands for less regulation—or their inability to follow rules that Literally could not be followed, by design.
The reality is 180 degrees the opposite of Feng’s portrait, as anyone who has done any actual research is aware. Fang’s article isn’t Unherd, but arch Herd.
“Corporations are people, my friend.” –Mitt Romney, 11-Aug-2011
The majority of the U.S. Supreme Court in Stromberg v. California accepted Brandeis’s ideas on free speech.
As free speech has become a battleground for everyday Americans
Which American had this on their Bingo card? Free speech is one of those things we are accustomed to taking for granted, like water coming from the tap when the handle is turned. But in Europe, free expression is under open attack and don’t think for a second people in the US are not salivating to do the same thing. They have been doing it, as this piece points out, and they will continue unless stopped.
Being surprised that the U.S. sanctions countries and individuals it disagrees with—only to now see it doing the same to its own citizens—reveals a staggering lack of critical thinking and a failure of the education system. What did people expect? That sanctions or debanking used abroad wouldn’t eventually be used at home? Just laughable!
Fang’s “worrying trend” has existed at least since the Lochner case in 1905. One American’s protection is another American’s involuntary restriction. When there’s a high degree of “pre-political” (ie, cultural) uniformity, or at least similarity, liberalism stands a chance of squaring the circle. But after say two centuries of increasingly fractious individualism, our options have become tyranny and revolution. Unless Andreesen makes us all into virtual – and virtuous – Romans.
The good news is that Elon Musk now has access to, and a copy of, the federal government’s data from the past couple of decades. Which includes dubious agency links to progressive NGOs and to companies that didn’t have the integrity to do the right thing when feeling pressure from these agencies and NGOs to destroy people based on progressive cult ideology.
So we’ll all find out soon enough about the companies that were being un-American by debanking, firing employees, etc, without due process and based on specious progressive ideology.
Democracy dies in darkness. And light, transparency and truth are the best disinfectants that build trust in society.
Elon is the right man at the post to get this all done.
It’s worth remembering that the early drafts of the Declaration of Independence spoke of “…life, liberty and the pursuit of property…” instead of “happiness”. Most of the delegates objected, in an early sign of populism even in the upper classes, and the wording was changed. Thank God.
But that avaricious attitude is still alive and well in the minds of some Americans. They’re usually referred to as ‘conservatives’. Until recently most corporations and business-people were staunch conservatives.
Our present Supreme Court line-up is not a good place to look for happiness.
Looking on from a distance, I had the impression that the Democrats were now the party of the rich (and the other side was the deplorables, bitter clingers, etc) and that becoming a Democrat politician was a fast track to becoming rich.
Lee “crypto sector yearns for looser regulation” is wrong and quantifiably so. Hundreds of start ups have wasted time, money and energy taliking with the SEC in an attempt to clarify their business propositions.
Chokepoint 2.0 has ruined many bright prospects and forced entrepreneurs overseas.
The industry craves sensible regulation
I think the author should go and check out the other recent Andreessen media appearances: Lex Fridman and Ross Douthat.
From them you get the feeling that the tech bros just can’t take the Dem regulation and interference and stupidity any more.
This author is another of that crew that believes that the more big words you use, the cleverer you sound. Unfortunately, ’tis a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing. No points, soldier.
Again with the complaints about “big words” Sam? Might be time to download a dictionary app? Then the chip might feel a little lighter on that shoulder. Try it.
I don’t mind big words, Martin. They are sometimes necessary. But they are also used at times to obscure the author’s lack of intelligence or knowledge. Such as in this case ….
I get what you’re saying. You’re saying there’s a lot of abstract code-speak and jargon.
I cut him some slack because he’s trying to fit a ton of information into a small window of space. My assumption is that he respects his audience and doesn’t want to talk down to them.
I’m open to the idea that he’s right about plenty, he just needs a longer article to fill in the specifics.
it was fine, well written and clear
A critical mass of the American populace is now awake to the dirty use of power by the elite Left in and out of government. Democrats are totally in denial as to how exposed they are and how culpable they appear. The suspicions were growing prior to the election but now DOGE et al are flipping on the lights in the dark corners of government and Americans are seeing roaches scurrying for cover everywhere.
Democrats relentlessly demonized Trump for eight years in the media, impeached him in Congress, dragged him through the courts and convicted him. How did the people respond to this orchestrated character assassination? They elected him to the presidency. What about this stunning sequence of events is so difficult for Democrats to appreciate? Americans are so outraged by the Left’s feckless abuse of power that they simply don’t care what Democrats say about Trump. Still, the Left doubles down on Trump-bashing because they have nothing else to offer.
I can see where you’re going with this Lee but some anecdotal evidence of the specific speech or transactions you’re referencing would be helpful. I specifically recall the Canadian Truckers being debanked. Nigel Farage was famously debanked. I don’t know anything about Palestinian protesters being debanked.
The absurdity of the Canadian Truckers getting debanked was because of the double standard. The same government previously allowed economic sabotage from the Left only months prior and cheered it on. Farage was obviously singled out and is a more glaring example of targeted overreach. I would assume…and I’m not just saying this because the Palestinian protesters were on the Left that a more universal standard was applied to them. The same standard used against Trump supporters.
That to me is the issue, the rules can’t be arbitrary and applied to one set of views. If the rules at least attempt to be neutral there is less of a problem because the State has an interest in balancing free speech with the real threat of economic sabotage.
The crypto situation is over my head. There’s too much going on there to figure that out. I personally view Crypto as a ponzi scheme and the losers have only themselves to blame.
Citizens United is a bit different. If citizen speech is not suppressed than total spending on political campaigns is less of a problem. In fact, you could argue billionaire and corporate contributions actually hurt the Harris campaign in a Populist environment because the population in the 2024 election was able to point it out without being suppressed. When one Party is whining about Oligarchy despite having significantly more billionaire support than a rational informed public kind of cancels out the hypocrisy.