If you write well enough, 90 years later, people you've never met will try to make the thing inside your head real.

so basically, the value is being extracted from chinese workers and split between chinese elites, the state, and foreign businesses. it's a pretty raw deal for the average chinese worker, which is why there's growing pressure for change.

think sony, toyota, samsung - they didn't try to stay the cheap option forever. they built brands and quality that people would pay premium prices for.

their workers' wages rose naturally with this shift because they were producing more valuable stuff. and as workers earned more, they created a strong domestic market. it became a virtuous cycle: better products → higher wages → more domestic spending → more innovation

tiktok represents exactly what china wants: moving from "made in china" to "created in china." it's generating value through innovation rather than cheap labor, and people willingly pay (with their time and data) because they want the product, not because it's the cheap option.

if china succeeds in becoming an innovation leader while keeping their manufacturing base, they'd have unprecedented leverage. those massive dollar reserves suddenly become a powerful weapon - they could strategically dump US treasuries or shift to other currencies, potentially destabilizing the dollar's global dominance.