This point the Chinese keep making that it's wrong to conflate advanced high tech manufacturing with digitalization--is an interesting one for developing countries too. Digitalization is an important part but by no means the central core. Science/technology is, more broadly

This is also an argument against making finance and services (incl producer services) supreme. This they capture in the mantra that 'China will never deindustrialize.' Hence the recent actions against Ant and the Jack Ma empire. About taming finance/digital sector

Interestingly, this could also be said to be the German approach with it's continued emphasis on advanced engineering and bioscience more generally. In contrast would be the British/US position that finances (New York) + software (California) should reign supreme

So, in a way, there should be no surprise on the German-Chinese informal Economic Entente which Merkel & von der Leyen embody. Setting aside ideology, one could say that the two economies and their economic elite share very similar approaches. Taiwan/Hong Kong etc a sideshow

This raises crucial questions for educational reform (mainly of high schools) for developing countries: clearly much more sci-tech needed in curriculum. Of course, the issue is not reducible to education but much broader/deeper. But ed a crucial component

@WesleyGHughes @trevorforrest @DamionCrawford @DamienWKing @floydgreenja

Probably the most successful development cooperation project in Jamaica's postcolonial experience was the Jamaica-German Automotive School (JAGAS). This institution trained scores of excellent mechanics. But I understand it's a shadow of its former self today

Thus the point that @danwwang makes that the early Chinese exclusion of Google/FB from their terrain, their limit on foreign penetration of the financial system, and now the taming of Ant et al, seems prescient. The Chinese model should really be called a Chinese-German model!