But quite a few people know that much of that fear is excessive to the actual threat. China's tech expertise, for example, has been significantly exaggerated, as I have found in my research as a journalist and author. From semiconductors and robotics to pharmaceuticals, China lags significantly behind global leaders. The same is true in newly emerging fields like self-driving cars.

 

One major barrier to Chinese self-driving cars is conservative regulation. Chinese career officials cannot tolerate accidents like the fatal Uber crash in Arizona in March 2018 which would surely destroy their political prospects. Therefore, self-driving regulations are tremendously risk averse in China.

 

Since December 2018, American self-driving company Waymo has been offering robotaxi services to riders in Phoenix, Arizona; the cars are autonomous but presently retain a human driver for safety reasons, as do almost all other autonomous cars. Today, no Chinese companies are authorized to do this. An attempt in November 2018 by Chinese self-driving startup WeRide.ai to begin such a service was ceased the next day by local regulators pointing out safety concerns. Another Chinese startup, Pony.ai, is internally testing robotaxi services outside of Guangzhou, waiting for official approval.

 

Chinese companies also face greater and more costly requirements than their American counterparts when obtaining a self-driving testing license. In Beijing, like for example, autonomous driving vehicles are required to have completed over 5,000 km of driving at approved enclosed testing grounds; companies need to book such grounds far in advance and demand is disproportionate to supply.

 

In California, in comparison, vehicles are not required to have driven a specific number of miles in enclosed testing grounds, and cars are issued permits as long as they demonstrate the required skills for road testing. Most importantly, Chinese self-driving car companies have only driven a fraction of the test miles that American companies have, and road tests are the key to improving self-driving systems. In the decade to 2018, Waymo's self-driving cars had driven beyond 10 million miles on public roads. On the other hand, Beijing city circulated data showing that eight companies have together conducted road tests of 154,000 kilometers (95,000 miles) in 2018.

 

Another indicator for measuring the quality of self-driving systems is how frequent human intervention is required. Though many argue the regularity of human intervention depends on road and traffic conditions, this data can still serve as a rough but useful reference for how reliable self-driving systems are. Waymo's autonomous vehicles experienced one intervention by a human driver for every 5,596 miles clocked by its self-driving systems in 2017, reported by the latest figures available. In comparison, Baidu's cars required one intervention for every 41 miles driven, according to California's Department of Motor Vehicles.

 

Beijing is the capital of self-driving cars in China as the earliest city to allow testing, allocating the most roads (by distance) for testing and issuing the highest number of licenses. The city counts 56 self-driving vehicles being tested on roads, which is about half of all registered test vehicles in the country. In comparison, Waymo by itself is considered to operate at the least 600 vehicles in its self-driving fleet. Having the ability to operate a large fleet is necessary for self-driving cars' commercialization.

 

'I feel that the past three years have been a low point for the Chinese autonomous driving sector,' one industry veteran told me. 'While Waymo and others were conducting massive amounts of road tests, Chinese companies were busy staging news conferences.' 'They were announcing partnerships and demos in which cars were moving slower than humans... I feel it is a problem of culture... They are not focused on the technology.'

 

China's tech development is nonetheless in an early stage. It's only been two decades since the days when Chinese entrepreneurs copied everything in Silicon Valley during the dot-com era. The gap between China and the U.S. in tech prowess, in America's favor, is massive. China's success has been massive application and business model innovations. These are the things easy to learn. The secret sauce of innovation - education, a free and open academic and business environment - will take a number of years to master, and will require China to let the market sit in the driving seat, with less government intervention and fewer political campaigns about industrial development. China should understand its weaknesses. Beijing has to hold to its heart Deng Xiaoping's advice always to keep a low profile. When it comes to technology, China should remain a modest student - and the U.S. should better assess its rival.

 

TRONSERVE