Will our engineering resources become dominated by Chinese design?

[Boscoe]

First let me clarify what I mean in the title:

The Chinese economy has grown almost 10 times in the past twenty years. The west has it used as a resource for low cost manufacturing for even longer than that and so a general sense of low quality has been developed around Chinese made and / or designed products. Up until recently we saw China stick to the very low end in engineering develop aka, low cost MCUs or silicon etc. However, nowadays we are seeing the leading edge coming out of China at very high quality - they have the economic scale to support these kind of developments now.

For me, in my daily life, there's a few anecdotal bits that really make me question where the future of engineering is going. This is worrying as it could be very easy for the Chinese to become the dominant designers of our core technologies as well as being their manufacturers. The language is a key issue here, documentation could very easily be not translated to create barriers to access.

Tooling and reliability standards are becoming very good from China.

I know a lot of people feel differently but I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework around an MCU that exists on the market today. It's clearly been very well thought out and architected, the documentation is fantastic, there are a huge range of examples, modern technologies like python have been utilised etc. I read some docs, look at an example, type the code and it just works. I would go as far as saying the ESP32 MCU and general offering is one of the best conceived products in the market today.

Efinix, another Chinese company, has really modernised FPGA development in my opinion. Again by using modern technologies, embracing software engineering approaches to HW and architecting their products well. Sure, these two examples have the advantage of small scale of products but still it's mighty impressive how good their tooling is - I feel so unimpeded and productive with them.

On the other hand, I'm trying to complete a project where the core of the work is based around a Zynq SoC - this has been nothing but a nightmare. Vivado and Vitis constantly crash, have errors, installation errors, bugs, fail to compile for no reason etc. I'm constantly having to 'clean' projects, restart the program to get things to work. It's extremely hard and frustrating to product good work with these tools, I've spent so much more time trying to get the tooling to be reliable than developing the design. If I had a penny for every time I've had to search google for another Vivado or Vitis issue, well... I've tried with three different versions of the suite on Windows and Linux. 2023.2 took 3 attempts and over 100GB of downloading to finally get it to install on Linux. The new version of Vitis (based on Visual Studio Code) is unable to generate device platform projects (errors out), it's also not possible to import an old design making it useless. Updating Vivado from 2023.1 to 2023.2 broke my HDL project forcing me to have to reimplement it from scratch.

Anyway, you get the idea. Along with these little experiences we are starting to see significant technology come out of China and I think the west's engineering history will follow a similar one to Britain's - it gets too expensive. Britain still has engineering but it's basically nothing compared to what it was and what is there is okay and / or owned by American or Asian conglomerates.

I know this post might be all doom and gloom but I don't think any take over will happen overnight however in 50 years I think there'll be a huge shift in balance to where the technologies we use are developed.

[Bicurico]

I visited China 6 years ago (Hong Kong and Shenzhen).
My perception, as a European, was as if I was in the future.
Engineering wise they are on par or beyond Europeans. As an example: I collect TV field meter and have a respectable collection with devices from most manufacturers like Kathrein, Sefram, Televes, Rover Instruments and Promax.
All are European.
But the best field meter I own is the Deviser S7200. It features a full spectrum analyser and has all measurements you can think of, together with the best TS analyser implementation. It is fully developed and manufactured in China.
Now think of Rigol and Siglent. And the upcoming automotive revolution.
What happend is that Europe got lazy and busy with stuff like Gender, socialism and what not, while China was investing in infrastructure and planning ahead 10-20 years. We Europeans are planning ahead in 2 year cycles, to match the 4 year election cycle (2 years to steal all money and 2 years to do campaign for the nex election).
Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything.
Europe either changes to a right wing governance and thrives for independence of China, or we are indeed doomed.

[magic]

He's talking about Europe west of Odra - you know, half of the continent or thereabouts

[jfiresto]

... Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything....

Curiously enough, one could argue the problem for the U.S. is the opposite: as things are trending, the total investment in the military complex and the loss of competition and civilian influence.

[MT]

I visited China 6 years ago (Hong Kong and Shenzhen).
My perception, as a European, was as if I was in the future.
Engineering wise they are on par or beyond Europeans. As an example: I collect TV field meter and have a respectable collection with devices from most manufacturers like Kathrein, Sefram, Televes, Rover Instruments and Promax.
All are European.
But the best field meter I own is the Deviser S7200. It features a full spectrum analyser and has all measurements you can think of, together with the best TS analyser implementation. It is fully developed and manufactured in China.
Now think of Rigol and Siglent. And the upcoming automotive revolution.
What happend is that Europe got lazy and busy with stuff like Gender, socialism and what not, while China was investing in infrastructure and planning ahead 10-20 years. We Europeans are planning ahead in 2 year cycles, to match the 4 year election cycle (2 years to steal all money and 2 years to do campaign for the nex election).
Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything.
Europe either changes to a right wing governance and thrives for independence of China, or we are indeed doomed.

China is in deep financial troubles, so much civil war might occur so better to have a war with USA Xi thinks while USA prints its 10th trillion debt dollar while glorious old Europe fills it self with
Van der Lyings and WEF Schwab nazis. Chinese engineering domination is part of belt and road, so better stop that and let Chinese do the supplying of components perhaps, perhaps not.

[schmitt trigger]

Empires come and empires go. Reading a little history shows the cyclical patterns of the rise and fall of nations.
Europe had four solid centuries of global supremacy, the first two led by Spain and Portugal, the latter two by France and most notably the UK.
Then it was, and still is, the USA. Some countries seriously challenged them, like the good old USSR, but ultimately failed.
Now it is China’s turn. Not there yet, but I am sure that my granddaughters will have to learn Chinese. 

[Karel]

I visited China 6 years ago (Hong Kong and Shenzhen).
My perception, as a European, was as if I was in the future.
Engineering wise they are on par or beyond Europeans. As an example: I collect TV field meter and have a respectable collection with devices from most manufacturers like Kathrein, Sefram, Televes, Rover Instruments and Promax.
All are European.
But the best field meter I own is the Deviser S7200. It features a full spectrum analyser and has all measurements you can think of, together with the best TS analyser implementation. It is fully developed and manufactured in China.
Now think of Rigol and Siglent. And the upcoming automotive revolution.
What happend is that Europe got lazy and busy with stuff like Gender, socialism and what not, while China was investing in infrastructure and planning ahead 10-20 years. We Europeans are planning ahead in 2 year cycles, to match the 4 year election cycle (2 years to steal all money and 2 years to do campaign for the nex election).
Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything.
Europe either changes to a right wing governance and thrives for independence of China, or we are indeed doomed.

This.

[dobsonr741]

I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework

To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China.

[coppice]

I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework

To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China.

If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies.

[tautech]

Empires come and empires go. Reading a little history shows the cyclical patterns of the rise and fall of nations.
Europe had four solid centuries of global supremacy, the first two led by Spain and Portugal, the latter two by France and most notably the UK.
Then it was, and still is, the USA. Some countries seriously challenged them, like the good old USSR, but ultimately failed.
Now it is China’s turn. Not there yet, but I am sure that my granddaughters will have to learn Chinese.

Yet, learning English in China has be compulsory for at least a decade.

[coppice]

Empires come and empires go. Reading a little history shows the cyclical patterns of the rise and fall of nations.
Europe had four solid centuries of global supremacy, the first two led by Spain and Portugal, the latter two by France and most notably the UK.
Then it was, and still is, the USA. Some countries seriously challenged them, like the good old USSR, but ultimately failed.
Now it is China’s turn. Not there yet, but I am sure that my granddaughters will have to learn Chinese.

Yet, learning English in China has be compulsory for at least a decade.

It has been almost universal in China for decades, and the results have been brilliant.... in that it has created a huge market for English teachers. Pity they have had so few teachers that could actually speak English well. If they could fix that, maybe more than a handful of the people in China could be conversational in English. I've met multiple people that struggled to tell me in English that they have a degree in English.

[tszaboo]

China has it's problems, for example the real estate bubble bursting can put it into decades of financial crisis. Or we have to realize that the growth numbers are often times fake, with somewhat made up statistics.
That being said, more and more often I have to tell suppliers that they lost market to Chinese components. Either because they don't make the parts at all, and if they make it it's 10x more expensive. We order injection moulds from there, because locally they don't even use the right type of steel for the parts, and the people working on it are not knowledgeable and experienced enough. Meanwhile a factory in China will spill out 50 moulds a week. What the collective West must learn to do better is not taking the extra profit. For example, why can I buy the same ST MCU 1/5th the cost from China? Why am I punished with higher margins, and my design competitiveness less just because im in Europe?

[coppice]

We order injection moulds from there, because locally they don't even use the right type of steel for the parts, and the people working on it are not knowledgeable and experienced enough. Meanwhile a factory in China will spill out 50 moulds a week.

In the 80s, when work started moving from the EU and US to Asia in volume, we used to hear politicians say it was the low end simple work that was moving. This was true, but move on 30 years and all the highly skilled and experienced people are those people in Asia who got their start doing those simpler jobs when they were young.

[SiliconWizard]

We order injection moulds from there, because locally they don't even use the right type of steel for the parts, and the people working on it are not knowledgeable and experienced enough. Meanwhile a factory in China will spill out 50 moulds a week.

In the 80s, when work started moving from the EU and US to Asia in volume, we used to hear politicians say it was the low end simple work that was moving. This was true, but move on 30 years and all the highly skilled and experienced people are those people in Asia who got their start doing those simpler jobs when they were young.

Yes, just like when they now say the same thing with "AI".

[SiliconWizard]

He's talking about Europe west of Odra - you know, half of the continent or thereabouts

Ah, Right. I forgot about Oder–Neisse line which separates civilisation from barbarian states.

Which side though?

[abeyer]

He's talking about Europe west of Odra - you know, half of the continent or thereabouts

Ah, Right. I forgot about Oder–Neisse line which separates civilisation from barbarian states.

Which side though?

Everyone knows those dirty big-endians are the barbarians.

[magic]

In the 80s, when work started moving from the EU and US to Asia in volume, we used to hear politicians say it was the low end simple work that was moving. This was true, but move on 30 years and all the highly skilled and experienced people are those people in Asia who got their start doing those simpler jobs when they were young.

Yes, just like when they now say the same thing with "AI".

Or used to say about slaves. Some things never change, some people just love trouble.

[Smokey]

I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework

To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China.

If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies.

I'm sorry but outsourcing your core development tools to "the community" is lazy, not honorable.  Same goes for "official community forum support".

[SiliconWizard]

I'm not sure what the point of this thread exactly is in the end. China has been on an economic growth that we haven't experienced in decades, so obviously they have a major edge currently in terms of development and investments, while we are in a downwards spiral. Cycles. Does that mean that it's all rosy over there? I don't think so. It's a totalitarian regime, so of course that helps "focusing", but the price to pay for that is very high.
Historically speaking, no totalitarian regime has ever lasted forever, so China's current regime won't either. Meanwhile they'll reap all they can while it lasts.

And, we are on some level acting as though we were committing suicide in the western world. Maybe that's just part of the cycle too. While China (and others outside of the western world) invests pragmatically, we have cut down investments a lot on similar things, while focusing on investments that will "save the planet" (mostly dead-end projects), except maybe the arms industry. And then we whine. Kind of pathetic.

As to China vs. open source, that's a pretty odd relationship actually. Open source could only have started in a world where IP was a core value, if you really think about it. This is not the case in China for the most part, and they do not care much about neither IP nor open source. They use open source as they see fit, while often reluctantly sharing back, if at all. When they do it properly, that's often the exception rather than the norm.

[coppice]

I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework

To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China.

If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies.

I'm sorry but outsourcing your core development tools to "the community" is lazy, not honorable.  Same goes for "official community forum support".

I think engineers are plenty evenly split between the "vendors should do all the software' camp, and the "vendors are so hopeless they should facilitate us making the tools function well" camp.

[Smokey]

I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework

To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China.

If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies.

I'm sorry but outsourcing your core development tools to "the community" is lazy, not honorable.  Same goes for "official community forum support".

I think engineers are plenty evenly split between the "vendors should do all the software' camp, and the "vendors are so hopeless they should facilitate us making the tools function well" camp.

I don't think that holds though.  It's one of those situations where they have amazing hardware designed and fabricated by amazing ee and production engineers that can consistently and reliably perform to spec...  But....  I guess there are no good software engineers to be found???  Who could have possibly predicted that after all that hardware effort we would need software guys too!!

Hardware is only half the job.  If I release a circuit board with no firmware I can't expect my customers to write it themselves.

[Simon]

I'm not sure what the point of this thread exactly is in the end. China has been on an economic growth that we haven't experienced in decades, so obviously they have a major edge currently in terms of development and investments, while we are in a downwards spiral. Cycles. Does that mean that it's all rosy over there? I don't think so. It's a totalitarian regime, so of course that helps "focusing", but the price to pay for that is very high.
Historically speaking, no totalitarian regime has ever lasted forever, so China's current regime won't either. Meanwhile they'll reap all they can while it lasts.

And, we are on some level acting as though we were committing suicide in the western world. Maybe that's just part of the cycle too. While China (and others outside of the western world) invests pragmatically, we have cut down investments a lot on similar things, while focusing on investments that will "save the planet" (mostly dead-end projects), except maybe the arms industry. And then we whine. Kind of pathetic.

As to China vs. open source, that's a pretty odd relationship actually. Open source could only have started in a world where IP was a core value, if you really think about it. This is not the case in China for the most part, and they do not care much about neither IP nor open source. They use open source as they see fit, while often reluctantly sharing back, if at all. When they do it properly, that's often the exception rather than the norm.

Basically it's all about the economics and the output in the west. We are paid more and do less for it, economics has rules for that. Obviously once you have cornered the market of unskilled labor the only avenue for growth is to take on the more skilled stuff .

[coppercone2]

I visited China 6 years ago (Hong Kong and Shenzhen).
My perception, as a European, was as if I was in the future.
Engineering wise they are on par or beyond Europeans. As an example: I collect TV field meter and have a respectable collection with devices from most manufacturers like Kathrein, Sefram, Televes, Rover Instruments and Promax.
All are European.
But the best field meter I own is the Deviser S7200. It features a full spectrum analyser and has all measurements you can think of, together with the best TS analyser implementation. It is fully developed and manufactured in China.
Now think of Rigol and Siglent. And the upcoming automotive revolution.
What happend is that Europe got lazy and busy with stuff like Gender, socialism and what not, while China was investing in infrastructure and planning ahead 10-20 years. We Europeans are planning ahead in 2 year cycles, to match the 4 year election cycle (2 years to steal all money and 2 years to do campaign for the nex election).
Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything.
Europe either changes to a right wing governance and thrives for independence of China, or we are indeed doomed.

What technologies do you see being developed by the military that warrents throwing money at them to see economic growth? The trend is not to do general research since the Mansfield amendment in 1970.

Materials they develop stay super classified. Alloys, plastics, etc. Anything made for hypersonic and stealth related projects (big spending) is going to be highly classified for a long time because of national security.

I am not sure what you think the military is on the verge of discovering that's going to improve general industry.

Air logistics is something that is big spending, but its a nightmare to get benefits from this because of laws, ordinances, noise, danger, etc. Amazon is having shit luck at developing it. And it goes with robotics, its so easy to weaponize, they won't be doing anything really cool and available till they have good counter measures. Its probobly treated like having air superiority, or bot superiority. probobly means most of the developments are hush hush and restricted.

Cyber capabilities is god knows what, military unix admins. again cutting edge national security, the source code, algorithms, etc... highly classified and compartmentalized. Walmart aint gonna get the developments in database sorting and shit from them unless its some kinda encrypted service. On the plus side it means that infrastructure will be modern and maintained, which is important. Kind of like how the highway system (eisenhower) had some crazy original plot that was 'landing strips everywhere in ww3'. 

hypersonics - yeah right, the materials are likely treated like stealth bomber skin (terribly classified)

directed energy weapons - maybe some bulked up degraded performance transmitters can be used for space RF beam down power one day. That is a super delayed return. I bet the first phase is gonna be about as successful as Indium internet sats (now its taking off with musk, but the first attempt was a really grievous financial failure)

3d printing - seems like the most useful development for general industry.

robotics - it seems the enemies of the USA are apt at using robotics. the military learned in ukraine that giving people robots means robots will be used against you. Not much barriers to it. Probably gonna be stunted. AI was supposed to be awesome or whatever but it turns out right off the bat their paranoid as hell about it being used against them.

I feel like the military has a poor return on investment due to lack of general research, which seems most useful. All the stuff they want needs to be largely classified to retain a operational advantage in war..... too many people are ready to implement it globally.


I think its wise to maintain reasonable spending here, but IMO its definitely not a way out of financial crisis.


if you increase their budget too much, then press them for returns after massive tech development, their gonna end up giving away some really dangerous stuff thats hard to use and causes instability. the technology won't be useless but  that is not an efficient or wise use of money. if non military uses that extra money to make.. normal ? basic? technology, then you just have a general improvement. its kind of like getting weird ass food instead of more normal food. and the food is ghost pepper chocolate bars that give you a massive stomach ache

[Boscoe]

I believe the ESP-IDF is perhaps the best SW framework

To set the admiration of the software stack: it’s open source. When I contributed to it a few good years ago it was in shambles and buggy. So give credit to open source, not China.

If a vendor has allowed an open source infrastructure to flourish around their products that is a reason for high praise. Most vendors end up derailing open source efforts, either through active suppression or endlessly changing their policies.

I'm sorry but outsourcing your core development tools to "the community" is lazy, not honorable.  Same goes for "official community forum support".

I think engineers are plenty evenly split between the "vendors should do all the software' camp, and the "vendors are so hopeless they should facilitate us making the tools function well" camp.

I don't think that holds though.  It's one of those situations where they have amazing hardware designed and fabricated by amazing ee and production engineers that can consistently and reliably perform to spec...  But....  I guess there are no good software engineers to be found???  Who could have possibly predicted that after all that hardware effort we would need software guys too!!

Hardware is only half the job.  If I release a circuit board with no firmware I can't expect my customers to write it themselves.

I couldn't agree more, you need both for an effective product.

I guess a manufacturer could get away with not suppling any SW in the past when an MCU had jus ta few k of memory and odd comms peripheral however these days microcontrollers are now performing at levels personal computers were 40 years ago.

[Simon]

My go to is a SAMC micro controller with an M0+ ARM processor running at 48MHz, the ROM memory access speed is limited to 24MHz and I believe the RAM will run at 48MHz, it costs £1.50 The original ARM CPU in the Archimedes PC that it was originally designed for was running at a few MHz

[coppice]

Hardware is only half the job.  If I release a circuit board with no firmware I can't expect my customers to write it themselves.

If you've worked at a silicon vendor, and talked with people from other silicon vendors, you will have worked out a near universal behaviour. Silicon vendors are run by people who think the world revolves around silicon. They don't value software. They don't value systems design. They don't value board level design. This is why so many EVMs are half baked. Its why do much support software, whether its development tools or drivers, is so bad. Nobody buys a USB chip. Nobody buys a USB driver. They buy the package, which is useless if any of its components is weak. You just can't get management to consistently accept that reality.

[Bicurico]

I visited China 6 years ago (Hong Kong and Shenzhen).
My perception, as a European, was as if I was in the future.
Engineering wise they are on par or beyond Europeans. As an example: I collect TV field meter and have a respectable collection with devices from most manufacturers like Kathrein, Sefram, Televes, Rover Instruments and Promax.
All are European.
But the best field meter I own is the Deviser S7200. It features a full spectrum analyser and has all measurements you can think of, together with the best TS analyser implementation. It is fully developed and manufactured in China.
Now think of Rigol and Siglent. And the upcoming automotive revolution.
What happend is that Europe got lazy and busy with stuff like Gender, socialism and what not, while China was investing in infrastructure and planning ahead 10-20 years. We Europeans are planning ahead in 2 year cycles, to match the 4 year election cycle (2 years to steal all money and 2 years to do campaign for the nex election).
Another reason for our technical failure is the total disinvestment in military forces. As is known, the military application is a driving motor for R&D. We Europeans got lazy thinking that the US, under NATO, will take care of everything.
Europe either changes to a right wing governance and thrives for independence of China, or we are indeed doomed.

What technologies do you see being developed by the military that warrents throwing money at them to see economic growth? The trend is not to do general research since the Mansfield amendment in 1970.

Materials they develop stay super classified. Alloys, plastics, etc. Anything made for hypersonic and stealth related projects (big spending) is going to be highly classified for a long time because of national security.

I am not sure what you think the military is on the verge of discovering that's going to improve general industry.

Air logistics is something that is big spending, but its a nightmare to get benefits from this because of laws, ordinances, noise, danger, etc. Amazon is having shit luck at developing it. And it goes with robotics, its so easy to weaponize, they won't be doing anything really cool and available till they have good counter measures. Its probobly treated like having air superiority, or bot superiority. probobly means most of the developments are hush hush and restricted.

Cyber capabilities is god knows what, military unix admins. again cutting edge national security, the source code, algorithms, etc... highly classified and compartmentalized. Walmart aint gonna get the developments in database sorting and shit from them unless its some kinda encrypted service. On the plus side it means that infrastructure will be modern and maintained, which is important. Kind of like how the highway system (eisenhower) had some crazy original plot that was 'landing strips everywhere in ww3'. 

hypersonics - yeah right, the materials are likely treated like stealth bomber skin (terribly classified)

directed energy weapons - maybe some bulked up degraded performance transmitters can be used for space RF beam down power one day. That is a super delayed return. I bet the first phase is gonna be about as successful as Indium internet sats (now its taking off with musk, but the first attempt was a really grievous financial failure)

3d printing - seems like the most useful development for general industry.

robotics - it seems the enemies of the USA are apt at using robotics. the military learned in ukraine that giving people robots means robots will be used against you. Not much barriers to it. Probably gonna be stunted. AI was supposed to be awesome or whatever but it turns out right off the bat their paranoid as hell about it being used against them.

I feel like the military has a poor return on investment due to lack of general research, which seems most useful. All the stuff they want needs to be largely classified to retain a operational advantage in war..... too many people are ready to implement it globally.


I think its wise to maintain reasonable spending here, but IMO its definitely not a way out of financial crisis.


if you increase their budget too much, then press them for returns after massive tech development, their gonna end up giving away some really dangerous stuff thats hard to use and causes instability. the technology won't be useless but  that is not an efficient or wise use of money. if non military uses that extra money to make.. normal ? basic? technology, then you just have a general improvement. its kind of like getting weird ass food instead of more normal food. and the food is ghost pepper chocolate bars that give you a massive stomach ache

I actually agree with you, except that I was writing from the EU point of view, while you are probably talking about the US point of view.

It seems to me that EU has completely under-funded the military. As a result, there have been less "real-life" R&D and less military manufacturing. Instead, R&D has been receiving subvention for climate related subjects (recycling, lower carbon emission, etc.). While that is not bad, it does hinder development, when you compete against nations that don't give a damn about these issues. Interestingly, even so, China seems to invest more in alternative energy production that the EU.
 

[Black Phoenix]

I actually agree with you, except that I was writing from the EU point of view, while you are probably talking about the US point of view.

It seems to me that EU has completely under-funded the military. As a result, there have been less "real-life" R&D and less military manufacturing. Instead, R&D has been receiving subvention for climate related subjects (recycling, lower carbon emission, etc.). While that is not bad, it does hinder development, when you compete against nations that don't give a damn about these issues. Interestingly, even so, China seems to invest more in alternative energy production that the EU.

You can not compare a country almost the size of Europe where every province leader reply to a higher office (the politburo) that decides what the country will do and you follow that rules or risk to be oust of the party to a bunch of countries who have their own interests, industries, political parties and friends to take care off.

China said that they were going to be leaders in removable energy. Image (the act of winning and losing face) to the world says that they have to achieve that. Simple as that. They don't care about how much to spend, or how much time it takes or how many people is needed. They care about that they will do and it's done.

Of course it also helps that every step of the process is made in their backyard, from the mining of the elements to the manufacturing of the end product.

[rstofer]

In the US, the estimated growth in EE jobs is about 15,000 over the next 10 years or about 1,500 new jobs per year.  That kind of number wouldn't make me rush right out and work on a EE degree.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

We graduate about 28,000 EEs per year and there are about 300,000 EEs working in the field.  Clearly, a large number of EEs should be aging out but the stats don't account for that.

[Bicurico]

At the point in time all EU should have already merged into one single country.
Instead our governments are inviting millions of people from middle east, with a totally different and incompatible cultural background.
And worse, instead thriving to be self sufficient, the EU allows everything to be outsourced, mainly to China.
The incompetence of our leaders hurts.

[coppice]

In the US, the estimated growth in EE jobs is about 15,000 over the next 10 years or about 1,500 new jobs per year.  That kind of number wouldn't make me rush right out and work on a EE degree.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

We graduate about 28,000 EEs per year and there are about 300,000 EEs working in the field.  Clearly, a large number of EEs should be aging out but the stats don't account for that.

Is the biggest removal of EEs from the job pool due to retirement, moving out of the industry, or into some pure management role?

[Simon]

In the US, the estimated growth in EE jobs is about 15,000 over the next 10 years or about 1,500 new jobs per year.  That kind of number wouldn't make me rush right out and work on a EE degree.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

We graduate about 28,000 EEs per year and there are about 300,000 EEs working in the field.  Clearly, a large number of EEs should be aging out but the stats don't account for that.

Is the biggest removal of EEs from the job pool due to retirement, moving out of the industry, or into some pure management role?

Electronics is not sexy anymore, there are countless degrees in other cooler subjects that have people thinking they can do electronics.

[nctnico]

At the point in time all EU should have already merged into one single country.
Instead our governments are inviting millions of people from middle east, with a totally different and incompatible cultural background.
And worse, instead thriving to be self sufficient, the EU allows everything to be outsourced, mainly to China.
The incompetence of our leaders hurts.

I'm not worried at all. Zero. The average engineer from the EU is miles better compared to one from China. For the last year I have been trying to get a Chinese firm to implement some really simple changes in the software of their core product. What should have been 2 week task is still ongoing. And this is not my first rodeo trying to get Chinese engineers to make a decent piece of software.

[coppercone2]

In the US, the estimated growth in EE jobs is about 15,000 over the next 10 years or about 1,500 new jobs per year.  That kind of number wouldn't make me rush right out and work on a EE degree.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

We graduate about 28,000 EEs per year and there are about 300,000 EEs working in the field.  Clearly, a large number of EEs should be aging out but the stats don't account for that.

Is the biggest removal of EEs from the job pool due to retirement, moving out of the industry, or into some pure management role?

Electronics is not sexy anymore, there are countless degrees in other cooler subjects that have people thinking they can do electronics.

what you are looking to say is that there is alot of people out there they finally figured out through youtube how to make a microcontroller  system with a spec that is 'able to run in board room for ~30 minutes'.

[Smokey]

In the US, the estimated growth in EE jobs is about 15,000 over the next 10 years or about 1,500 new jobs per year.  That kind of number wouldn't make me rush right out and work on a EE degree.

https://www.bls.gov/ooh/architecture-and-engineering/electrical-and-electronics-engineers.htm

We graduate about 28,000 EEs per year and there are about 300,000 EEs working in the field.  Clearly, a large number of EEs should be aging out but the stats don't account for that.

Is the biggest removal of EEs from the job pool due to retirement, moving out of the industry, or into some pure management role?

Electronics is not sexy anymore, there are countless degrees in other cooler subjects that have people thinking they can do electronics.

I know a few good EEs that moved on to be patent lawyers.  Way more money.

[amyk]

"Will"? If you look at what things are like now, it's closer to "Has already".

[Simon]

Electronics is not sexy anymore, there are countless degrees in other cooler subjects that have people thinking they can do electronics.

what you are looking to say is that there is alot of people out there they finally figured out through youtube how to make a microcontroller  system with a spec that is 'able to run in board room for ~30 minutes'.

Not at all, ^^that^^ is NOT electronics, ^^that^^ is programming. Ask any of these people do design a system that involves power electronics and signals and then get ready to laugh at the results when they fail because they do not understand electronics and the basis of the underlying physics. Or in my case despair every time someone says "yes but it works" of a machine that was designed by a contractor before you joined the company and have spent 2 years trying to modify whilst banging your head on the incapability of the programmer that designed it to understand common mode noise and power electronics not to mention the shit show of having two power devices being signaled by the same microcontroller system with no signal isolation. This is what separates the electronics engineers from the programmer wannabe electronics engineers.

[VK3DRB]

Chinese datasheets for chips usually are missing important information and include useless information like their manufacturing line inspection criteria. They waste time, because we have to contact them every bloody time. The USA is WAY head of the game in that department. Mind you, this is a generalisation as there are big exceptions on both sides. Eg: Honeywell in the USA is worse than most Chinese companies with their documentation quality control.

The other issue is most Chinese companies do not think it is important to hire a technical writer who is competent in English to translate their comical instruction manuals. A friend tried to start a business translating for them, but no-one was interested. They do not understand that their product is more attractive if they don't write in Chinglish.

As for the products themselves, it is a mixed bag. Some of their electronics products are excellent. Other products, downright dangerous and non-compliant in any western jurisdiction. And many of their products use blatantly stolen IP.

I have had the good fortune of procuring high quality electric devices out of China, but I always have to deal with their sales department to get all the information I need.

China is still by and large a backwards country. Things will improve when the adopt adopt more of western thinking to engineering. Give them 20 to 30 years.

[Simon]

The basic issue with china which my apprentice constantly fails to understand is that they do not work to a quality standard, they work to a price standard. This is a bigger barrier than most realize until they try doing business and the sharp ones end up using an agent that understands both mentalities and gets you what you want.

When I lived in Italy I worked for one of my teachers who wanted to import stuff. We would get samples of clothing in and the $0.50 Tshirt would have fabric with so few threads that you could poke your finger through it, but this met the $0.50 "spec".

[coppice]

The basic issue with china which my apprentice constantly fails to understand is that they do not work to a quality standard, they work to a price standard. This is a bigger barrier than most realize until they try doing business and the sharp ones end up using an agent that understands both mentalities and gets you what you want.

When I lived in Italy I worked for one of my teachers who wanted to import stuff. We would get samples of clothing in and the $0.50 Tshirt would have fabric with so few threads that you could poke your finger through it, but this met the $0.50 "spec".

The attitudes of most Chinese engineers have been set by Walmart being such a huge customer for the country. If you are working on something where the customer has said you need to comply with some spec for $19, your team will be very innovative in finding ways to reach that price goal while meeting the letter, if not always the spirit, of that spec. When you have a requirement for high performance, and price is less of a critical parameter, the team will still keep bringing you ideas for stripping out cost, rather than improving performance. It can be quite frustrating.

[Zeyneb]

The basic issue with china which my apprentice constantly fails to understand is that they do not work to a quality standard, they work to a price standard. This is a bigger barrier than most realize until they try doing business and the sharp ones end up using an agent that understands both mentalities and gets you what you want.

When I lived in Italy I worked for one of my teachers who wanted to import stuff. We would get samples of clothing in and the $0.50 Tshirt would have fabric with so few threads that you could poke your finger through it, but this met the $0.50 "spec".

The attitudes of most Chinese engineers have been set by Walmart being such a huge customer for the country. If you are working on something where the customer has said you need to comply with some spec for $19, your team will be very innovative in finding ways to reach that price goal while meeting the letter, if not always the spirit, of that spec. When you have a requirement for high performance, and price is less of a critical parameter, the team will still keep bringing you ideas for stripping out cost, rather than improving performance. It can be quite frustrating.

But still, having a healthy running factory in china and having many different customers provide expected quality expectations will provide so much feedback to the manufacturing process that the chineese engineering will develop strongly in their aim for quality. Even though they lack a bit in innovation and being better at meeting minimum customer specifications.

[floobydust]

The basic issue with china which my apprentice constantly fails to understand is that they do not work to a quality standard, they work to a price standard. This is a bigger barrier than most realize until they try doing business and the sharp ones end up using an agent that understands both mentalities and gets you what you want.

When I lived in Italy I worked for one of my teachers who wanted to import stuff. We would get samples of clothing in and the $0.50 Tshirt would have fabric with so few threads that you could poke your finger through it, but this met the $0.50 "spec".

The attitudes of most Chinese engineers have been set by Walmart being such a huge customer for the country. If you are working on something where the customer has said you need to comply with some spec for $19, your team will be very innovative in finding ways to reach that price goal while meeting the letter, if not always the spirit, of that spec. When you have a requirement for high performance, and price is less of a critical parameter, the team will still keep bringing you ideas for stripping out cost, rather than improving performance. It can be quite frustrating.

Did you know there are dozens of Wal-Mart in china, Shenzhen included. You're missing it - every Western company that sets up shop over there gets cloned, ripped off. They loot the IP as part of their nationalism and Westerners are naive thinking it won't come back to bite them.
So I think it's not the price as much as the ideas, the "how to" is what they need and take.

[asmi]

More than one HW person told me that if you want to design hardware, Shenzhen is by far the best place on the Earth to do it. The kind of turnarounds and access to all kinds of tech you get there are simply impossible anywhere else. Everything you ever need for hardware design can be found within a short reach, so you don't ever need to wait for anything. This allows for such quick iterations which are unachievable elsewhere.

[coppice]

The basic issue with china which my apprentice constantly fails to understand is that they do not work to a quality standard, they work to a price standard. This is a bigger barrier than most realize until they try doing business and the sharp ones end up using an agent that understands both mentalities and gets you what you want.

When I lived in Italy I worked for one of my teachers who wanted to import stuff. We would get samples of clothing in and the $0.50 Tshirt would have fabric with so few threads that you could poke your finger through it, but this met the $0.50 "spec".

The attitudes of most Chinese engineers have been set by Walmart being such a huge customer for the country. If you are working on something where the customer has said you need to comply with some spec for $19, your team will be very innovative in finding ways to reach that price goal while meeting the letter, if not always the spirit, of that spec. When you have a requirement for high performance, and price is less of a critical parameter, the team will still keep bringing you ideas for stripping out cost, rather than improving performance. It can be quite frustrating.

Did you know there are dozens of Wal-Mart in china, Shenzhen included. You're missing it - every Western company that sets up shop over there gets cloned, ripped off. They loot the IP as part of their nationalism and Westerners are naive thinking it won't come back to bite them.
So I think it's not the price as much as the ideas, the "how to" is what they need and take.

Yes, there are dozens of genuine US owned Wal-Marts in many Chinese cities, and quite a few rip off look alikes that don't last very long. I've shopped at quite a few of them. The topic was design. What is your point?

[nctnico]

Did you know there are dozens of Wal-Mart in china, Shenzhen included. You're missing it - every Western company that sets up shop over there gets cloned, ripped off. They loot the IP as part of their nationalism and Westerners are naive thinking it won't come back to bite them.
So I think it's not the price as much as the ideas, the "how to" is what they need and take.

And yet the reason why you shouldn't worry at all is right in what you wrote. In Chinese totalitarian communist culture any form of self-thinking and creativity is hammered out. That leaves a workforce that can do manual labour but lacks any form of the creativity needed to come up with improvements or (a step further) their own products. Hence the endless, mindless copying. This will not go away until there is a generation of Chinese who where allowed to think freely right from their birth.

After WW2 Japan was with coming up with better products after copying western products for a while within 2 decades or so. The Chinese are still hopeless.

[coppice]

More than one HW person told me that if you want to design hardware, Shenzhen is by far the best place on the Earth to do it. The kind of turnarounds and access to all kinds of tech you get there are simply impossible anywhere else. Everything you ever need for hardware design can be found within a short reach, so you don't ever need to wait for anything. This allows for such quick iterations which are unachievable elsewhere.

I think the value of this can be overstated. There are certainly times when finishing a PCB layout today, and having a fully assembled prototype on my desk 24 hours later is a big boon, but how often? People in many countries have quite fast access to parts these days, as Digikey and others have developed. Being a short walk from, say, the people tooling the case for your product can be a big benefit when you can just go over and talk to them about issues, with a prototype in hand, but most people don't even take full advantage of what they can achieve with a good camera and a zoom call.

[tautech]

After WW2 Japan was with coming up with better products after copying western products for a while within 2 decades or so.

With significant US help with the sharing of old IP to help them get back on the feet from defeat.

[asmi]

I think the value of this can be overstated. There are certainly times when finishing a PCB layout today, and having a fully assembled prototype on my desk 24 hours later is a big boon, but how often?

It is impossible to overstate the value of fast iterations. This gives you freedom to experiment, try many approaches and see which one works best. And - did I mention that it's also very cheap compared to the rest of the world?

People in many countries have quite fast access to parts these days, as Digikey and others have developed.

"Quite fast" in Shenzhen means "an hour later", not in a couple of days as it is the best case elsewhere in the world. So - again, not even close.

Being a short walk from, say, the people tooling the case for your product can be a big benefit when you can just go over and talk to them about issues, with a prototype in hand, but most people don't even take full advantage of what they can achieve with a good camera and a zoom call.

Nothing can replace a face-to-face contact, especially in Asia where knowing the right people can mean the world of difference as in that part of the world personal relationships matter a lot more than in the west where people are taught talking to "positions" and not people who fill those positions (this is a bit of an exaggeration as in reality personal connections are still important, but that's not what they teach in schools and universities). Of course than means learning the language, but that also it not nearly as hard as many people believe, especially if you focus your learning on topics which will be needed for professional conversations, and leave small talk to later stages. This by itself will predispose your contacts to treat you better because people in this part of the world do appreciate the fact that you've made the effort to learn their language.

[coppice]

I think the value of this can be overstated. There are certainly times when finishing a PCB layout today, and having a fully assembled prototype on my desk 24 hours later is a big boon, but how often?

It is impossible to overstate the value of fast iterations. This gives you freedom to experiment, try many approaches and see which one works best. And - did I mention that it's also very cheap compared to the rest of the world?

People in many countries have quite fast access to parts these days, as Digikey and others have developed.

"Quite fast" in Shenzhen means "an hour later", not in a couple of days as it is the best case elsewhere in the world. So - again, not even close.

Being a short walk from, say, the people tooling the case for your product can be a big benefit when you can just go over and talk to them about issues, with a prototype in hand, but most people don't even take full advantage of what they can achieve with a good camera and a zoom call.

Nothing can replace a face-to-face contact, especially in Asia where knowing the right people can mean the world of difference as it that part of the world personal relationships matter a lot more than in the west where people are taught talking to "positions" and not people who fill those positions (this is a bit of an exaggeration as in reality personal connections are still important, but that's not what they teach in schools and universities). Of course than means learning the language, but that also it not nearly as hard as many people believe, especially if you focus your learning on topics which will be needed for professional conversations, and leave small talk to later stages. This by itself will predispose your contacts to treat you better because people in this part of the world do appreciate the fact that you've made the effort to learn their language.

Have you tried working in Shenzhen? I've spend an enormous amount of time there. You sound like a lot of people who see a few YouTube videos about engineering in Shenzhen, and think its the answer to all the frustration they've ever felt trying to get things done.

[asmi]

Have you tried working in Shenzhen?

I haven't (I'm mostly a software dev, only part-time HW dev), but I know several people who did, and all of them told me similar things to what I said above.

I've spend an enormous amount of time there. You sound like a lot of people who see a few YouTube videos about engineering in Shenzhen, and think its the answer to all the frustration they've ever felt trying to get things done.

Tell us then if anything I said is not true? I sense a lot of frustration in your post, but little in the way of facts.

[Black Phoenix]

Have you tried working in Shenzhen?

I haven't (I'm mostly a software dev, only part-time HW dev), but I know several people who did, and all of them told me similar things to what I said above.

I've spend an enormous amount of time there. You sound like a lot of people who see a few YouTube videos about engineering in Shenzhen, and think its the answer to all the frustration they've ever felt trying to get things done.

Tell us then if anything I said is not true? I sense a lot of frustration in your post, but little in the way of facts.

Things are not as roisy as you paint them... I live in Shenzhen/Hong Kong since Feb 2019.

[asmi]

Things are not as roisy as you paint them... I live in Shenzhen/Hong Kong since Feb 2019.

Please tell us then how they really are. I'm going off what I was told by folks who live there too.

[coppice]

Have you tried working in Shenzhen?

I haven't (I'm mostly a software dev, only part-time HW dev), but I know several people who did, and all of them told me similar things to what I said above.

I've spend an enormous amount of time there. You sound like a lot of people who see a few YouTube videos about engineering in Shenzhen, and think its the answer to all the frustration they've ever felt trying to get things done.

Tell us then if anything I said is not true? I sense a lot of frustration in your post, but little in the way of facts.

Things are not as roisy as you paint them... I live in Shenzhen/Hong Kong since Feb 2019.

That's unfortunate. You missed the place's heyday. I lived in HK from 1992 to 2017, spending a lot of time in the mainland. A period over which China went from backwards to pretty advanced. A fascinating transformation to watch. I spent 2 months in HK at the end of last year, and it has really changed for the worse. All you've seen is that declining side of the place.

[coppice]

Things are not as roisy as you paint them... I live in Shenzhen/Hong Kong since Feb 2019.

Please tell us then how they really are. I'm going off what I was told by folks who live there too.

Friends, or people making videos trying to sell you an exciting story?

[asmi]

Friends, or people making videos trying to sell you an exciting story?

I didn't watch a single video about this topic, and rely on a people I personally know.

[Black Phoenix]

Friends, or people making videos trying to sell you an exciting story?

I didn't watch a single video about this topic, and rely on a people I personally know.

Then you should start to think about weeding down the experiences people tell you...

You made me take out the laptop to reply to you so:

What people sell you is not the overall climate. In Shenzhen, heck in entire China it was always the following: When they see you as a foreigner, they see you as a bag of money with legs. It is guaranteed that you prices are not going to be as good as Chinese business owner, plus you don't have "connections" which means dinners full of alcohol and pretty girls or KTVs with rental girls (you know what I mean). You are going to be always the one they will try to extract the max money from you, being by taking extra time, requiring extra payment or a mix of both. Ohh and you will get scammed in something by someone. That is guaranteed as the sun rising each day.

It is true that everything is connected at a short distance and you are able to get that prototype working in your table in less than 2 days but the reality most of the time is a long, slog exchange of emails, visits for then the stuff to arrive differently of what you ordered. It is more the times they screw up than the times they get it right at first.

Knowing their language doesn't change how they see you, they just make them more cautions around you because now you know what they are saying between them (and believe me when you start learning some of the language that blanket of bliss and sparks just falls and you get the punch in the gut).

Currently the market is in disarray. Most of Western Investment is running away, factories are closing left and right. Hong Kong as the Financial Hub, where companies go to invest in Mainland China is no more, specially after the 2021 add of Article 23 of Hong Kong's Basic Law, mostly know as Hong Kong national security law.

That's unfortunate. You missed the place's heyday. I lived in HK from 1992 to 2017, spending a lot of time in the mainland. A period over which China went from backwards to pretty advanced. A fascinating transformation to watch. I spent 2 months in HK at the end of last year, and it has really changed for the worse. All you've seen is that declining side of the place.

Then you know what I am talking about above. Those times you lived were the best ones, they are not coming back. COVID was the "straw that broke the camel's back" and the cracks started to happen. Economic rebound as expected didn't happen, capital and knowledge is fleeing the country as we speak, companies close left and right, unemployment in younger bracket (18 to 25) is above 25%, people cut spending everywhere, this 11.11 was the worse I saw since I was here. It was common for boxes to pile up in the pick up spots, this year it was exactly as each month is. Probably a small increase but not piles and piles of boxes stacking up to be retrieved.

Before that there was the crackdown in the International Education centres and after that the crackdown to the Technological Companies, where Alibaba was the biggest to get the hammer and now was split in different companies, each with a part of their big business. Jack Ma just got ousted (well "forced" retirement) and the rest is history. Add the Construction Segment of the economy crashing down and the unreliable Stock Market and you have a recipe for something very bad to happen.

[Neutrion]

We order injection moulds from there, because locally they don't even use the right type of steel for the parts, and the people working on it are not knowledgeable and experienced enough. Meanwhile a factory in China will spill out 50 moulds a week.

In the 80s, when work started moving from the EU and US to Asia in volume, we used to hear politicians say it was the low end simple work that was moving. This was true, but move on 30 years and all the highly skilled and experienced people are those people in Asia who got their start doing those simpler jobs when they were young.

Yes, just like when they now say the same thing with "AI".

Exactly my thinking all the time when I remember how often I saw "argumentation" in the last decade from "western" people that the direction in China is heading is not going to be a problem because "we are so much smarter" and the chinese still can not do this and that.
At the moment the german car companies basically lost the chinese markets, and heading to loose the rest as well. The solar power industry is firmly a chinese monopoly, and they are heading there in every sector. But than some people are still able to find something what they can not.

In ten years it will be like: "But their dick is still smaller!!"

But your other argumentation that the green transformation would be the main issue I tend to disagree with. China is investing at the moment way more into it than the west.

In Germany the now planned big and costly transformation of the domestic heating systems will cost 12 billion Euro annually. But they are speding 50 billion yearly to feed, and give housing, free language courses etc. to people who are in the country against the law. Their pocket money is more then some hungarians can spend after deducing the housing costs.
But if the poor hungarians would go and ask for these things they would be kicked out of the country immediately. Only because they are from Europe.THIS is the single biggest "investment" in Germany at the moment. And it is not even debated about. I just saw a debate in the german TV about where the country could spare some money because of some budget issues. Options where: The new chip production factories, green transformation, or the money  jobless germans get. I am really speechless.
 

[coppercone2]

its nice that someone works on social problems rather then just trying to push the GDP up by any means necessary (Hmm... china comes to mind). Alot of people feel that sort of thing is important. go germany. because obviously we are all missing the ethical and obvious solution to the problem...

[Neutrion]

The obvious ethical solution would be the one the US is doing with illegal immigrants. I don't think you let everybody in an provide them with free money if they are sayin they are "refugees" at the border.
(Exception Ukrainians who ARE real refugees, but I am not complaining about them.)
Can I just walk in there without papers from Mexico? Or you just pushing the GDP?
No country can be forced to solve social issues of other countries, especially not this way.
But you can try, and after a while the not so ethical solutions will happen. In case of Germany we could call them old scool solutions.

Alot of people feel that sort of thing is important. go germany.

A lot of people... how many? Have they been asked?

[glenenglish]

Boscoe said "Efinix, another Chinese company, has really modernised FPGA development in my opinion. Again by using modern technolo"

Efinix is NOT a chinese company. Suggest do your homework.....

[5U4GB]

He's talking about Europe west of Odra - you know, half of the continent or thereabouts

Ah, Right. I forgot about Oder–Neisse line which separates civilisation from barbarian states.

Which side though?

Oh, that's just the outer marker, the real line is the English Channel.  On one side: Civilisation and cups of tea.  On the other side: Nothing but bloody foreigners :-).

[magic]

Checks out, cups and tea were both invented on the civilized side of the channel and the barbarian side is hardly anything but foreigners nowadays

[ftg]

The fun thing about ESP-IDF is that it did not exist when ESP8266 was released.
After ESP8266 got a community made stack and subsequently got popular in the west, then did ESP-IDF happen.
And it just coincidentally happend after Espressif hired Jeroen "sprite_tm" Domburg, a Dutch national.
He is not alone at Espressif.
So they hired the expertize to get a better position on the western market.
It seems to have worked very well for them.