Riding the wind of rebirth

"Time is of the essence, and the task is arduous. Joining the WTO has only provided an opportunity—an opportunity to enjoy an open market and to compete with other industrial, financial, and economic powers, both domestically and internationally. Our comrades need to continue to exert a hundredfold effort!"

……

In the small conference room, Li Laosan, Zhou Zhi, Mai Xiaomiao, and several accompanying personnel were being received by the old man.

"Clover Group's basic system design and application architecture design for information technology are truly remarkable." The elder first affirmed the group: "Building our own system based on the open and shared UNIX platform has effectively solved our urgent problems. In particular, the smart terminal based on the COSTS architecture has its own unique features and is very easy to use. It has saved a lot of infrastructure investment, allowing us to achieve the effect of information technology upgrade with only one-third or one-quarter of the funds others use. I was very surprised after hearing the reports from my colleagues in the financial system!"

"We are doing our best to expand the application scenarios of smart terminals so that the COSTS system can adapt to and drive most office equipment. This is mainly because the TYPE-C interface protocol is in our hands, and the plan is progressing very smoothly," Zhou Zhi said. "We also want to thank our colleagues in the financial industry for their trust and support. The graphical terminal interface is currently limited by network speed, and there is still a lot of room for improvement."

The old man nodded: "Xiao Miao's nonlinear computing system has been highly praised by colleagues in meteorology and remote sensing, especially its functionality. It can already surpass the computing power of our latest supercomputer. And it was developed independently. It's truly remarkable."

“We need to report to Grandpa that the advantage of our system is mainly its algorithm. Galaxy and Dawn are designed based on linear algorithm architecture, and they are not good at nonlinear simulation.” Mai Xiaomiao said, “Actually, it’s not that Xiaozhi’s computing power has completely surpassed Galaxy and Dawn. It’s just that the algorithm structure itself is different, and the statistical data is also different. It can only be said that each has its own strengths.”

"Little Seedling is quite modest," the old man chuckled. "However, both Galaxy and Dawn are continuing along their existing paths, but you, Little Zhi, have accomplished a monumental feat—filling a gap in the nation, no, a gap in the world."

"However, the comrades in the financial sector have raised another question," the old man said. "Currently, the databases used by our financial system are basically those of foreign companies, while our own databases are not very good. I heard you have a very powerful database that has already produced many results. Can your database be used by the financial system?"

“This… is a bit difficult.” Zhou Zhi’s palms were sweating a little. “The database used in the financial industry is a relational database. The relational model is a two-dimensional table model. You can think of it as a ledger composed of rows and columns. A database is a ledger composed of countless ledger pages. A relational database is a data structure composed of these two-dimensional tables and the relationships between them.”

"The database developed by our Clover is a graph database. A graph database is a non-relational database. It is composed of vertices and edges. It is a data management system based on graph theory. Its structure is more like a polymer complex structure, like a three-dimensional network. Its advantages are online analytical processing, network pattern analysis, complex data correlation analysis, and fast query of massive data with high connectivity."

"This database has outstanding advantages for graphical data analysis, such as weather analysis, nonlinear simulation, primitive fitting, and even artificial intelligence research starting from Go tactical analysis. Combined with our Clover self-developed Seeco operating system, it is a very suitable environment tool. However, it is too cumbersome and complex to use as a database for financial systems that mainly use relational data. Due to the data architecture problem, it is difficult for the two to be used interchangeably."

"Just like Aurora and Satoshi, their designs have different functions and purposes, so they are not suitable to replace each other, is that what you mean?" the old man asked.

"Yes." Zhou Zhi nodded.

"If we were to develop our own relational database tools, would we be able to produce results quickly, like your graph database?" "Well... that's probably a bit difficult." Zhou Zhi shook his head heavily.

"Why? Is there some insurmountable technical difficulty?" the old man asked.

"The real difficulty isn't in the technology itself," Zhou Zhi said. "With our current talent and technology, designing a relational database isn't difficult. The real challenge is that relational databases have been studied by powerful foreign technology companies for many years. They have almost completely monopolized the successful technological paths and created a formidable patent barrier. It will be much more difficult for us to bypass these obstacles and create a database product with independent intellectual property rights."

"So... we started too late," the old man sighed.

"At least for now, using overseas software isn't too much of a problem," Zhou Zhi said. "However, once we join the WTO, the intellectual property issues that the information industry will face will be a huge trap. There is a fairly widespread phenomenon of using pirated software in our country, and we are very likely to face class-action lawsuits and huge claims from overseas companies."

"Any suggestions?"

"We should negotiate with those overseas companies to demonstrate our respect for intellectual property rights and our attitude and determination to protect them. At the same time, we should reduce the cost of use by obtaining enterprise licenses and other means. At least in large enterprises, state-owned enterprises, central enterprises, and government agencies, we should eliminate the use of pirated software to prevent malicious individuals from seizing evidence to launch claims, which could damage the country's image or even delay the overall progress of the WTO accession negotiations."

“I will mention it to the supervisor.” The old man nodded, then looked at Li Laosan: “But today we mainly want to discuss the situation in Hong Kong. Tell me, I’d like to hear from your perspective what economic difficulties you will be facing.”

“There are several difficulties,” Li Laosan said, seemingly having made many preparations beforehand. He sat properly with his hands on his knees, but spoke clearly without any nervousness about revealing his secrets: “The biggest disadvantage, of course, is the lack of cooperation from the Hong Kong British authorities during the transition period.”

"The closer we get to the handover, the more underhanded tactics they pull, and these tactics are very detrimental to the smooth transition of Hong Kong's financial system and its connection with the mainland."

"From the current perspective, the authorities are still actively safeguarding Britain's vested interests in Hong Kong. It is clear that they are making every effort to establish a 'comprehensive framework for power and management after the handover' that can protect their interests. Moreover, this framework is one-sided, exclusionary of China, and even excludes Hong Kong's local interests, in order to force us to accept the fait accompli and achieve their goal of maintaining their influence in Hong Kong."

"This is the same principle they used before to create public opinion, issue large amounts of BNO licenses, causing social instability and a simultaneous crash in the housing and stock markets." (End of Chapter)