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1 mostly aluminium Boeing 747 is worth the same as 200,000 tons of processed aluminium. The US imbues large technological value to an otherwise raw product. Yo

1 mostly aluminium Boeing 747 is worth the same as 200,000 tons of processed aluminium. The US imbues large technological value to an otherwise raw product. You pay for their knowledge more than the raw product. The benefit the US enjoys is the marginal cost of another plane is much lower than the marginal cost of producing raw aluminium.

tw04 11y ago
Which only works if you can protect your trade secrets. China's got that covered too.
- adventured 11y ago
  Can you provide examples of it actually helping China? Their supposed copycat jet fighter has gone nowhere so far. There's zero evidence they have the ability to bring it to production and deployment. There are several countries that could build a 737 clone. Cisco continues to dominate routers, despite China's attempt to steal from them and clone their products. Windows, iOS, Android dominate operating systems, despite China's continued attempt to build a serious home-grown operating system. Russia has been stealing US industrial and military secrets for 60 years. It also didn't do much for them. There is a lot more to it than just stealing trade secrets - that's the easy part.
  - bzz01 11y ago
    > Cisco continues to dominate routers, despite China's attempt to steal from them and clone their products. Huawei revenues are already on par with Cisco, at least that one worked out pretty well.
- dredmorbius 11y ago
  There's a fair amount of accrued institutional knowledge in many technological products. It's not all written down in books. To what extent I'm not entirely certain.
digikata 11y ago
A recent headline: "China debuts new commercial airliner to compete with Boeing 737" http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9665924/china-new-commercial-passenger-plane-C919 http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9665924/china-new-commerci... I'm not sure there are necessarily broad conclusions to be made from this, but what strikes me is the thought that in the long run knowledge diffuses everywhere and the economic advantages may get reduced down to physical constraints on energy and materials. In that case, nations that vertically integrate with their own key industries may be the most independent. Of course, it's arguable which industries are key.
- xixi77 11y ago
  Some independence is a good thing as insurance for the case of a trade (or actual) war and such, but beyond that, there is little reason to pursue it -- after all the most independent nation out there is probably north korea :)
  - digikata 11y ago
    North Korea seems periodically dependent on food aid for its population precisely because of the inability to sustain or develop adequate internal capacity.

tw04 11y ago

Which only works if you can protect your trade secrets. China's got that covered too.

adventured 11y ago
Can you provide examples of it actually helping China? Their supposed copycat jet fighter has gone nowhere so far. There's zero evidence they have the ability to bring it to production and deployment. There are several countries that could build a 737 clone. Cisco continues to dominate routers, despite China's attempt to steal from them and clone their products. Windows, iOS, Android dominate operating systems, despite China's continued attempt to build a serious home-grown operating system. Russia has been stealing US industrial and military secrets for 60 years. It also didn't do much for them. There is a lot more to it than just stealing trade secrets - that's the easy part.
- bzz01 11y ago
  > Cisco continues to dominate routers, despite China's attempt to steal from them and clone their products. Huawei revenues are already on par with Cisco, at least that one worked out pretty well.
dredmorbius 11y ago
There's a fair amount of accrued institutional knowledge in many technological products. It's not all written down in books. To what extent I'm not entirely certain.

digikata 11y ago

A recent headline: "China debuts new commercial airliner to compete with Boeing 737" http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9665924/china-new-commercial-passenger-plane-C919 http://www.theverge.com/2015/11/3/9665924/china-new-commerci... I'm not sure there are necessarily broad conclusions to be made from this, but what strikes me is the thought that in the long run knowledge diffuses everywhere and the economic advantages may get reduced down to physical constraints on energy and materials. In that case, nations that vertically integrate with their own key industries may be the most independent. Of course, it's arguable which industries are key.

xixi77 11y ago
Some independence is a good thing as insurance for the case of a trade (or actual) war and such, but beyond that, there is little reason to pursue it -- after all the most independent nation out there is probably north korea :)
- digikata 11y ago
  North Korea seems periodically dependent on food aid for its population precisely because of the inability to sustain or develop adequate internal capacity.