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From this viewpoint, how is China in the 2010s different from Japan in the 1970s? I'm not implying that Japan executed corporate espionage to the same degree, b
by 11thEarlOfMar 9y ago
From this viewpoint, how is China in the 2010s different from Japan in the 1970s? I'm not implying that Japan executed corporate espionage to the same degree, but there was quite a bit of hand wringing, particularly when DRAM production moved almost entirely out of the US and into Japan.
It is still the case, in my view, that there is an edge granted to the actual inventors. They get first crack at monetizing their invention. Both Japan in the 70s and China today are presented as threats, not through innovation, but assimilation of others' innovation.
I'd be interested in seeing some indication that the US position in innovation is being credibly threatened. One area that does seem at risk is genetic research involving human genome. China does not seem to have the same queasy reaction that the US does to genomic experimentation on humans.
- nopinsight 9y agoIn addition to some areas of genomics, China has likely surpassed the US in quantum communications and some AI applications (not yet overall AI research), esp those involving NLP. It's probable that more are forthcoming.
- lainga 9y agoMuch of the technology that kickstarted the Japanese economy's recovery was freely sold to them by American companies in the 1950s-60s, who were delighted to make back R&D costs by licensing their ideas to Japan's then-puny economy. It came back to bite them a decade later, but they had no idea that would happen. This is different from (as another poster has mentioned) keeping your domestic market walled-off unless companies agree to share their technology with you for free. They (American firms) are making this choice in full knowledge of how competitive China is with the US right now.