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Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet
by neya 8y ago
Well, one thing that is mentioned in the article, but deserves a lot more attention is IP theft. You should read about the chilling IP theft case of the bullet train where China pretended to contract Japan for the bullet train, but used it to steal their IP, patent it all and screw them over.
Here's a really good documentary on how much engineering went into Japan's bullet trains.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4aaSzqT9s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xA4aaSzqT9s
To see all this being stolen by someone who just walked in, pretending to make a deal, is so painful.
- faitswulff 8y ago> To see all this being stolen by someone who just walked in, pretending to make a deal, is so painful. I mean, if you want to talk about pain, a lot of Chinese people see Japan primarily as the country responsible for the Rape of Nanking [0], among other atrocities. It doesn't make IP theft justified, but it probably puts it into context for why the Chinese government, people, or companies would have very little compunction against doing it. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanjing_Massacre EDIT - wow, people here really hate China. Is it so hard to see human factors affecting behaviors?
- swinglock 8y agoNo, it doesn't. China steals everything worth stealing from anyone that has it.
- Fricken 8y agoCensorship is bad. Free exchange of information is good. Unless we're talking about IP, then suddenly the opposite is true. Really, when you get under all the BS from people who've been propagandized against China, they believe America should win and China should lose. Of course China isn't going to agree to this, and they're big enough that they don't have to. Might makes right, until China becomes the mightiest global economic power.
- jerkstate 8y ago> Censorship is bad. Free exchange of information is good. Unless we're talking about IP, then suddenly the opposite is true. Alright, let's torture your false equivalence a little more: you shouldn't have privacy because that's prevention of the free exchange of information.
- Fricken 8y agoHow is it false equivalency? This has nothing to do with the concept of sanctuary. Even Adam Smith regarded IP laws to be an 'Unessecary Evil'. Even in SV, an engineer works for one company, learns the tricks of the trade, and then takes that knowledge to another. This is business as usual, and it's a critical ingredient to Silicon Valley's success, and it's the secret to the success of many city states and industrial hubs all throughout history.
- Riverheart 8y agoNot some defender of IP here but it doesn't seem equivalent. Guy transferring companies takes domain knowledge with them, they don't take the blueprints to project X with them.
- thablackbull 8y agoNot only that, the political rhetoric just massively overstates reality. From PIIE [1], > Overlooked are the data that suggest the popular narrative exaggerates the magnitude of China's forced technology transfer and theft and does not allow for the possibility that China's protection of intellectual property is improving rather than worsening. […] Since the subsidiaries of these holding companies using the licensed foreign technology are located in other jurisdictions worldwide, China probably ranks second globally in the magnitude of licensing fees paid for technology used within national borders. From MMC's Brink [2] > In the late 1980s and throughout the 1990s, Western firms such as Apple and Intel made large profits by investing in China to take advantage of the cheap labor, often at terrific human cost. As China’s economy grew and the population became wealthier, Western firms were then able to profit by selling their products back to the wealthier children of the same labor force that made them. The Chinese government saw this happening and wanted Western firms benefiting from the Chinese market to give something back. It established a system of approving foreign investments on the condition that the businesses involved agreed to partner with local firms and transfer knowledge and skills to the local Chinese market. and [3] > …Paul Goldstein, an IP expert at Stanford. Instead, it’s given away in negotiations with Chinese businesses, officials and investors. [1] https://piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/china-forced-technology-transfer-and-theft https://piie.com/blogs/china-economic-watch/china-forced-tec... [2] https://www.brinknews.com/why-china-is-a-leader-in-intellectual-property-and-what-the-u-s-has-to-do-with-it/ https://www.brinknews.com/why-china-is-a-leader-in-intellect... [3] https://www.brinknews.com/how-much-american-ip-is-china-stealing/ https://www.brinknews.com/how-much-american-ip-is-china-stea...
- withhighprod 8y agoSeems some core AI tech is also stolen: ResNet. It should have been invented by non-Chinese.
- aaaaaaaaaab 8y agoOh come on. Chinese are known for stealing IP from everyone including other Chinese. They consider this an achievment. They would have stolen the tech from anyone else, Japanese or not.
- archibaldJ 8y agoYeah. Just googling about Alibaba in Chinese and one would find articles about the IP theft culture within the organisation. There are tons of stories circulating in Chinese start-up communities about how project managers from Alibaba, Tencent, etc, pretended to be interested in funding (or collaborating with) a start-up before stealing ideas/designs/code/algorithms from them. e.g. https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/29783732 https://zhuanlan.zhihu.com/p/29783732 Edit: elaboration
- whooshee 8y agoThat strategy is not uncommon for big companies, think about Facebook, Microsoft.
- archibaldJ 8y agoI guess at least they don't pretend to be interested in funding or collaborating with another company before stealing, say, design/code/algorithms from them. Or are there any anecdotes about these big conglomerates doing disgraceful things like that as well?
- scottlegrand2 8y agoFrom talking to friends, I can think of 3 examples from MSFT, GOOG, and AMZN right off the bat. Capitalism is dog eat dog by nature IMO.
- liftbigweights 8y agoBut most of the atrocities in china in the 20th century were committed by the chinese against other chinese? And most of the atrocities in the 19th century were by european imperialists. Also, everyone committed atrocities against everyone else. Using your logic, we should all be stealing from each other since it is all justified because of historical wrongs. Sure you can't be arguing that?
- faitswulff 8y ago> Sure you can't be arguing that? You're right, I wasn't.
- Edmond 8y agoIP theft is an important part of the Chinese "Miracle" but it is short-sighted to focus too much on that...If IP access is all it took, I think we would have seen the Chinese achievement replicated in many other places.
- dforrestwilson 8y agoMost countries don’t have the military or self-sufficient economics of China though. French Polynesia could probably never do this kind of thing to Japan for example.
- simion314 8y agoWhat do you mean? Can NATO or US force any law they want? If I am in a small country and decide that patents and copyright is evil should I expect a war? If not what do you mean by military in your comment? As I see it if you don't like China politics don't do business with them and do not involve the army(though we all know some big countries like to get involved in smaller countries politics and force laws).
- toyg 8y agoMost smaller countries get subsidies from bigger ones. As the ruler of a small country, if you don’t play ball, those subsidies will go away, you’ll be blackballed, you won’t get those prestigious official visits that can boost your local popularity, you won’t get preferential treatment or inclusion in free-trade agreements, your citizens will have to pay for tourist visas, your exports will be triple-checked and slowed down at ports, the powerful “allied” military won’t show up at your ports (which makes your neighbours think twice about bullying you), etc etc etc. There are a million ways to basically ostracise a country without the issue ever surfacing on international media.
- simonh 8y agoMost smaller countries depend on bigger ones for defence, and often for defence subsidies in order to support the strategic objectives of the bigger powers. So military considerations can be a huge factor in a way it just isn’t with China (not in the same ways, anyway).
- rongenre 8y agoThey stole the idea from the US: https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/
- bilbo0s 8y agoWow. So they steal bullet trains etc and we stole steam tech etc. I guess it just indicates that it's foolish for a nation to pay for technology if it's poor. I wonder are there any examples of poor nations in history that actually paid market prices for technology, and became super powers? (Or at least maybe regional powers?)
- gammateam 8y agoWould Germany count? Obviously Post WWII without any of their acquisitions, debilitated infrastructure, and debt Yet third time's a charm!
- bilbo0s 8y agoThey didn't pay market prices. We gave them most of the stuff via the Marshall Plan. (You could say the same thing about Japan. We gave them all the stuff they needed to rebuild.) I'm wondering if anyone has ever actually paid for the stuff they need?
- gammateam 8y agoPerhaps not! Also when it comes to private persons, I find many examples of the currently wealthy 1% having done things that elevated and cemented their status that are no longer legal today. I dare say most. Its not just that the laws changed and they coincidentally were a common practice at the time, its that those were the particular nuanced laws they were using. Everything from selling securities door to door 100 years ago, to self-benefitting charities using overlooked and accidental combinations of tax code.
- toyg 8y ago
- IntelMiner 8y agoI was going to go to bed (it's 2:29 AM here), but Richard Hammond is a fantastic orator and a delight to listen to Also he looks so YOUNG in that video
- gammateam 8y agoAll great nations are built by theft of a valuable resource. It's the sure fire way to get ahead in any game.
- gammateam 8y agowell okay guys, after a cumulative -2 on the above, I want to disclose that I'm open to counterpoints if you have a compelling one! Just because an ego is bruised or you want a better world doesn't mean you need to project that through downvoting, it is effectively censorship when you do that
- travisoneill1 8y agoThe borders of all nations are determined by some previous conquest and the great nations are the ones that were most successful conquering their neighbors, but what made them able to do so where most could not? The ability to conquer obviously can't be taken by conquest. Only recently has IP been as or more valuable than natural resources, but the concept remains. Why has Nigeria stuck to stealing a few of our dollars instead of making a killing like China stealing our IP? Because they can't and China can. That ability is what makes it a great nation, and was necessarily developed before it was used.
- gammateam 8y agoThe point is that ALL superpowers and empires were created by some unilateral expropriation, and being able to defend that. I was looking for a counterpoint to that. The "any random country" comparison wasn't what I was going for
- D_Alex 8y agoEh, I'll give it a go, although I realize the goalposts have not been properly fixed here. You can argue about what a "great country" is, what "theft" is and what is a "valuable resource". No country is a saint, at least no large country. Anyway, I nominate Germany as a counterpoint to your thesis. Germany's greatness has not been built on theft, but on hard work and skill of the Germans. When Germany tried theft, or rather conquest, they failed badly, but when they got on with developing their own country rather than war, they succeeded pretty spectacularly. Do you agree...?
- api 8y agoChina has also totally rejected environmentalism and monetary discipline. Need energy? Burn coal with no scrubbers and fake the air quality data. Have waste? Dump it in rivers and bribe local officials. Economy slowing? Print money. Need infrastructure? Print the money to pay for it. Western liberals say ignoring the environment will catch up to them. Western conservatives say you can't ignore fiscal discipline forever. So far both are wrong. These go along with IP as things China is ignoring. They seem to be calling BS on all forms of large scale socioeconomic restraint that might restrain GDP growth. Strap a brick to the accelerator and go. It's an interesting experiment and as others have pointed out not that different from America in the 19th century.
- toyg 8y agoThe USSR looked similarly all-powerful between ‘45 and ‘78, roughly. If we say “new China” started its rise in the late ‘80s/ early ‘90s, we should expect another decade or so of its power looking “inevitable” before cracks start to be a bit too big to ignore - possibly longer, considering their superior scale.
- westiseast 8y agoThe timescales are slightly shorter than many people think - the 1970s-90s were basically a whole scale westernization of Chinese society. Big economic reforms in the mid-late 1990s really freed up the economy from the burdens of inefficient state enterprise, and then real insane growth started in the 2000s and post 2008 with huge quantitive easing. A lot of the “China can’t fail” rhetoric suggests it’s been a 40-50yr trend that defies all critics, but it’s only in the last 10-20 years we’ve seen a rise of this insane wealth, massive debt fueled economy, reverse in liberalization trends etc.
- tim333 8y agoThey're working on the enviro bit: > China is the world's leading country in electricity production from renewable energy sources, with over double the generation of the second-ranking country, the United States.
- hourislate 8y agoAccording to Mark Goodman "Future Crimes", it amounts to over 1 trillion USD over the last 10 years. Micron being the latest victim. https://www.wired.com/story/us-accuses-chinese-stealing-micron-trade-secrets/ https://www.wired.com/story/us-accuses-chinese-stealing-micr... It is interesting that an agrarian society can transform and innovate itself in approx 10-15 years to become the world leader in Technology, etc. They also never seem to run out of funds to drive anything they do?
- toyg 8y agoNot that remarkable: the USSR had done it before China, and Japan had a similar big push in the Meiji era, in similarly short timeframes (taking into consideration the communication and transportation technology available at the time).
- 40acres 8y agoYou could argue that stealing IP is necessary fuel for any striving world power. As bad as China is with respect to IP abuse we need to realize that they are ready to turn the corner and start developing IP of their own. China is too self-reliant to continue to rely on US/EU based semiconductors and aerospace technology for long. I honestly think it's too late to halt China's growth from the outside.
- _cs2017_ 8y agoAny experienced businessman understands that there's a risk of being duped. Like you imply, the risk depends on the country of origin of your business partner: China is worse than the US; the US is worse than Scandinavia; etc. It also depends on the industry, the reputation and history of the company and its owners, the nature of the deal, and many other factors. It's just part of doing business. If IP theft (or other dishonest behavior) is too extreme, eventually that country would lose foreign business. This is what happened in Russia soon after Gorbachev opened it up: many foreign companies and investors gave up their attempts to enter Russia because they could not handle the amount of trickery being done to them. It took many years for Russia to fix that to some extent. The fact that foreign businesses are still very much present and expand in China means that IP theft and other deceitful practices are within the limits of accepted business risks.