4 ms·

This is a clown car reduction of a very complicated global issue starring a company who got to where they are now through brazen corporate espionage. It's "utte

This is a clown car reduction of a very complicated global issue starring a company who got to where they are now through brazen corporate espionage. It's "utterly foolish protectionism" when the West tries to protect their own, but "all's fair" when Western firms are left with no recourse while their IP is stolen and copied all over China because the CCP wouldn't ever rule in favor of a western company.

kristopolous 6y ago
Histotical examples usually don't work on the internet but I'll try anyway: That's not the actual history of these types of of actions. Look at the 1982 IBM / Japan theft case (https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/09/business/hitachi-guilty-in-ibm-case.html https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/09/business/hitachi-guilty-i...). IBM was aggressively protecting its mainframe market in the 80s so it would have a blossoming and prosperous future. Even if we are to accept your premise AND all your arguments, it's still a bad idea as it actually led to a stagnation of technology. There's plenty more historical examples of this. It doesn't work. Take the Japanese automobile quota system for example (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1984/0420/042021.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/am...). This tried to protect encroachment of Japanese cars into the American market. Not by increasing the quality but by suspecting the Japanese of stealing American know-how. A covetous and revanchist policy. This only led to them internationalizing their markets more and working around the US in their supply chain. The US locked itself out of the market, became insular with its cars, stagnated and lost its place in the international market. And now everyone is doing lean manufacturing which is from Toyota. Turns out they were just making better stuff and our policymakers were too racist to acknowledge the possibilities just like we thought Afghanistan was going to be easy, or Russia thought they'd easily defeat Japan. The haughty racial superiority complex is alive and well.
- nemothekid 6y ago
  I'm not downvoting but 1. Implying the downfall of mainframes was due to protectionist policies and not the _PC_ is an incredible leap. 2. Comparing Japan to China in this situation is bizarre. 3. Your reply does nothing to show that this situation is: * cartoonish * racist * utterly foolish protectionism We know today that Huawei has a history of IP Theft from American multinationals[1] and is suspected of building backdoors into networking infrastructure (from the article). You seem to advocate that the US should just take this lying down. This is a classic prisoners dilemma situation, and Huawei has been choosing "betray" for 20 years. I can't see, how after 20 years of playing nice, that the US response is cartoonish, racist or foolish protectionism. [1] https://www.prosperousamerica.org/top_five_cases_of_huawei_ip_theft_and_patent_infringement https://www.prosperousamerica.org/top_five_cases_of_huawei_i...
  - infinity0 6y ago
    The very name of that website sounds like some sort of propaganda department. Notwithstanding that, the claims it makes are all of comparatively trivial offenses. The "top 3rd" one was awarded 10 million by a US court, peanuts compared to company revenue (e.g. a US judge awarded Apple 1 billion in damages from Samsung). The "top 2nd" one links to a blog by a Cisco officer whose only technically-specific example he could give was copying some code from strcmp.c - ooooo strcmp.c! That is going to really get an edge over the competition! LOL. The PDF link describing details about the 1st one was broken, but it sounds like a standard case of employees leaving a company to work for a competitor (allowed under California law) and the old company going sour grapes. Didn't bother reading 4 and 5, after how overblown 2 and 3 were.
    - nemothekid 6y ago
      I'm sorry I didn't analyze the source too hard before selecting. I'm only really familiar with Huawei's and Cisco's patent troubles (summarized on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Cisco_patent_lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Cisco_pate...)
      - infinity0 6y ago
        The wikipedia article does not go into that much technical details. Do you have more? Given that the Cisco officer could only talk about strcmp and not something more substantial, I am inclined to believe the story was overblown. On a separate note, I think the biggest most obvious question that any accuser has to answer is, if Huawei copied so much significant material, why are they ahead of everyone else? It takes time to digest copied technology, it is not a simple case of just copying your competitor's source code then racing ahead of them with a massive sales team and non-technical economic prowess. Given that intellectual property laws were constructed to (supposedly) encourage innovation, even if Huawei did get to where they are now by copying, doesn't that suggest that in fact it's a good thing, they have brought all this extra innovative technology to the world? Or are the monopolists simply going sour grapes because they are no longer at the the forefront?
zaro 6y ago
> It's "utterly foolish protectionism" when the West tries to protect their own, but "all's fair" when Western firms are left with no recourse while their IP is stolen and copied all over China because the CCP wouldn't ever rule in favor of a western company. You make it sound like the western companies had no choice in the matter. I don't think anybody has ever forced a western company to move its production in China. Actually these western companies are making a lot of money by moving to China. And I think apart from industrial espionage , the rules were clear upfront.

kristopolous 6y ago

Histotical examples usually don't work on the internet but I'll try anyway: That's not the actual history of these types of of actions. Look at the 1982 IBM / Japan theft case (https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/09/business/hitachi-guilty-in-ibm-case.html https://www.nytimes.com/1983/02/09/business/hitachi-guilty-i...). IBM was aggressively protecting its mainframe market in the 80s so it would have a blossoming and prosperous future. Even if we are to accept your premise AND all your arguments, it's still a bad idea as it actually led to a stagnation of technology. There's plenty more historical examples of this. It doesn't work. Take the Japanese automobile quota system for example (https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/1984/0420/042021.html https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/am...). This tried to protect encroachment of Japanese cars into the American market. Not by increasing the quality but by suspecting the Japanese of stealing American know-how. A covetous and revanchist policy. This only led to them internationalizing their markets more and working around the US in their supply chain. The US locked itself out of the market, became insular with its cars, stagnated and lost its place in the international market. And now everyone is doing lean manufacturing which is from Toyota. Turns out they were just making better stuff and our policymakers were too racist to acknowledge the possibilities just like we thought Afghanistan was going to be easy, or Russia thought they'd easily defeat Japan. The haughty racial superiority complex is alive and well.

nemothekid 6y ago
I'm not downvoting but 1. Implying the downfall of mainframes was due to protectionist policies and not the _PC_ is an incredible leap. 2. Comparing Japan to China in this situation is bizarre. 3. Your reply does nothing to show that this situation is: * cartoonish * racist * utterly foolish protectionism We know today that Huawei has a history of IP Theft from American multinationals[1] and is suspected of building backdoors into networking infrastructure (from the article). You seem to advocate that the US should just take this lying down. This is a classic prisoners dilemma situation, and Huawei has been choosing "betray" for 20 years. I can't see, how after 20 years of playing nice, that the US response is cartoonish, racist or foolish protectionism. [1] https://www.prosperousamerica.org/top_five_cases_of_huawei_ip_theft_and_patent_infringement https://www.prosperousamerica.org/top_five_cases_of_huawei_i...
- infinity0 6y ago
  The very name of that website sounds like some sort of propaganda department. Notwithstanding that, the claims it makes are all of comparatively trivial offenses. The "top 3rd" one was awarded 10 million by a US court, peanuts compared to company revenue (e.g. a US judge awarded Apple 1 billion in damages from Samsung). The "top 2nd" one links to a blog by a Cisco officer whose only technically-specific example he could give was copying some code from strcmp.c - ooooo strcmp.c! That is going to really get an edge over the competition! LOL. The PDF link describing details about the 1st one was broken, but it sounds like a standard case of employees leaving a company to work for a competitor (allowed under California law) and the old company going sour grapes. Didn't bother reading 4 and 5, after how overblown 2 and 3 were.
  - nemothekid 6y ago
    I'm sorry I didn't analyze the source too hard before selecting. I'm only really familiar with Huawei's and Cisco's patent troubles (summarized on Wikipedia here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Cisco_patent_lawsuit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_Huawei#Cisco_pate...)
    - infinity0 6y ago
      The wikipedia article does not go into that much technical details. Do you have more? Given that the Cisco officer could only talk about strcmp and not something more substantial, I am inclined to believe the story was overblown. On a separate note, I think the biggest most obvious question that any accuser has to answer is, if Huawei copied so much significant material, why are they ahead of everyone else? It takes time to digest copied technology, it is not a simple case of just copying your competitor's source code then racing ahead of them with a massive sales team and non-technical economic prowess. Given that intellectual property laws were constructed to (supposedly) encourage innovation, even if Huawei did get to where they are now by copying, doesn't that suggest that in fact it's a good thing, they have brought all this extra innovative technology to the world? Or are the monopolists simply going sour grapes because they are no longer at the the forefront?

zaro 6y ago

> It's "utterly foolish protectionism" when the West tries to protect their own, but "all's fair" when Western firms are left with no recourse while their IP is stolen and copied all over China because the CCP wouldn't ever rule in favor of a western company. You make it sound like the western companies had no choice in the matter. I don't think anybody has ever forced a western company to move its production in China. Actually these western companies are making a lot of money by moving to China. And I think apart from industrial espionage , the rules were clear upfront.