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A lot of that IP was stolen from US and EU companies. Cost isn't the only reason that manufacturing is moving out of China; companies are finally realizing tha

A lot of that IP was stolen from US and EU companies. Cost isn't the only reason that manufacturing is moving out of China; companies are finally realizing that using Chinese factories is tantamount to giving the PRC access to all of your technical IP.

0_____0 6y ago
was the same not true with Japan? at some point China may move past Western nations in practical sophistication, and start making better stuff. example: you want a photography drone? Like, the best commerical one available? It's a Chinese product. Most of the other stuff on the market doesn't come close. The closest we had domestically in the US was 3D systems, and then went under if I recall correctly.
moreorless 6y ago
> A lot of that ip was stolen from US and EU companies You can even go as far as ALL of that IP was stolen. Not only from US and EU, but Japanese, Peruvian, Jamaican, Mexican, as well as Brazilian. We all know that Chinese are NOT capable of innovation.
- dang 6y ago
  > "We all know that Chinese are NOT capable of innovation" That's a slur, you can't do that here, and we've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means, at minimum, not posting unsubstantive comments and not posting nationalistic (or other) flamebait, both of which your account was unfortunately doing a lot of. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
fakeslimshady 6y ago
Like 5G LOL. All knowledge and engineering is built on previous works of many others. Seems like Tesla and Apple have been successful there
arcticbull 6y ago
That's an incredibly short-sighted way of looking at what's happening. If you want to become a Chef, you don't start by inventing new Michelin star dishes de novo. You copy your betters. Over and over and over. Then, once you learn how they do what they do, you innovate. Japan did this. Do not underestimate China.
- xenospn 6y ago
  There's one major difference - Japanese companies took mediocre western tech (autos, transistor radios) and made it better. Chinese companies just copy.
  - chillacy 6y ago
    Everybody copies at first, then they start making state of the art improvements. It takes time though, Toyota was founded in 1937, they started by reverse engineering Chrystler cars (they were surprisingly open about this in the Toyota museum). Chinese companies got started maybe around the 1980s with market reforms.
- gamblor956 6y ago
  The difference is that a chef-in-training works for the Michelin-star chef in the "better" chef's restaurant, and then leaves to start their own restaurant. China's game plan has been to encourage companies to use Chinese factories based on artificially low prices (subsidized with massive PRC spending), and then to (usually openly) steal the IP and begin making competing products. This cycle has already happened to over a dozen former clients. I went in-house years ago, but even before then my firm had begun discouraging companies from opening manufacturing facilities in China for any product with any sort of valuable technical IP.
  - arcticbull 6y ago
    > The difference is that a chef-in-training works for the Michelin-star chef in the "better" chef's restaurant, and then leaves to start their own restaurant. > China's game plan has been to encourage companies to use Chinese factories based on artificially low prices (subsidized with massive PRC spending), and then to (usually openly) steal the IP and begin making competing products. "working for" then "starting their own" yeah. See, you get it. Your analogy gets even better, just not in ways you expected, in that people who go work at Michelin starred restaurants in the kitchen do so for low-to-zero wages because the real benefit is the experience they're gaining initially.
justicezyx 6y ago
This rhetoric is becoming more and more false with time... https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-property-theft-progress/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-prop...
- godelski 6y ago
  Your source seems to support the gp's argument. It was written just under a year ago and is talking about a deal not struck. > According to some reports, Chinese IP theft has cost the United States $225 billion to $600 billion a year. No wonder, then, that getting China to better protect IP is a point of rare consensus among both the White House and the Democratic leadership. This isn't a small chunk of change. In fact, this is comparable to the R&D budgets the main article is talking about. It then says > But history tells us to be cautious; Washington’s demands are unrealistic. Countries do not enact strong IP rights systems until their ability to innovate at home displaces reliance on outside knowledge. The United States’ own century long drift toward strong protections is a case in point. Which the tldr is: don't expect it to work. So I'm not sure why this becomes less true over time, as this is very recent and doesn't seem to have changed anything. Sure, other countries did it too, but why does that matter? Doesn't make it right.
  - justicezyx 6y ago
    The subtitle literally writes: The country is making the transition from net importer of ideas to net innovator, and as it does, it is finding that good patent laws matter.

0_____0 6y ago

was the same not true with Japan? at some point China may move past Western nations in practical sophistication, and start making better stuff. example: you want a photography drone? Like, the best commerical one available? It's a Chinese product. Most of the other stuff on the market doesn't come close. The closest we had domestically in the US was 3D systems, and then went under if I recall correctly.

moreorless 6y ago

> A lot of that ip was stolen from US and EU companies You can even go as far as ALL of that IP was stolen. Not only from US and EU, but Japanese, Peruvian, Jamaican, Mexican, as well as Brazilian. We all know that Chinese are NOT capable of innovation.

dang 6y ago
> "We all know that Chinese are NOT capable of innovation" That's a slur, you can't do that here, and we've banned this account. If you don't want to be banned, you're welcome to email hn@ycombinator.com and give us reason to believe that you'll follow the rules in the future. That means, at minimum, not posting unsubstantive comments and not posting nationalistic (or other) flamebait, both of which your account was unfortunately doing a lot of. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

fakeslimshady 6y ago

Like 5G LOL. All knowledge and engineering is built on previous works of many others. Seems like Tesla and Apple have been successful there

arcticbull 6y ago

That's an incredibly short-sighted way of looking at what's happening. If you want to become a Chef, you don't start by inventing new Michelin star dishes de novo. You copy your betters. Over and over and over. Then, once you learn how they do what they do, you innovate. Japan did this. Do not underestimate China.

xenospn 6y ago
There's one major difference - Japanese companies took mediocre western tech (autos, transistor radios) and made it better. Chinese companies just copy.
- chillacy 6y ago
  Everybody copies at first, then they start making state of the art improvements. It takes time though, Toyota was founded in 1937, they started by reverse engineering Chrystler cars (they were surprisingly open about this in the Toyota museum). Chinese companies got started maybe around the 1980s with market reforms.
gamblor956 6y ago
The difference is that a chef-in-training works for the Michelin-star chef in the "better" chef's restaurant, and then leaves to start their own restaurant. China's game plan has been to encourage companies to use Chinese factories based on artificially low prices (subsidized with massive PRC spending), and then to (usually openly) steal the IP and begin making competing products. This cycle has already happened to over a dozen former clients. I went in-house years ago, but even before then my firm had begun discouraging companies from opening manufacturing facilities in China for any product with any sort of valuable technical IP.
- arcticbull 6y ago
  > The difference is that a chef-in-training works for the Michelin-star chef in the "better" chef's restaurant, and then leaves to start their own restaurant. > China's game plan has been to encourage companies to use Chinese factories based on artificially low prices (subsidized with massive PRC spending), and then to (usually openly) steal the IP and begin making competing products. "working for" then "starting their own" yeah. See, you get it. Your analogy gets even better, just not in ways you expected, in that people who go work at Michelin starred restaurants in the kitchen do so for low-to-zero wages because the real benefit is the experience they're gaining initially.

justicezyx 6y ago

This rhetoric is becoming more and more false with time... https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-property-theft-progress/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/10/16/china-intellectual-prop...

godelski 6y ago
Your source seems to support the gp's argument. It was written just under a year ago and is talking about a deal not struck. > According to some reports, Chinese IP theft has cost the United States $225 billion to $600 billion a year. No wonder, then, that getting China to better protect IP is a point of rare consensus among both the White House and the Democratic leadership. This isn't a small chunk of change. In fact, this is comparable to the R&D budgets the main article is talking about. It then says > But history tells us to be cautious; Washington’s demands are unrealistic. Countries do not enact strong IP rights systems until their ability to innovate at home displaces reliance on outside knowledge. The United States’ own century long drift toward strong protections is a case in point. Which the tldr is: don't expect it to work. So I'm not sure why this becomes less true over time, as this is very recent and doesn't seem to have changed anything. Sure, other countries did it too, but why does that matter? Doesn't make it right.
- justicezyx 6y ago
  The subtitle literally writes: The country is making the transition from net importer of ideas to net innovator, and as it does, it is finding that good patent laws matter.