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> When Chinese were ahead, European stole and smuggled manufacturing technologies from China. Not disputing this but what technologies did Europeans ever steal

by wwtrv 5y ago

> When Chinese were ahead, European stole and smuggled manufacturing technologies from China. Not disputing this but what technologies did Europeans ever steal from China? I’m only aware of tea and silkworms..

retrac 5y ago
Gunpowder, modern canal building with locks, porcelain? Just off the top of my head. Porcelain is a particularly relevant example; Europeans experimented with it for about a century, intentionally trying to duplicate the Chinese process, finally having success c. 1700 or so with trade secrets being smuggled out by the Jesuits. But these days I think it's the immaterial cultural/cognitive tools that came from China which tend to be underrated. For example, the Chinese invented the concept of the civil service and examinations, as we think of them today. Meritocratic experts admitted based solely on an anonymous written examination (duplicated by scribes so even the handwriting couldn't given the applicant away). This would influence the British East India Company, which ultimately led to it being implemented in Britain: > Even as late as ten years after the competitive examination plan was passed, people still attacked it as an "adopted Chinese culture." Alexander Baillie-Cochrane, 1st Baron Lamington insisted that the English "did not know that it was necessary for them to take lessons from the Celestial Empire."[184] In 1875, Archibald Sayce voiced concern over the prevalence of competitive examinations, which he described as "the invasion of this new Chinese culture." I'm not sure that's patentable, though.
- onionisafruit 5y ago
  All of those things were taken well after any reasonable patent would have expired, so I don’t think they are comparable to the ip theft currently being discussed in this thread. I thought the upstream comment was talking about more recent examples. Did China try to prevent gunpowder or porcelain from being made by outsiders?
  - oytis 5y ago
    They definitely did try to keep porcelain a secret. As of gunpowder it wasn't stolen by Europeans, rather it seems that it was Mongol invasion that let the knowledge spread.
    - onionisafruit 5y ago
      Thanks. I didn’t know anything about porcelain’s origin. I’m adding porcelain’s wikipedia page to my “to-read” list.
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    > All of those things were taken well after any reasonable patent would have expired, so I don’t think they are comparable to the ip theft currently being discussed in this thread. "IP" is broader than patents that tend to have an expiry date - but even the expiration periods of patents is determined by the host government and not the appropriator. The US has a lot of classified information that would have long since expired had it been a patent, e.g. 1970's nuclear tech, alloys used in submarines, stealth coating on jets. Porcelain and the other examples gp gave would have fallen under the blanket of "National Security" rather than patents.
- oytis 5y ago
  > the Chinese invented the concept of the civil service and examinations, as we think of them today. That's a bit of overstatement I think, regarding the civil service I mean. Civil service was known in Babylon, in Egypt and in Roman Empire. From some point Roman Empire also introduced requirements for public servants' education. Not a formalized meritocratic system like in Han China, but we don't have a formalized examination of public servants today either.
  - AtlasBarfed 5y ago
    Which is why a guy whose primary managerial experience was equestrian shows was in charge of FEMA when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Heck of a job brownie!
- Retric 5y ago
  It’s often stated that the Chinese invented gunpowder, but we have evidence that it existed hundreds of years before it’s supposed date of invention making the original inventor completely unknown. That said, people living in what is now China likely invented some of the earliest forms of guns, but again it’s fairly ambiguous. Fire Lances for example where used circa 1132CE which didn’t fire projectiles. Mongols used gunpowder bombs delivered via trebuchet in 1274, but again it’s unclear where those bombs where first invented and if cannons where unknown or simply ineffective. All we can say is over these timescales information was flowing in and out of various nations. Possibly because the actual inventors where also moving around. By 1350 cannons were in common use in Italy and much of Europe, but there is evidence they existed in some form in 1128. Though if they had been effective it was likely they would have seen widespread use much earlier. What’s more clear is many early advancements occurred in Asia and quickly spread.
- lenkite 5y ago
  Gunpowder might have been invented by China, but it was copied and refined by the Arabs. The Muslim world acquired the gunpowder formula some time after 1240, but before 1280, by which time Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. Gunpowder arrived in the Middle East, possibly through India, from China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Spread_throughout_Eurasia_and_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Spread_th...
christophilus 5y ago
Gun powder, iirc? Also, delicious chicken dishes.
Maursault 5y ago
Also gunpowder, pasta, and Chinese food.
- perth 5y ago
  This may surprise you, but American Chinese food is not served in China, or a Chinese dish, but actually an invention based on American food that people associate with the Chinese. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chinese_cuisine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chinese_cuisine
  - Maursault 5y ago
    Thanks, that is quite interesting, but I was already aware. So let's not confuse which culture invents with which culture consumes. Also should add the stirrup, paper, hand guns, and using petroleum as fuel. I wonder if any of these IP thefts could be successfully litigated, and if so, what the result would be.
- jhgb 5y ago
  Gunpowder spread to Middle East first, pasta was already being made in Ancient Rome at the very least, and lots of, if not most of "Chinese food" is Chinese-in-name-only.
  - Maursault 5y ago
    It is vanishingly unlikely pasta was invented in Ancient Rome. China had been trading with the West since the earliest possible founding of Rome, at the latest. American-Chinese cuisine was invented by Chinese in America, and I doubt any Romans tasted it, ancient or otherwise, but it is possible there was some Ancient Roman analog, but don't confuse who invented with who consumed: a culturally Chinese cook in ancient Rome is not Roman (though not logically impossible, there could have been a Chinese Roman citizen, but I strongly doubt there were any).
    - Bayart 5y ago
      Consider this : - Chinese noodles and Italian pasta have nothing in common save for the shape of some variants. - Mixing water, flour and egg yolk isn't exactly a massive qualitative leap from simply having flour around. - Spice were carried over long distances in the ancient world because of their high value density. Food wasn't. Nobody was shipping around noodles. It's still inefficient enough that all process foods are more or less locally made now. And finally, I don't understand why you're hypothesizing that Roman pasta would have necessarily been related to Chinese people in Rome. It makes absolutely no sense.
pomdapi 5y ago
gunpowder, movable type, etc.
- varjag 5y ago
  For better or worse, these all predate the modern conventions of intellectual property.
  - Maursault 5y ago
    You are wildly incorrect. Intellectual property rights were invented by ~500BC by Greek colonists in Sybaris (Italy) predating the invention of movable type and the use of gunpowder in warfare by well over a millennia.
    - varjag 5y ago
      Wildly? Anyone practiced these for successive thousands of years elsewhere?
      - Maursault 5y ago
        Just my poor attempt at humor. I should have said, "surprisingly." Nice catch.
throwaway946513 5y ago
Paper, Gunpowder, Woodblock Printing (predecessor to printing press), Compass, Crossbows, Fireworks (see gunpowder), Handguns (see gunpowder) For more information, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions
- wwtrv 5y ago
  All of those inventions were not stolen but rather spread organically across Eurasia over several decades or centuries until they reached Europe.
bigbizisverywyz 5y ago
>I’m only aware of tea and silkworms.. And er... china. That stuff you make nice cups and saucers from.
jhgb 5y ago
Tea is not "a technology". It's a drink.
- asveikau 5y ago
  I mean, it's a leaf.
- jholman 5y ago
  Computers are not "a technology". They're processed rocks. Insofar as tea involves technique, including selection, cultivation, harvest, processing, and preparation, it's a technology. One that I personally dislike.
  - jhgb 5y ago
    The notion of pouring hot water over plant leaves is not something that had to be "stolen" from China. For example it's been known in Ancient Egypt already.
    - edgyquant 5y ago
      Right but the seeds needed and the growing and processing of the tea leads was definitely stolen from China in a way similar to how China acts today
      - jhgb 5y ago
        That is a bizarre argument to me. "Stolen"? Plant species spread. Sometimes they're even being spread by animals. Humans have spread numerous plant species across the world. Yet tea plants were "stolen"? Not to mention that even claiming it in the context of Europe is nonsensical to begin with as tea doesn't grow in Europe, where there simply isn't a climate for it. As far as consumption of tea in Europe is concerned, virtually all of it is imports from countries outside of Europe, not something being produced in Europe.
        qwytw 5y ago
perth 5y ago
IIRC the technology behind the original nicotine vape pen was invented in China. I’m not sure what its status is in terms of patents/IP. Also in terms of further back history, wasn’t the recipe behind silk kept as a Chinese secret for years and also foundational for the “silk road”? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road

by wwtrv 5y ago

retrac 5y ago

Gunpowder, modern canal building with locks, porcelain? Just off the top of my head. Porcelain is a particularly relevant example; Europeans experimented with it for about a century, intentionally trying to duplicate the Chinese process, finally having success c. 1700 or so with trade secrets being smuggled out by the Jesuits. But these days I think it's the immaterial cultural/cognitive tools that came from China which tend to be underrated. For example, the Chinese invented the concept of the civil service and examinations, as we think of them today. Meritocratic experts admitted based solely on an anonymous written examination (duplicated by scribes so even the handwriting couldn't given the applicant away). This would influence the British East India Company, which ultimately led to it being implemented in Britain: > Even as late as ten years after the competitive examination plan was passed, people still attacked it as an "adopted Chinese culture." Alexander Baillie-Cochrane, 1st Baron Lamington insisted that the English "did not know that it was necessary for them to take lessons from the Celestial Empire."[184] In 1875, Archibald Sayce voiced concern over the prevalence of competitive examinations, which he described as "the invasion of this new Chinese culture." I'm not sure that's patentable, though.

onionisafruit 5y ago
All of those things were taken well after any reasonable patent would have expired, so I don’t think they are comparable to the ip theft currently being discussed in this thread. I thought the upstream comment was talking about more recent examples. Did China try to prevent gunpowder or porcelain from being made by outsiders?
- oytis 5y ago
  They definitely did try to keep porcelain a secret. As of gunpowder it wasn't stolen by Europeans, rather it seems that it was Mongol invasion that let the knowledge spread.
  - onionisafruit 5y ago
    Thanks. I didn’t know anything about porcelain’s origin. I’m adding porcelain’s wikipedia page to my “to-read” list.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > All of those things were taken well after any reasonable patent would have expired, so I don’t think they are comparable to the ip theft currently being discussed in this thread. "IP" is broader than patents that tend to have an expiry date - but even the expiration periods of patents is determined by the host government and not the appropriator. The US has a lot of classified information that would have long since expired had it been a patent, e.g. 1970's nuclear tech, alloys used in submarines, stealth coating on jets. Porcelain and the other examples gp gave would have fallen under the blanket of "National Security" rather than patents.
oytis 5y ago
> the Chinese invented the concept of the civil service and examinations, as we think of them today. That's a bit of overstatement I think, regarding the civil service I mean. Civil service was known in Babylon, in Egypt and in Roman Empire. From some point Roman Empire also introduced requirements for public servants' education. Not a formalized meritocratic system like in Han China, but we don't have a formalized examination of public servants today either.
- AtlasBarfed 5y ago
  Which is why a guy whose primary managerial experience was equestrian shows was in charge of FEMA when Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Heck of a job brownie!
Retric 5y ago
It’s often stated that the Chinese invented gunpowder, but we have evidence that it existed hundreds of years before it’s supposed date of invention making the original inventor completely unknown. That said, people living in what is now China likely invented some of the earliest forms of guns, but again it’s fairly ambiguous. Fire Lances for example where used circa 1132CE which didn’t fire projectiles. Mongols used gunpowder bombs delivered via trebuchet in 1274, but again it’s unclear where those bombs where first invented and if cannons where unknown or simply ineffective. All we can say is over these timescales information was flowing in and out of various nations. Possibly because the actual inventors where also moving around. By 1350 cannons were in common use in Italy and much of Europe, but there is evidence they existed in some form in 1128. Though if they had been effective it was likely they would have seen widespread use much earlier. What’s more clear is many early advancements occurred in Asia and quickly spread.
lenkite 5y ago
Gunpowder might have been invented by China, but it was copied and refined by the Arabs. The Muslim world acquired the gunpowder formula some time after 1240, but before 1280, by which time Hasan al-Rammah had written, in Arabic, recipes for gunpowder, instructions for the purification of saltpeter, and descriptions of gunpowder incendiaries. Gunpowder arrived in the Middle East, possibly through India, from China. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Spread_throughout_Eurasia_and_Africa https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_gunpowder#Spread_th...

christophilus 5y ago

Gun powder, iirc? Also, delicious chicken dishes.

Maursault 5y ago

Also gunpowder, pasta, and Chinese food.

perth 5y ago
This may surprise you, but American Chinese food is not served in China, or a Chinese dish, but actually an invention based on American food that people associate with the Chinese. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chinese_cuisine https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chinese_cuisine
- Maursault 5y ago
  Thanks, that is quite interesting, but I was already aware. So let's not confuse which culture invents with which culture consumes. Also should add the stirrup, paper, hand guns, and using petroleum as fuel. I wonder if any of these IP thefts could be successfully litigated, and if so, what the result would be.
jhgb 5y ago
Gunpowder spread to Middle East first, pasta was already being made in Ancient Rome at the very least, and lots of, if not most of "Chinese food" is Chinese-in-name-only.
- Maursault 5y ago
  It is vanishingly unlikely pasta was invented in Ancient Rome. China had been trading with the West since the earliest possible founding of Rome, at the latest. American-Chinese cuisine was invented by Chinese in America, and I doubt any Romans tasted it, ancient or otherwise, but it is possible there was some Ancient Roman analog, but don't confuse who invented with who consumed: a culturally Chinese cook in ancient Rome is not Roman (though not logically impossible, there could have been a Chinese Roman citizen, but I strongly doubt there were any).
  - Bayart 5y ago
    Consider this : - Chinese noodles and Italian pasta have nothing in common save for the shape of some variants. - Mixing water, flour and egg yolk isn't exactly a massive qualitative leap from simply having flour around. - Spice were carried over long distances in the ancient world because of their high value density. Food wasn't. Nobody was shipping around noodles. It's still inefficient enough that all process foods are more or less locally made now. And finally, I don't understand why you're hypothesizing that Roman pasta would have necessarily been related to Chinese people in Rome. It makes absolutely no sense.

pomdapi 5y ago

gunpowder, movable type, etc.

varjag 5y ago
For better or worse, these all predate the modern conventions of intellectual property.
- Maursault 5y ago
  You are wildly incorrect. Intellectual property rights were invented by ~500BC by Greek colonists in Sybaris (Italy) predating the invention of movable type and the use of gunpowder in warfare by well over a millennia.
  - varjag 5y ago
    Wildly? Anyone practiced these for successive thousands of years elsewhere?
    - Maursault 5y ago
      Just my poor attempt at humor. I should have said, "surprisingly." Nice catch.

throwaway946513 5y ago

Paper, Gunpowder, Woodblock Printing (predecessor to printing press), Compass, Crossbows, Fireworks (see gunpowder), Handguns (see gunpowder) For more information, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_inventions

wwtrv 5y ago
All of those inventions were not stolen but rather spread organically across Eurasia over several decades or centuries until they reached Europe.

bigbizisverywyz 5y ago

>I’m only aware of tea and silkworms.. And er... china. That stuff you make nice cups and saucers from.

jhgb 5y ago

Tea is not "a technology". It's a drink.

asveikau 5y ago
I mean, it's a leaf.
jholman 5y ago
Computers are not "a technology". They're processed rocks. Insofar as tea involves technique, including selection, cultivation, harvest, processing, and preparation, it's a technology. One that I personally dislike.
- jhgb 5y ago
  The notion of pouring hot water over plant leaves is not something that had to be "stolen" from China. For example it's been known in Ancient Egypt already.
  - edgyquant 5y ago
    Right but the seeds needed and the growing and processing of the tea leads was definitely stolen from China in a way similar to how China acts today
    - jhgb 5y ago
      That is a bizarre argument to me. "Stolen"? Plant species spread. Sometimes they're even being spread by animals. Humans have spread numerous plant species across the world. Yet tea plants were "stolen"? Not to mention that even claiming it in the context of Europe is nonsensical to begin with as tea doesn't grow in Europe, where there simply isn't a climate for it. As far as consumption of tea in Europe is concerned, virtually all of it is imports from countries outside of Europe, not something being produced in Europe.
      - qwytw 5y ago

perth 5y ago

IIRC the technology behind the original nicotine vape pen was invented in China. I’m not sure what its status is in terms of patents/IP. Also in terms of further back history, wasn’t the recipe behind silk kept as a Chinese secret for years and also foundational for the “silk road”? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silk_Road