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From what I can tell, Chinese companies will freely steal technology from other countries and companies, which is obviously frustrating and not great, but then

by bmitc 4y ago

From what I can tell, Chinese companies will freely steal technology from other countries and companies, which is obviously frustrating and not great, but then they relatively quickly start exceeding the technology they stole, quickly adding features not present in the original products. So it's a bit dangerous for American companies to sit on their heels saying Chinese companies are stealing. Yes, they are, and it's frustrating, but then those Chinese companies add features at a rapid pace that the American companies can seemingly not keep up with.

triceratops 4y ago
> quickly adding features not present in the original products. So it's a bit dangerous for American companies to sit on their heels Why can't American companies study the Chinese products and do the same in turn?
- vasachi 4y ago
  Do American companies manufacture anything in China? Yes. Do Chinese companies manufacture anything in USA? No. So USA can only watch, while China can actually steal.
  - triceratops 4y ago
    Do you need to see manufacturing processes to steal features? Is it not possible to reverse engineer a lot of it? In the car industry, it's standard practice for every company to buy every model from every other company to study it.
    - vasachi 4y ago
      It still is easier to copy, when you own manufactiring process.
- hungryhobo 4y ago
  They already do, see facebook/tik tok
- darthrupert 4y ago
  Perhaps because there has been nothing worth stealing there, and hence a culture of “stealing” never appeared. This might change of course, if/when China starts pumping out radically superior products.
nervousvarun 4y ago
I'm not sure how many Chinese HN users we have...but I'd personally love to see them chime in occasionally on this topic. My personal experience/conclusions drawn from business, experiences in grad school etc. (so obviously not worth much and poorly sourced from a data perspective) are that certain seemingly obvious concepts like "cheating" or "stealing" are just fundamentally understood differently and not ingrained in a Western compatible way culturally in China. There seems to be deep differences there that manifest in all kinds of ways.
- bmitc 4y ago
  I'm not sure it's part of personal or societal culture. The Chinese people I know, granted who are all highly educated and also some of the nicest people I know period, do not abide by this culture of stealing/copying and find it as frustrating as anyone. So in my opinion, it's more of an economic and possibly state-driven culture.
- chris_st 4y ago
  Bunnie Huang [1] has written/spoke on this topic. I think he mentions it in the Shenzen documentary [2]. Quote from the documentary page: > We examine the unique manufacturing ecosystem that has emerged, gaining access to the world’s leading hardware-prototyping culture whilst challenging misconceptions from the west. The film looks at how the evolution of “Shanzhai” – or copycat manufacturing – has transformed traditional models of business, distribution and innovation, and asks what the rest of the world can learn from this so-called “Silicon Valley of hardware". 1: https://www.bunniestudios.com https://www.bunniestudios.com 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY
- greiskul 4y ago
  "Stealing" and "cheating" was also the US way before it became the top dog. Intelectual property on patents has always been used as a tool for the current world powers to try to cement themselves as permanent world powers. But it doesn't work, other countries are also sovereign, and they don't have to respect US laws made to create US monopolies.
dig1 4y ago
In Chinese culture, copying (I would not use the word "stealing") symbolizes respect for a product and has roots in Confucianism (however, let's avoid potential exploitation of this). But don't forget that Americans behaved similarly in the 19th century [1], and Brits did the same to Dutchs. So I guess this is a common pattern for raising powers. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/
- Pigalowda 4y ago
  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery is the go to argument here? And it wouldn’t be complete without 200 year old whataboutism. I am unimpressed.
- googlryas 4y ago
  This pathetic point always gets brought up when talking about China's IP theft, but it should be telling that it is literally one individual from 200+ years ago who is always mentioned. What did he do? He worked in a factory and memorized details about the machines, and then went to America and rebuilt them. Is that what Chinese companies are doing? Do they get someone hired at the company, who then memorizes things, and then goes back to China and rebuilds them? No one would care if China was operating the way Slater operated. That is common even with Americans moving from one American company to another. What is not common is directly stealing designs and schematics and billions of bits of other information through nefarious means, by breaching a company's cyber security or infiltrating their supply line.
  - dangus 4y ago
    The truth is, Chinese companies don't have any need to directly copy Western designs, certainly not anymore. They have the factories and ecosystem to rapidly design and build new products with a high level of quality and precision. I wanted to work in the US designing hardware with my Computer Engineering degree, but I couldn't even find a job doing that. Now I'm in B2B software like everyone else. In a lot of cases, Western companies go as far as outsourcing the entire design process to China. Entire consumer product categories are just white labeled Chinese designs. We are long past the point of China doing some crude copy and pasting. It isn't Soviet Russia making exact copies and producing poor quality facsimiles. The West needs to stop thinking of China's economic might as something that was only acquired by "cheating." This is where we are at: Huawei has better image processing software than Apple. Roborock has more features and a more intelligent robot vacuum than iRobot. TikTok is better than Instagram or Facebook. BYD sells more EVs than Tesla. Which Western company makes an off-street EV utility vehicle with a dump bed, air conditioning, and infotainment like this one?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixJDOH864U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixJDOH864U This isn't really at all about China "copying" or "stealing" Western IP, because Chinese products are quite often better than Western ones at lower prices. The idea that China isn't its own R&D powerhouse is, at this point, an insult to the individuals who are creating all of this stuff.
hinkley 4y ago
Sadly I think this is just encouraging US companies to make products that phone home, and require a service contract. It's much harder to copy that part, and more lucrative.

by bmitc 4y ago

triceratops 4y ago

> quickly adding features not present in the original products. So it's a bit dangerous for American companies to sit on their heels Why can't American companies study the Chinese products and do the same in turn?

vasachi 4y ago
Do American companies manufacture anything in China? Yes. Do Chinese companies manufacture anything in USA? No. So USA can only watch, while China can actually steal.
- triceratops 4y ago
  Do you need to see manufacturing processes to steal features? Is it not possible to reverse engineer a lot of it? In the car industry, it's standard practice for every company to buy every model from every other company to study it.
  - vasachi 4y ago
    It still is easier to copy, when you own manufactiring process.
hungryhobo 4y ago
They already do, see facebook/tik tok
darthrupert 4y ago
Perhaps because there has been nothing worth stealing there, and hence a culture of “stealing” never appeared. This might change of course, if/when China starts pumping out radically superior products.

nervousvarun 4y ago

I'm not sure how many Chinese HN users we have...but I'd personally love to see them chime in occasionally on this topic. My personal experience/conclusions drawn from business, experiences in grad school etc. (so obviously not worth much and poorly sourced from a data perspective) are that certain seemingly obvious concepts like "cheating" or "stealing" are just fundamentally understood differently and not ingrained in a Western compatible way culturally in China. There seems to be deep differences there that manifest in all kinds of ways.

bmitc 4y ago
I'm not sure it's part of personal or societal culture. The Chinese people I know, granted who are all highly educated and also some of the nicest people I know period, do not abide by this culture of stealing/copying and find it as frustrating as anyone. So in my opinion, it's more of an economic and possibly state-driven culture.
chris_st 4y ago
Bunnie Huang [1] has written/spoke on this topic. I think he mentions it in the Shenzen documentary [2]. Quote from the documentary page: > We examine the unique manufacturing ecosystem that has emerged, gaining access to the world’s leading hardware-prototyping culture whilst challenging misconceptions from the west. The film looks at how the evolution of “Shanzhai” – or copycat manufacturing – has transformed traditional models of business, distribution and innovation, and asks what the rest of the world can learn from this so-called “Silicon Valley of hardware". 1: https://www.bunniestudios.com https://www.bunniestudios.com 2: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGJ5cZnoodY
greiskul 4y ago
"Stealing" and "cheating" was also the US way before it became the top dog. Intelectual property on patents has always been used as a tool for the current world powers to try to cement themselves as permanent world powers. But it doesn't work, other countries are also sovereign, and they don't have to respect US laws made to create US monopolies.

dig1 4y ago

In Chinese culture, copying (I would not use the word "stealing") symbolizes respect for a product and has roots in Confucianism (however, let's avoid potential exploitation of this). But don't forget that Americans behaved similarly in the 19th century [1], and Brits did the same to Dutchs. So I guess this is a common pattern for raising powers. [1] https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/ https://foreignpolicy.com/2012/12/06/we-were-pirates-too/

Pigalowda 4y ago
Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery is the go to argument here? And it wouldn’t be complete without 200 year old whataboutism. I am unimpressed.
googlryas 4y ago
This pathetic point always gets brought up when talking about China's IP theft, but it should be telling that it is literally one individual from 200+ years ago who is always mentioned. What did he do? He worked in a factory and memorized details about the machines, and then went to America and rebuilt them. Is that what Chinese companies are doing? Do they get someone hired at the company, who then memorizes things, and then goes back to China and rebuilds them? No one would care if China was operating the way Slater operated. That is common even with Americans moving from one American company to another. What is not common is directly stealing designs and schematics and billions of bits of other information through nefarious means, by breaching a company's cyber security or infiltrating their supply line.
- dangus 4y ago
  The truth is, Chinese companies don't have any need to directly copy Western designs, certainly not anymore. They have the factories and ecosystem to rapidly design and build new products with a high level of quality and precision. I wanted to work in the US designing hardware with my Computer Engineering degree, but I couldn't even find a job doing that. Now I'm in B2B software like everyone else. In a lot of cases, Western companies go as far as outsourcing the entire design process to China. Entire consumer product categories are just white labeled Chinese designs. We are long past the point of China doing some crude copy and pasting. It isn't Soviet Russia making exact copies and producing poor quality facsimiles. The West needs to stop thinking of China's economic might as something that was only acquired by "cheating." This is where we are at: Huawei has better image processing software than Apple. Roborock has more features and a more intelligent robot vacuum than iRobot. TikTok is better than Instagram or Facebook. BYD sells more EVs than Tesla. Which Western company makes an off-street EV utility vehicle with a dump bed, air conditioning, and infotainment like this one?: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixJDOH864U https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bixJDOH864U This isn't really at all about China "copying" or "stealing" Western IP, because Chinese products are quite often better than Western ones at lower prices. The idea that China isn't its own R&D powerhouse is, at this point, an insult to the individuals who are creating all of this stuff.

hinkley 4y ago

Sadly I think this is just encouraging US companies to make products that phone home, and require a service contract. It's much harder to copy that part, and more lucrative.