by spoiledtechie on 11/18/18, 11:20 PM with 194 comments
by watertom on 11/18/18, 11:37 PM
In order to do business in China, non-Chinese companies must partner with a Chinese company. The International company shares their IP with their Chinese counterpart, and the Chinese counterpart in turn shares the IP with the their partner, the Chinese government. The Chinese government takes the IP and shuffles the IP to the company or companies best suited to exploit the IP. This has been taking place as long as China has been open to International business.
International companies in a rush to get access to the largest single market in the world have freely given away their IP, because they didn't think the Chinese could ever catch up. Companies are now moving partnerships away from China, and it's forcing the Chinese to steal the IP in order to keep their edge.
I try very, very, hard to avoid buying products made in China. I"m OK with every other country in the world, except China.
by shantanubala on 11/18/18, 11:45 PM
Put simply, the Chinese understand why American companies outsource their labor to China. Chinese labor is cheaper, and they are under no illusions - this outsourcing means that their own country experiences many of the negative externalities of Western consumption, including pollution.
It's fair for American businesses to distrust Chinese companies and distrust the Chinese government, but can't we all agree that they brought it on themselves?
Which multinational corporation reasonably expects that the Chinese government cares about their bottom line at all? And why do many ordinary Americans experience such outrage on behalf of these multinationals? Of course, I understand why their shareholders (and thus, many Americans) may be upset.
If anything, I'm angry they jumped at the opportunity to eradicate their domestic workforce to a point where China has the opportunity to steal in the first place.
by salimmadjd on 11/19/18, 1:02 AM
It almost feels like there is a concerted effort to confront China.
Now it could be that these articles are coming out organically from bottom to top. Meaning ordinary journalists are seeing the potential threat of China economically and technologically and are becoming more vocal about it.
Alternatively, it could be a top-down "agenda" to confront China and the media is gradually setting the zeitgeist to confront China.
What are your thoughts?
by tehlike on 11/18/18, 11:39 PM
by freeflight on 11/18/18, 11:36 PM
by _cs2017_ on 11/19/18, 12:30 AM
Of course, the US government can go all in, and require something similar to the "Top Secret" classification for all employees working in sensitive high-tech fields. This will certainly reduce trade theft, but that benefit is likely to be dwarved by the damage to the economy from the loss in efficiency, loss of access to foreign labor, and the change in culture: the smartest, most creative and most energetic people often shy away from working in organizations with military-grade security.
Foreign labor is often mentioned as the root cause. Removing all foreign workers from sensitive areas will certainly make state-sponsored industrial espionage more difficult. However, history and common sense suggests there are plenty of US citizens perfectly willing to sell their corporate data to outsiders. So the benefits are unlikely to be dramatic. On the other hand, the economic cost to the US economy would be very high. Moreover, there's a chance this will backfire really badly. Today, it's hard for many countries to keep their best students from leaving for the US. If we solve that problem for them, it may be the very thing they need to close the technological gap with the US.
In general, it seems that state-sponsored espionage can only be controlled with an agreement between states, which ultimately comes down to skillfully negotiating the terms.
by wangii on 11/19/18, 3:25 AM
I'd say it's the arrogance of American leads to the situation.
>> The Yinhe incident (Chinese: 银河号事件) was a false claim made in 1993 by the United States government that the China-based regular container ship Yinhe (银河; "Milky Way") was carrying chemical weapon materials to Iran. The US Navy forced the Yinhe to stop in the international waters of the Indian Ocean for a month. The final inspection report signed by the U.S., concluded that there was no chemical weapon materials at all. However, the U.S. government refused to apologize "because the United States had acted in good faith on intelligence", even though the Chinese were proven innocent.
What's not mentioned in the wikipedia page, is that US cut off the GPS of Yinhe container ship to force the search. It has been a wake up call for Chinese government.
by 0x262d on 11/19/18, 5:59 AM
About the headline... the US and its allies have stolen from and taken advantage of colonial countries like China for hundreds of years, and that is directly responsible for the technological and economic advantage currently enjoyed by the US - not western rationalism, "democracy" or some other warmed-over, quietly racist answer like that. American companies can pay Chinese people shit for grueling tasks and bring home superprofits from their labor and have been doing exactly that for decades and decades. The Chinese state sometimes goes along with this and sometimes does not and "steals" technology back.
Stop buying into this nationalistic nonsense of us vs them. You are all going to get us sucked into a world war. Instead, consider asking if the interests of the billionaires who "own" these technologies that are being "stolen" align with yours. Spoiler alert: if you're not a billionaire, you have less interests in common with US billionaires than with Chinese workers.
Class struggle is heating up in the United States and in China and competing companies have less room to continue exploiting people without violent resistance, so they need to distract people by telling them to go to war with Eastasia again. Please don't fall for it.
by jbay808 on 11/18/18, 11:32 PM
What do they mean by an "effort that pilfered as much as $8.75 billion in patented American technology"?
by throwaway487548 on 11/19/18, 6:41 AM
Of course, the soviets and chinese are unhappy, because they are self-proclaim themselves as being no less "great" and capable, while, in fact, they have nothing even vaguely comparable with the US R&D machine, fueled with top talent and endless investment bank's money from all over the world (Saudis, Softbank, Norwegian sovereign fund, etc).
And, of course, being an R&D hub of the world is absolute win in the long run.
The tiny Swiss being the world leaders of R&D in industrial robotics is another great example. And soviets and chinese have nothing but propaganda, false claims and unsupported imperial ambitions.
by baybal2 on 11/19/18, 5:21 AM
The alleged "stealing" of 900 files on premises of Micron Taiwan was the famed incident with loss of USB flash with "keys to the kingdom."
The biggest counterargument to US version is the fact that the alleged spy was the very person who sounded the alarm that he lost the USB flash. The only uncertainty here is about whether it was USB flash or a phone. News sources differ on that.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17375406
>An employee from mainland who previously worked at a competitor company accidentally put coworker's phone into her bag along with papers on the table. They guy thought that his phone was stolen and called police, police found his phone in a locker of a coworker.
>During investigation of that theft, they stumbled on some company docs on the phone, and opened an espionage case based on that. Why a defector would file a police report on his accomplice?
by shrewduser on 11/18/18, 11:35 PM
by georgeburdell on 11/19/18, 12:03 AM
The Micron story makes me think when the other shoe will drop for another company: AMD. They are (possibly, debatably) laundering X86 IP to China through a joint venture. I guess it’s hard to steal what’s being given away?
by jorblumesea on 11/18/18, 11:51 PM
Bad behavior goes unpunished, and good behavior isn't rewarded. What incentive do they have not to steal from us? Our handling of their transgressions is naive to a fault.
by booleandilemma on 11/19/18, 12:13 AM
by spoiledtechie on 11/18/18, 11:23 PM
by balls187 on 11/19/18, 7:34 AM
In light of all the "bad" things the US does with little oversight, ensuring US Technology is still top must be a major priority, and probably has droves of covert operations to help US companies be competitive if needed. It's just likely that the US doesn't have many sources to steal from.
I also have to believe this anger is cultural as well. As Americans, we're brainwashed into black and white thinking, and to attach very high weight to moral and ethical implications of decisions. "Always pay back your debts. If you take out a mortgage, if you go bankrupt, you are a bad American."
I expect that Chinese culture has a different take regarding what we consider "cheating."
by hiiq on 11/19/18, 4:45 AM
Why, pray tell, if its patented did they have to steal it?
Surely they just had to download and read the patent from the chinese patent office, in Chinese no less?
by xmly on 11/19/18, 3:44 AM
Once stopped acting as the trash can and labor cost becomes higher, China becomes useless and a threat?
by csense on 11/19/18, 5:13 AM
by gerdesj on 11/19/18, 12:30 AM
Wot? Surely a reasonably decent bunch of journos should have got to grips with GDPR by now.
by addicted on 11/19/18, 3:20 AM
by scarejunba on 11/19/18, 6:26 AM
by prolikewh0a on 11/18/18, 11:29 PM
This is just rich people whining about someone else being able to make their products much cheaper. The whole world benefits from this, just not already super rich patent & trademark holders who are anti-competitive & hurt consumers.
Can anyone even tell me a negative that isn't just capital?
by ngcc_hk on 11/19/18, 12:33 AM
China has learnt from japan and india that just open up and even prosper is not a oath to independence. It cunning do what it does, so when the population age and the money war started it still goes a substantiable “empire”. After all it is a Hans empire of the Middle Kingdom.
Now, the partnership and getting ip is not new. Look at the airplane espeically military one you sense they have a long plan. Just America does not. And it is just awaking.
To be honest if china is a democracy and basic human rights (which may destroy the communist but may be a even greater power), it is another japan and Eu raise up vs American scenario. And china learn those two lessons. And hence it may win. It Open to get and close up key part so that yours are mine and Mine mine. Some part like e-wall, e-market etc. are closed. They have certain market segment (antibiotics, rare metal) and some weakness like argiculture (too many mouth - 1/4 population ; not sure how this play out) and oil (but shift to electricity like car and if wind/solar/nuclear/... work it can be mediated)
But it does not have democracy and human rights. Cannot be on its side. But what if it has.
We are all Hans or we can have a Tripolar world - right wing America, middle Eu and left wing china for anyone to choose. But we are not. And the Hans may want a empire of the world. We live in a sphere and middle meant nothing and a Middle Kingdom means conquering the world.