Does China steal technology?
 

I just accidentaly found this https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/28/u...r-harvard.html

I do not see any relation to Linux...

The Non-*NIX Forums > General forum is for any topic.

The short answer is yes as in intellectual property.

I think all countries take stuff from others. China just does it without even trying to hide it usually. Generally I assume any government to all be pretty low on the moral standards, and that includes the one where I live. Greed knows no borders.

I remember the days when the US government used to warn business people traveling to France to beware of the French security service bugging their phones! If you work in the security services you probably get into the habit of assuming that anything goes.

The original post referred to China seeking to recruit US scientists. Doesn't the US recruit foreign scientists? Wasn't the Apollo mission's rocket designed by SS Untersturmführer Werhner von Braun?

I doubt if China sees it as stealing, since patents are part of the capitalist system.

It is outright theft and It has been going on for decades.

It doesn't matter what it is, software or hardware, they will duplicate it and try and pass it off as the genuine article.

There was (is?) a little shop in Thailand. Really nothing more than a counter in a building that housed a large variety of businesses. This particular shop sold watches. If you walked up to the counter and said you are looking for better quality watches, the clerk would pull a Rolex catalog out from under the counter. Other brands were also available. A friend asked me to pick up a Rolex for him on one of my trips. At the time the price was the equivalent of $50.00US. Today, it might run 70 to 100 dollars. From the outside you could not tell it was a fake. My friend took it to a jeweler in the U.S. and I went along for the ride. The jeweler said it appaered to be the "real thing" and they only way he could tell for sure was to open it up, which he refused to do. He wasn't a Rolex dealer and said if he opened it and it was genuine, he just voided the warranty.
The watch was made in.........
:)

A friend who is a retired pilot and continued to fly as private pilot was telling me of the flood of inferior counterfeit aviation parts, nuts and bolts, that flooded the market about twenty years or so ago. Aviation parts, including nuts and bolts, have to meet certain standards, because if something were to go wrong when you are several thousand feet off the ground, you just can't pull over to the side of road. These counterfeit parts would snap in two, etc. when put under stress.

Then there was the flood of cheap inferior capacitors that hit the market...... don't remember exactly when..... but they leaked and destroyed millions of electronic items around the world, including computer motherboards. As I said, they were cheap, but supposedly made by a reputable company. Even Asus put them on their motherboards, I still have pictures of the one I threw away.

In both cases theses items were made in ....... guess where?

Look up the baby formula scandal. Pet food scandal. It never seems to stop.

My point is about stealing not making fakes.

Yes, China is "stealing"; but I find the angst over it to be overblown.

There is "normal" evolution. When a country or a company is "young" they tend to be aggressive and steal. As they get "older" they dutifully become concerned over their supposed property rights. One of the shinning examples of that evolution has been Microsoft. When "young" Microsoft stole technology, now that they are an old established company they want to stomp-out supposed intellectual theft.

Companies and countries can independently "invent" stuff. So if company "A" in the US invents something and gets a patent on it, but company "B" in China independently (at about the same time) invents a very similar product; that is not theft.

There is also the issues of: "be careful for what you wish for" and "what goes around comes around". Currently the US is making a big stink about the Chinese stealing stuff. So what could happen if the US gets all sorts of laws to "protect" US businesses from Chinese theft. China is a growing country, they can invent stuff on their own. Eventually, they will have an economy that is greater than that of the US. Suppose the Chinese somehow get ahead of the US in stuff, like technology. That leaves the US companies (and the US economy) at the mercy of the Chinese using US laws to stifle US companies. We may well end losing. So one could speculate that it would be better to let the Chinese steal US technology today, for the ability to steal Chinese technology in the future.

cwizardone, in post #7, did raise the very important point of quality control and counterfeit parts. Quality control and counterfeit parts must be addressed through strong enforceable laws.

As an editorial aside, the "stealing" of technology could be considered the equivalent of "sharing". Every technological advance is based on prior advances. So the public availability of a technology will allow for accelerated technological advancements.

Our company manufactures consumer electronics in China, Mexico, the US, all over.

There are pirated products found a lot of times, but they are found worldwide.

I sometimes spend many nights on the phone with our Chinese manufacturing partner.

They are 100% the same as everyone else. Besides the demographic of who is working on the manufacturing floor, .... it's a manufacturing floor, much like one you'd see anywhere in the world.

People steal technology.

And igadoter, I've always LOVED that old Vulcan proverb

China: "We have the world's economy by the balls, and to really drive the point home, we also take a bite every now and then!" :foot:

The western world helped create that monster. We need to diversify our dependencies.

Of course.

Just like everybody else is either stealing now or has stolen in the past.

"I doubt if China sees it as stealing, since patents are part of the capitalist system"

That was a good one hazel. Yes, I suppose that it's hard for Western thinking persons to consider "their" point of view. I assume hazel is correct. They are probably laughing all the way to the bank. Bet they think it foolish of the world to secure their data with bubble gum.

Ah... sorry. Overlooked that.