Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

thedrive.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

31–40 of 97 posts

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#31

Post by hourislate »

foodislove wrote: post #28

Protectionism with Chinese Characteristics It's a pretty common tactic. Cite "national security" or any other vaguely plausible reason to deny access to non-favored firms (foreign companies, and local companies who don't have the "connections"). If anyone complains, government spokesperson and 50 cent mafia generate lots of angry nationalistic crying. If another country retaliates, same spokesperson and 50 cent mafia…

China is responsible for the largest theft and transfer of wealth in the history of the world. They have stolen trade secrets, ignored IP and copied everything they possibly could and can all at the expense of Western Tax Payers who funded a century of research and development.

All Western companies with offices and factories in China have been compromised. From their financial records to trade secrets, all have been stolen by the Chinese.

In the late 90's my employer (leading technology company) implemented an IDS. We were stunned at the amount of internal attack activity aimed at our Accounting, HR and Research areas of the company all coming from our Chinese office and Factory. It had been completely infiltrated by Chinese military at every level.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#32

Post by gaius »

dvdhnt wrote: post #29
gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

Probably because it’s none of our business? Literally and figuratively.

none of our business? Literally

No, it literally is business. China sells products in the West the value of which derives from there being good mapping data of the West. Banning this same data being collected there is an unfair distortion of the market.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#33

Post by seanmcdirmid »

xen2xen1 wrote: post #26

Reminds me of how the Soviets supposedly bought different sized rail cars than Europe so that it was harder to invade. Sounds more like a military protectionist measure than an economic one.

If you take a train from Beijing to Moscow, there is a gauge switch for the cars once you hit Mongolia (they literally lift the cars up and switch the wheels).

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#34

Post by taoistextremist »

bkor wrote: post #2

The title implies a bit more than what the article says. Basically China doesn't like their country to be mapped. As a result supposedly it's pretty difficult to use most navigation software (e.g. Google Maps) within China. China is NOT blocking it because it is self-driving (which is what you might assume). China blocks pretty much any mapping. I haven't been to China btw; I'm curious if OpenStreetMap would work.

Correction: They block pretty much any mapping not done by Chinese companies. I could navigate around hutongs (old windy neighborhoods which aren't always easily mapped) with QQ Maps without a problem.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#35

Post by yingliu4203 »

It's a big surprise to me for a while that China Government blocks so many U.S. internet services but no complaints from the U.S. government what only complaints on old-type of unfair trading: steel, consumer goods, solar panels etc. The digital economy is much a bigger deal.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#36

Post by saosebastiao »

This is the sore spot economists often have with anti-trade politics. Recap: people tend to only think of the benefits of trade in the money they make from trade, and not the products or ideas that they get when other countries make money from us. There are benefits to both buying from and selling to other countries, and by only considering one side, we make decisions that make us poorer.

China doesn't want foreign companies making money from Chinese maps in China. As a result, Chinese firms may make a tiny bit more money, but one billion people have drastically worse maps.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#37

Post by cmrdporcupine »

gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

Because "the west" is not some monolithic entity and some very very powerful and profitable businesses continue to make very large quantities of cash by working with/in China. A trade war with China would lead to a huge increase in the cost of goods, and many business would go belly-up since they are predicated on the very low costs of labour and high rate of exploitation of Chinese workers.

If applied aggressively it would lead to a very large recession or depression, and maybe even war.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#38

Post by cmrdporcupine »

mistermann wrote: post #15
gaius wrote: post #4

Business as usual. The real question is why the West sits on its hands.

Lots of people made a ton of money transferring Western manufacturing and technology to China. Most educated Western adults were raised in an environment of well-intended anti-racism propaganda, so are unable to think clearly about any topic that involves race in any way.

First sentence basically correct. Second sentence total idiotic racist non-sequitur which does not follow from the first.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#39

Post by bseow »

foodislove wrote: post #28

Protectionism with Chinese Characteristics It's a pretty common tactic. Cite "national security" or any other vaguely plausible reason to deny access to non-favored firms (foreign companies, and local companies who don't have the "connections"). If anyone complains, government spokesperson and 50 cent mafia generate lots of angry nationalistic crying. If another country retaliates, same spokesperson and 50 cent mafia…

One can question their methods. Still why should they let foreign companies map their country? Technology and information assets like everything else. They might be the natural resources of the 21st century. And a lot of countries might be giving up their chance of becoming the next Norway without even knowing it.

Re: China Blocks Foreign Companies from Mapping Its Roads for Self-Driving Cars

#40

Post by paradite »

foodislove wrote: post #28

Protectionism with Chinese Characteristics It's a pretty common tactic. Cite "national security" or any other vaguely plausible reason to deny access to non-favored firms (foreign companies, and local companies who don't have the "connections"). If anyone complains, government spokesperson and 50 cent mafia generate lots of angry nationalistic crying. If another country retaliates, same spokesperson and 50 cent mafia…

US and EU have in the past blocked several Chinese companies (ZTE, Huawei, etc) for national security reasons as well. Would you classify them as protectionism?

If yes, then why are you complaining? If not, then why are you applying double standards here?

Post reply on HN