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How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

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201–210 of 266 posts

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read in a paper somewhere that a big part of why Chinese auto manufacturers aren't as successful as Japanese or Korean ones is because they're too tied to the local government to fail. Each province in China has their own local auto company connected to the provincial government, resulting in a lot of duplicated effort and inefficiency. Japan and Korea had a lot of indigenous auto makers when they first started…

Japan has a very long tradition of quality and striving for perfection. China, not so much. And cars these days really need to be more than “good enough” to compete worldwide.

Japan and South Korea were both known for cheap low quality goods in the 60s/70s. We've seen how that history plays out once they got enough experience to move up the value chain.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#202
post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

its pathetic because its a disingenuous argument offered to prop up the side of the oppressor. the type of business scenario you describe is an edge case, and you are arguing as if it were the only case.

In Canada, in high school, we learned about Sam Slater. He is affectionately known as the father of the American factory system, but in Britain he was known as 'Slater the traitor', because he built the American factory system using stolen IP. Has nobody here heard of this guy?

Beyond it being 200+ years ago - it was one guy, not state sponsored, who remembered things he saw...versus whole scale theft of documents, designs, blueprints and other IP byproducts. I hate to say it but I can't believe you are making this argument in good faith.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#203

The scale of their IP theft is incredible. The CFO survey said it is happening to 1 in 5 US corporations, which is incredible if you think about it - but the trouble is the scale is larger than that, when you include what they steal via surveillance too. I can't see an answer outside of decoupling, seeing as they're set on their path and proud of it. https://www.cnbc.com/2019/02/28/1-in-5-companies-say-china-s...

If true, how is the management of the American companies aware of this theft still doing business there? How come the Feds will prosecute bribery form foreign officials, but not the CEO or COO allowing corporate property to be stolen?

Cause it's still profitable to them and good business.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Land is just an export like any other. China produces lots of manufactured goods, and sells them to the US. The US produces tons of valuable urban real estate and exports it to China. (Similarly the US produces lots of higher education, and exports it in the form of international students)

Land can be viewed as an export, but it's not like any other. Economically, there is a fundamental difference between finite, rent-generating resources like land, and value-added goods like Chinese trinkets or international students. Exporting value-added goods builds the economy. Exporting rent-collecting resources results in significant long-term harm to the economy.

One is a current account, one is a capital account. The US has been running a current account deficit, and the only way to sustain that is to have a capital account surplus, which means foreign investment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_account

Just like a business, a country can maintain short term losses by accepting outside investment, or debt. This is not necessarily a bad thing. Almost all companies take on debt and investment to fund their growth.

Also, just like a business, you can’t do this forever. At some point the debt comes due, and/or you end up selling the whole business.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Japan has a very long tradition of quality and striving for perfection. China, not so much. And cars these days really need to be more than “good enough” to compete worldwide.

Japan's worldwide reputation was "garbage, low-quality stuff" until the 1960s. That's not a "very long tradition". "At first, Japan had a widely held reputation for shoddy exports, and their goods were shunned by international markets" For a pop-culture example look at the Back To The Future movie where the 1955 version of Dr. Brown says "No wonder this circuit failed. It says 'Made in Japan'." The 1985 version of Ma…

That's not the kind of "stuff" I'm referring to. Any visit to Japan will reveal rich history full of incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail - engineering, arts, and design.

A similar visit to China - not so much. They have so much ancient history - but their modern story is not as pleasant (for various reasons).

I love China and have traveled across it multiple times. I think it's a beautiful country full of wonderful people - but they just don't have any kind of desire to achieve perfection like the Japanese do. And Japan was able to exit their "goods shunned by international markets" phase very quickly (Tokyo hosted the Olympics and started running the Shinkansen in 1964, less than 20 years after the war).

When will china stop making "cheap stuff"? When will they create their own proprietary tech and license it out to us?

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#206
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Knowledge creation and discovery always builds on previously discovered and created knowledge. There are many ways of benefiting from this activity, even more so without a formal IP-based business strategy.

Please, describe something sustainable that doesn't involve keeping it secret.

GNU/Linux.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I support reducing trade with china. The need for cheap goods comes with a long tail price tag. It needs to be discussed more. Many Chinese workers are in severe poverty and strengthening Chinese businesses seems to only fuel inequality.

Free trade with China has vastly improved Chinese workers living standards. Those rural jobs from the Cultural Revolution were actual poverty, and physically dangerous to boot.

There are democracies we could have enriched instead, rather than supporting an authoritarian regime

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#208

intellectual property is conceptually corrupt. at the very least we should be honest and admit that it's all about being continuously paid for things we already finished doing (sometimes even generations ago). but I am pretty sure that it will have to get worse, far worse, so bad that a Kafka seems tame before people get convinced that ownership over language is stupid.

The other way to look at it is to recognize that it is hard to invent and prove the value of something, but easy to copy and pollute once that is done. We are all familiar with unfortunate examples of this.

And yes, copyright extension, yadda yadda, but no one is being forced to enjoy, for instance, Mickey Mouse. That they do, and it endures and retains value- why is the creator not entitled to protect it as an asset for as long as people value it?

And regarding the Kafka reference, the story of his stories is itself enlightening on this subject. We only have them, and the utility of the reference, through the protective actions of his friend. Were there no Intellectual Property, they would have been burned after his death.

Cheers.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#209
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rich chinese buying real estate in the United Stats has detrimental effect on the poor and the middle class, and our economy in general, leading to ossification.

Any rich person who buy more houses than he can live will create this problem. And there is no incentive for the government to do anything, because the real estate price is their tax, at least for the local government.

Incentive at scale is the problem. Incentives must taper off to make real estate / property investment less inviting the more is owned, this opening it up to more people at the lower levels.

But then will start the games of complicated / opaque business ownership structures allowing for individuals to own lots of real estate through different channels to make it look like it's separate entities.

And there is zero motivation from most of the world's leadership to clean up business ownership structure transparency because so many of them are ... participants.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Canada, in high school, we learned about Sam Slater. He is affectionately known as the father of the American factory system, but in Britain he was known as 'Slater the traitor', because he built the American factory system using stolen IP. Has nobody here heard of this guy?

Beyond it being 200+ years ago - it was one guy, not state sponsored, who remembered things he saw...versus whole scale theft of documents, designs, blueprints and other IP byproducts. I hate to say it but I can't believe you are making this argument in good faith.

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