Live data from Hacker News

How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

wsj.com

221–230 of 266 posts

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Here in Australia, it's a giant issue too. There are plenty of houses which are Chinese-owned but unoccupied. They are effectively "banks" for storing cash. The scale is shocking, our "foreign ownership" figures for real estate are entirely skewed to this one country.

I believe Switzerland has a relatively elegant solution for this: You get taxed on the expected rental income if the house is empty unless you can prove that you couldn't rent it out.

Same here in Vancouver.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#222
post #186

This happen to be a well-reported news on the Chinese internet where I was able to find more details. And the author's own claims are dubious and sketchy. It was never a three way deal, he may have deals with a Chinese company that owns share. That maybe why he said it's a threeway deal, but it's two two-way deals. He never made any deal with Chinese officials, but another Chinese business owner who made the deal wit…

Author is an extremely successful businessman and inventor with something like 30+ years of track record running business in US without defrauding anyone. I will believe him over PRC propaganda any time.

Those business transactions could be easily verified. Had he been such a successful businessmen, why was their initiative failed so miserable as he himself acknowledged when the said fund is provided in full? He quite literally burned 100 million dollars over the course three years without the company being operational sustainable let alone profit, in what scenario would an investor be ok that their actual 100 million us dollar all turning into dust? His own operation here in the US are bankrupted as well, in what sense is that a successful business? or that he is a successful businessmen? All of those are year old material existed on the internet before his wsj piece. You should be easily able to find more. Following the bankruptcy, a company's asset will be liquidated. He also claimed the government filed patents without his consent, while it's the company he worked at filed and owned those patents, it's the company's property from the beginning, that's how it works, surprised? get a job. any financial investor would require how it should be done. Be reminded he have 100 million cash in hand to spend, while 'technology' was valued at 100 million too, with two parties each owning half of the company, which can't be said to be a bad deal.

https://www.autoevolution.com/news/saleen-might-file-for-ban...

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#223

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> And if China didn't take any IP they would continue to be massively under-developed and just a source of cheap labor, be cause there's no way in hell US companies would have willingly fostered higher skills, higher pay there. We sell the training for those skills to anyone willing to pay as part of a huge education industry. You can just buy the textbooks on amazon or get many of them along with any other materials…

> We sell the training for those skills to anyone willing to pay as part of a huge education industry. You can just buy the textbooks on amazon or get many of them along with any other materials for free. Education is necessary but not sufficiency, because the manufacturing secrets are sometimes intentionally secret, and sometimes simply the result of a process that isn't reproducible. If you want a programming analo…

> Do you know of any country (excluding tiny ones like Singapore) that became advanced without some sort of IP theft?

By the way this question is unfair. Can you name a successful US technology company who has not been accused of IP theft by a competitor?

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#224

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…

This is not correct. Nearly every iconic traditional Japanese craftsmanship originated in China, and was obsessionally perfected in Japan. The art of Bonsai, Camera Lenses, Sushi, Swordsmanship. You name it.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#225

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.

It was actually pretty standard. Even in the mid 19th century when Charles Dickens visited America to a rapturous welcome he pointed out that he didn't earn a penny from American sales of his work. America only started to recognise foreign copyright holders in 1891.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Relevant news coverage in Chinese: https://translate.google.com/translate?sl=auto&tl=en&u=https...

Thank you, this was an excellent read for myself, an English-speaking American. It's interesting how much of a big story this is locally for that city. Are Chinese news stories often this long and detailed? Is it extra newsworthy because Saleen / "Sailin" vehicle manufacturing was part of that province's five year plan? Or would this have gotten the same coverage regardless?

> Thank you, this was an excellent read for myself, an English-speaking American.

Thanks Google Translate. This level of readability was unimaginable in 2015. Back then, the result was nonsense. In recent years however, the quality of Google's Chinese-English translation has significantly improved by better machine-learning models, and works especially well for formally written articles like news stories.

> Are Chinese news stories often this long and detailed?

This is a high-profile financial fraud, even by Chinese standards - whistleblowers, government funds, shareholder hostility, thousands of employees losing jobs, criminal investigation opening, and CEO flee to the USA. Naturally, it receives extensive press coverage.

> Is it extra newsworthy because Saleen / "Sailin" vehicle manufacturing was part of that province's five year plan? Or would this have gotten the same coverage regardless?

Not necessarily, a large fraud is enough. But a major connection to the government definitely helps to escalate the case to a national political scandal, implies the existence of political corruption (or at least incompetency and stupidity). Unfortunately, it happens from time to time.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#227
post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have to keep doing that why would you. If I wanted to start a company the smart thing to do would create a company called Orange Computers, steal a modified version of iOS call it iOP and then undercut apple because I didn't have to pay for RnD

You can but you are in mercy of Apple for the product roadmap or future update and you may not understand the product as intimately as Apple. They may also have server side components that would be very difficult to copy.

That is utterly irrelevant if I can sell my iClone for $100 with the same functionality as a modern iPhone.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Or to be the world's reserve currency. One of our major exports is dollars. We can keep running some level of deficit so long as that continues. With inflation, the world needs more and more dollars.

Outside investment in businesses is not a bad thing. Outside investment in land is.

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or reciprocated. Chinese citizens have invested a ton in US businesses, which is sort of okay. They also bought a ton of land in the US, which led to skyrocketing housing prices, and in the long term, if it continues unabated, will lead to the US paying tribute to China in the form of rents on US land. There is no upside to this. We got cheap Chinese plastic trinkets. They got our real estate. Didn't we do this to th…

> Didn't we do this to the indigenous people here once ourselves? Not until they invade and slaughter everyone here. And no that's probably not going to happen. Hilarious that people think this way though.

sigh

This is among the dumbest arguments I've ever read on the Internet. I'm not sure if I'm not just being trolled, but it's like someone arguing Google didn't make Google Reader because they made Google Search. You can do more than one thing.

For reference:

http://newamsterdamhistorycenter.org/education/schaghen.html

Re: How Chinese Officials Hijacked My Company

#230

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or reciprocated. Chinese citizens have invested a ton in US businesses, which is sort of okay. They also bought a ton of land in the US, which led to skyrocketing housing prices, and in the long term, if it continues unabated, will lead to the US paying tribute to China in the form of rents on US land. There is no upside to this. We got cheap Chinese plastic trinkets. They got our real estate. Didn't we do this to th…

> We got cheap Chinese plastic trinkets. No, what we got was a new robber baron class of ultra-rich billionaires the likes of which haven't been seen since the federal government had to break up Standard Oil, etc... Which has led to extreme wealth inequality and a complete lack of access to _our fucking politics_ for the vast majority of Americans.

We can get more than one thing. I mean, sure, you didn't write anything wrong, but how is that an argument against "We got cheap Chinese plastic trinkets?"

How is this even connected to the flow of the conversation?

Do you respond this way to everyhing? I can just imagine your household.

[Kids running in]: We got a pizza party at school!

[Parent]: No, what we got was a new robber baron class of ultra-rich billionaires the likes of which haven't been seen ...

Post reply on HN