-You believe ideas are properties. IP means Intellectual property.
-Ideas could be stolen, like any property, that is you take ownership of something letting the original owner without the ability to use it.
Europe and then US were developed copying and improving on the ideas of others. E.g Romans looked at people with mining knowledge and conquered them to acquire the knowledge(and the mines). They did the same with Greece. Toledo's steel real origin was a secret so Romans would not conquer them.
Europe benefited from ideas like powder manufacturing and improved over that creating dynamite. They improved over compasses making them suitable for sea navigation. Original compasses from China were terrible.
Britain copied the ideas and knowledge that lead to industrialization from the Netherlands, who had taken it from the rest of Europe, being at the end of a big river.
Then the US copied from England. Native Americans were exterminated as they could not copy the new ideas fast enough in order to defend themselves.
Same thing is going on with "piracy", in Germany they actually coined the term "Raubkopie" (robbed copy) which implies that a copy is taken by violent force.
It’s theft. Handbags to manufacturing techniques. Source code to schematics. Science to business models. It’s all meant to prop up local business. Pin duo duo just had their IPO. Now there’s so many fakes and copies that no one knows what’s real on their anymore.
Didi vs Uber is a great example. Didi copied the idea, took government subsidies. But then the government stole the competition completely by shutting down Uber and forcing a merger with Didi.
If you redefine it like that, then competition itself is theft. After all, if I start competing with you, I deprive you of revenue/profits by forcing you to decrease your margins...
You are depriving the victim of earnings associated with the IP, market position, sales opportunites, all the while sticking them with r&d expenses, which happens even if you are making a copy for personal use.
The thing that changed in Taiwan is they started building industries where they needed to produce their own intellectual property. As that became more important, they started seeing the value of respecting IP.
With software piracy, the government got so serious about it, they instituted fines for businesses set at 400x the price of any software being pirated. So a pirated copy of Windows used by a bank, say, could get very expensive very fast... perhaps still cheaper than buying Windows for every computer but presumably that purchase would be part of the corrective action mandated, with the fine being on top of that.
But... Taiwan has a democratically elected government, not whatever system China has (I truly don't know, because it's so opaque... it's certainly not communist). Results may be different.
Now China is getting into the territory of having something to lose, between pressure from trade partners and internal forces, it'll eventually fall in line with other developed countries.
That being said, sino-phobia in US may or may not get better, depends on how US economy is doing, and if a new arch-enemy emerges to direct public anger at.
I hope they never do, and continue to ignore the western concepts of IP or copyright. The culture is just different, and that doesn't make it any better or worse.
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=4297
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=3107
https://www.bunniestudios.com/blog/?p=284
Or, as someone I know said, "Chinese civilization has survived for over 3000 years."