This is absolutely traditional for every country, though?

Samuel Slater brought the Industrial Revolution to America by memorizing the banned-for-export designs of water-powered spinning machines. The Brits nicknamed him "Slater the Traitor" for his trouble, but within a generation new industrial technology was being developed in the US off that basis.

British porcelain production in the 18th century was driven by the letters of a missionary in China, who secretly observed the details of Chinese production and sent them back to Europe. Mistakes in replicating that process lead to "bone china", the strongest and purest-white form of porcelain known.

Stirrups, famously (and debatably) a formative element of medieval warfare, originated in the caucasus. The Byzantines captured some of them in a war with the Avars, and within two centuries they were widespread across Europe. An invention that was at the time fueling mounted archery in Asia was combined with European iron reserves and metallurgy to (re)invent armored heavy cavalry.

Everyone excels at copying. It's much easier than inventing! That doesn't mean they won't invent further once they've caught up in a specific space.

And yes, it's possible to build infrastructure and education better suited to copying than inventing. That's not terribly surprising, and in fact downright sensible. Following WWII, both the PRC and the USSR focused heavily on replicating American nuclear and industrial developments, because they needed to not only obtain that technology but build up a core of technical talent capable of maintaining and modifying it. That didn't stop the USSR from later pursuing their own R&D to compete with projected American advances, and there's no good reason to think China won't switch to a heavier R&D footing in 10 or 20 years as current copies become widely used and understood.

All innovation starts with copying what came before. This is why liberal IP laws are so important to innovation. HN readers seem to understand this basic point quite well unless China is involved.

Except China as a state isn't our ally or friend. Their interests lie primarily in furthering their own political and military power, and secondarily benefiting their own population. They're more than eager to steal technology, then use that new-found knowledge and ability combined with massive government subsidies to drown out foreign competitors locally and abroad.

>Their interests lie primarily in furthering their own political and military power, and secondarily benefiting their own population.

How exactly is that different from the US? I don't see US politicians in power trying to do things to benefit their own population, such as by providing universal healthcare.

You're not wrong, it's a common criticism of democracy. Except China is not a democracy, they act only to protect their own grip on power (and keep their stolen party wealth).

Don't forget brutally repressing their citizens, which accounts to a large % of world population.

The converse of liberal IP laws is that once a company gets enough money and resources, they can just poach smaller companies for ideas, before they get any real traction.

Less innovation will happen because more people will be secretive (since there are less protections) or we will end up with a few large companies owning everything.

You also can't deny the fact that the US is probably the most innovative country in the world and has fairly strict IP laws.

China has very lax IP laws and most companies end up just copying, because nobody wants to risk capital for R&D if it's just going to get copied by someone.

Sounds exactly like the USA in the 1800s. They ripped off all kinds of stuff from Britain.

And Britain ripped off porcelain from China in the 1700s, bringing us full circle. (Until we go back another cycle, to Marco Polo. And another, to the Avars and the stirrup. Another, to the Silk Road, then on to...) It's sort of hilarious to think people wouldn't focus on copying inventions, given how much faster it is (for anyone!) than developing things from scratch. Describing it as some kind of national trait, rather than the standard response to someone else inventing things, is bizarre.

Heck, if someone really wanted to make a national-identity pitch, they'd have better luck talking about late-Ming isolationism and claiming that China is exceptional for sometimes not ripping off foreign innovations. That would be wrong too, of course, but at least it'd be better than a narrative which barely stretches back to the 1990s.

If your economy is behind and you want to grow as fast as possible and copying is faster and safer than innovating... why would you not?