Where I used to work we relied on our Chinese partners to do the hard bits you describe, e.g. mold making, and kept things like packaging design in the UK.

Going further back when I used to work in the bicycle trade it was even worse, I thought that my mate doing the bicycle design would at least be able to use a CAD/CAM package, but he was working off printouts sent through from China. We didn't have the design skills in the building at all. It was more of an approval process, but we were claiming credit for the design as part of the marketing.

> It was more of an approval process, but we were claiming credit for the design

a great point. this is a really, really important comment on this whole topic. i can't help but wonder if this phenomenon is widespread.

US companies don't fear a situation where Chinese design and engineering are equal or superior. this debate about IP theft is a smoke screen.

what US companies truly fear is Chinese companies that can market and sell directly to the US market because that's basically the only profitable thing US companies can do any more.

The bicycle example is a good one in that regard. Clearly bicycles can be easily made for the mass market but getting distribution is an entirely different matter. For that you need a distributor who has distribution to lots of retailers and can provide the warranty and marketing for the product.

With the aforementioned example, the USP of the bicycle designed for the British market comes down to four holes. Bicycles designed for California do not need mudguards, in the UK we have rain and therefore mudguards matter. So get the four holes needed to accommodate mudguards and you can fairly claim that the bicycle is designed for the UK.

The rest of the bicycle product is a matter of specification, the parts are Japanese designed Shimano for the middle market (where there is sales volume and sufficient margin on units sold) and the general idea is to skimp on them and put Chinese/Taiwan made parts where the customer does not notice, e.g. the headset and bottom bracket bearings.

What has changed recently is that distributors no longer need retailers. So the brand website is nowadays with buy now buttons instead of 'find a shop' buttons. So long as the brand does not undercut retail all is good, but when shipping to the customer's door is free the local retailer is still at a competitive disadvantage. Bicycles are one of the few products hanging on, you can't sell electronics through a retail distribution model these days in the UK if you are a specialist brand, the High Street has died and you are not going to have stockists for something like a hobby level drone. With a bicycle you still need someone local to assemble it for the customer.

Where is gets interesting is when you have brands that go bust and get bought by Chinese companies. For instance, the company that made black cabs for the UK market went bust and now that is owned by Geely. They are doing great things to make the black cab electric, however, you can bet that the motor is not going to be wound in Coventry, even if the final production line assembly is done in Coventry. Same with Volvo. None of the electric Volvo cars are going to be made in Sweden by real Swedish people, they might change a few hub caps and do things that dealers used to do to cars, e.g. adding a rear spoiler and speed stripes for the 'sports' model, but the brand will be fine without it being a 'Chinese Volvo'.

In the deluxe car brands market there are things like Bentley, costing $$$,$$$ with the tank sized thing made in Eastern Europe, not Crewe. Or Jaguar Land Rover, you know that their electric cars are going to come from a contract manufacturer and not the West Midlands. But the buyers will be fine with that and wear the posh car badge as if there is nothing going on.

So long as the product has innovated and is new then everyone is happy. With British Leyland (Rover) it did not work out that way, we ended up with fake Rover cars made in China from scratchy plastics with lame engines and no crash protection that nobody in the UK wanted to touch.

The enemy in all of this is not crafty Chinese people stealing our IP it is the property speculator and the government that puts the land owning people at the top of the food chain. There have been four decades of policies that put the property speculators first so the only way to make money in the UK is through rent seeking. This works out if you can get a Ponzi scheme going but eventually it becomes impossible to have people doing things like teaching, working in shops or anything else that the rich actually need. The servants get priced out of their one-bedroom flats and cannot afford to buy.

But, we can pretend otherwise and wage war on China, selling munitions to Saudi Arabia to balance out the government books.

> The real theft that mainly originates from China (no matter if via the "legal" route of buying up Western companies or force "technology transfer" via joint ventures or via hacking)

Honestly; how can you call it "theft" if it is done via buying or a joint venture?

Depends on how you view theft. If China has been artificially keeping their currency low while the government has been pouring cash into companies to allow them to sell at a loss - causing competitors to declare bankrupcty, then buying up the assets. I'd call that "stealing" from both shareholders and the insert country of origin of the asset they're acquiring.

> Honestly; how can you call it "theft" if it is done via buying or a joint venture?

Joint ventures are compulsory. What China does is extorting market access. As for buying: Systematically undermining them by price-dumping and then buying up the carcasses isn't exactly fine business practices either.

China is definitely going to be the enemy of the next 20-30 years, pitting a ruthless dictatorship against whatever freedom and democracy will be left in the Western world.

I think you are making a mistake here. You try to present the situation as if there were restrictions for doing business only in China, and no restrictions in developed countries. That is simply not true; US also has tariffs for importing goods, and also sets the rules on what foreign companies can or cannot do.

US also has much stronger negotiating power than China, and it makes international agreements that are mostly beneficial for them. China cannot do that.

For example, if you want to sell your goods in Western countries, your country is often required to join an organisation like WTO. But to do it, you have to comply with their rules. So basically, developed countries are setting the conditions for developing countries. Of course, it is their right, but then it is nothing like a "free" trade.

Also, disrupting Huawei's or Kaspersky's business in US without any international court case, without being able to defend itself, just because government suspects something, doesn't resemble free trade too. It resembles what China does though.

Right joint venture is compulsory while the ban of HW is completely voluntary.

Despite what our parents may have told us growing up, it does matter who starts things. If we had banned HW, and China responded by requiring joint ventures for all market entrants, that would be our bad. But the opposite is the case.