And used slaves to pick the cotton! Talk about "cheap labor".
It might sound quaint now, but textiles then where one of the engines of industry growth. The world didn't have mass textiles/clothes production until the industrial revolution.
It's like "Yeah, my ancestors bootstrapped this country doing that, and I benefit massively from them doing so, but you shouldn't do it now to bootstrap your country's economy, because I'm all about being legit now - well, aside when I'm not, but we're talking about you now, not me. Heck, no I ain't giving any of those ill granpa's gains back either" - aka "kicking the ladder".
Now, China is not only technologically competitive, but an authoritarian regime. Theft of IP no longer represents trying to get to where the rest of the world is, but rather trying to dominate it. At the same time, every advantage the CCP gets is quickly utilized not just to intimidate neighbors, but to oppress the Chinese people.
Even if we go so far as to say the situation is exactly the same otherwise, (I might get hate on HN for this) 'why' you do something matters too. If you do it for freedom and democracy vs. authoritarianism, that matters.
I guess we're so benevolent as to allow them to also steal the fire and wheel IP.
But textiles were part of the 17th-18th century chasm the US had to overcome. China has the equivalent 20-21st century chasms, which are not about textiles but more modern manufacturing and IP.
>Now, China is not only technologically competitive, but an authoritarian regime. Theft of IP no longer represents trying to get to where the rest of the world is, but rather trying to dominate it.
And yet, China has been non-intervetionist for most (all) of its existance (except for neighbor disputes all countries have), whereas the US has been in constant wars (literally, in the old sense, meaning: literally).
If anything, China itself was invaded, from the British and the Japanese.
Them being authoritate is, (a concept seemingly forgotten in the era of rampant interventionism and lack of respect for sovereignity), their problem.
Their people can take them up for it, now, or when they find it convenient. Or they might prefer it that way, for their own (e.g. cultural or historical) reasons. Or just because it works for them (since they did good, poverty, technology, education, etc. wise in the last 50 years or so).
Authoritative concerns are used politically (and thus selectively and at convenient times). When China was a convenient outsourcing outlet for US companies, being "authoritative" didn't matter one iota. When China grew more competitive itself, it suddenly became a problem.
>If you do it for freedom and democracy vs. authoritarianism, that matters.
Who "does it" for "freedom and democracy"? US businesses or state interests? They do it for control, greed, and lining their pockets, lip service to useful (for polemic) notions aside. And they do it in a much worse way (invasions, bombing, blackmailing governments, toppling governments, banana republics, etc) than anything China has done.
To the point that "delivering democracy" has become an international joke.
(Note also how they're also except from war criminal international treaties, environmental treaties, etc: "we judge, we don't allow anyone to judge us").
Well, you're obviously not making good faith arguments. An authoritarian regime with 1 billion subjects and the world's largest intelligence network is definitely not just 'their' problem.
That's what makes the arguments from USA so amusing.
I mean they basically nicked, against British law, the designs how to mass manufacture textiles. Is US willing to repay, with interest, all the economic damage that did to British industry? Same with all the later patents. US basically started respecting patents of others when they got to the point that they had more of their own. So only when it was profitable.
It's basically "It's fine when I do it but now that I'm the big dominant power everyone else must stay in line and let me stay dominant"
Don't get me wrong. I'm happy that US did what it did. I'm also happy that the other countries did what they did, because in the end we all benefit more from the countries being more developed than being less developed by "following the rules". Once China gets bit more R&D of their own they will start following the rules simply because it's mostly reciprocal.