China also messed up big time by enforcing their 1 child policy, and taking so long to open up and industrialize. They're far behind economically compared to where other countries were with their demographic. Now they're on the verge of the biggest wave of senior citizens reaching retirement the world has ever seen, with crumbling infrastructure and housing, relatively low GDP/capita and no clear path to manufacturing/export of truly high value goods and services. They're screwed.
China really wants to get out of low-value manufacturing, and in some ways they're encouraging pushing that out to south-east asia and africa. But at the same time they don't have the positive image and reputation needed to be a big exporter of high-value goods. Who is going to trust Chinese companies with things like 5G infrastructure and CPS, when they're all basically an extension of the CCP when it comes to security? Who wants to live and work in China now, when you have no real justice for foreign citizens and the CCP can arrest you at a whim? If anything even close to Shenzhen is replicated elsewhere in the world, I think companies and individuals will gladly develop their products elsewhere. Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony? DJI I guess? But that's a bit niche.
Poland is growing healthily last I checked. The proof is in immigration numbers in other European countries. It seems to be reversing. In Norway there's a clear downward trend in immigration from Poland.
https://www.realclearmarkets.com/articles/2018/07/30/ip_thef...!
So Hollywood and the MPAA, who so aggressively pursue what they deem "IP infringement", have more than one skeleton in their closets.
Bear this in mind whenever someone tells you -- as often witnessed here on HN -- "but without copyright there will be no writers" or "art isn't possible without IP laws".
----
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_Culture_(book)
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cinema_of_the_United_States#Ri...
Just recently had a bit of a good laugh about this. I decided to read Caesar's notes on Gallic wars, and downloaded some random .fb2
It turned out to be a preview fragment, which ended with a stern warning that it is illegal to break copyright laws and that this book can be legally purchased via provided link. I'm sure Gaius Julius is very happy with how these guys protect his interests.
Well, without copyright, writers would find it hard to live off their work, but contemporary copyright has outgrown its usefulness and it wasn't writers who pushed for extensions.
Let us get back to the original 14+14 model, but how, against a determined resistance of entrenched interests?
Let's say this research costs 1 million dollars, and the company bankrolls this via a loan. They build it and are successful, and begin paying it off.
Their competitor copies their idea, and exploits the fact that they have more capital and less debt to buy up more of the market, and end up the winner.
So, under a zero protection scheme it is optimal to wait until your competitor invests in research, and then just steal it. Which is what happens on a geopolitical level where there is no feasible enforcement possible.
Is it such a bad thing? The United States did it in order to industrialize and I would say that's a good thing.
The underlying issue with Pareto optimal scenarios like this is that we end up trapped in a local minima.
I think in a particular case it's important to look at the context. For this, it likely depends on the scale, so in small town Georgiaville it would prevent innovation, but across the world scope its better* for ideas to be free.
*given most mainstream progressive utility functions and non-zero-sum philosophies
Some inventions are pretty expensive, like mRNA vaccines. If there is no way to profit from them, no one will spend crazy money on the research.
(Notably, mRNA was originally researched by the academic sector, but it did not recognize the importance of the topic and Katalin Karikó had to move to the private sector to finish her work.)
ASML's machines aren't something you can just copy by buying one of them. (You'd do better by hiring ex-ASML engineers to teach you how to do it.) And ASML would've sold their EUV equipment (just as they continue to sell previous-generation machines) if their export license had been extended by the Dutch government, but the US applied pressure to make sure that didn't happen.
You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...
I think in 5G, some top level planners in the West have realized the error of their ways, and are investing heavily in basic research. I think it is too late.
Wait until Berkeley Stanford and MIT get better network security! [0][1][2]
[0] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/31/us/chinese-scientist-canc...
[1] https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-06-11/chinese-...
[2] https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/chinese-researcher-e...
To cite them here is firstly to lie, as they aren't relevant, but secondly to show some pretty xenophobic tendencies, equating any news story connected to anyone Chinese as being proof of some other anti-Chinese theory.
Pretty disgusting.
[0] https://blogs.cisco.com/news/huawei-and-ciscos-source-code-c...
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2020-07-01/did-china...
[2] https://globalnews.ca/news/7275588/inside-the-chinese-milita...
[3] https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/former-raytheon-engineer-sent...
[4] https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/snowden-chinese-ha...
[5] https://www.theverge.com/2019/7/10/20689468/tesla-autopilot-...
[6] https://www.thedetroitbureau.com/2019/03/tesla-sues-former-e...
https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/cheap-drones-china-tur...
> You say China took too long to open up and industrialize. Well, they are open to buy from ASML and industrialize with their help, but others are closing that door...
There's also the elephant in the room: China is controlled by the Communist party, which holds values that are antithetical to those of many of its trading partners (https://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/20/world/asia/chinas-new-lea...). Neither Taiwan nor South Korea have that kind of incompatibility. It was kind of naive and arrogant for Western trade policy to focus on stuff like IP theft and market access while ignoring that elephant.
You seem a bit misinformed. ASML CEO has repeatedly showed extreme desire to sell in china (it already comprises the fastest growing DUV market)[1]. It's the american pressure, indirectly or directly exerted which is causing issues. If it were upto ASML SMIC would already be establishing it's EUV fabs.
[1] https://www.caixinglobal.com/2020-10-16/dutch-tech-giant-asm...
They're going to try to compete on price and quality. If customers think that the Xiaomi phone is good and cheap, the governments will have a hard time banning it. Customers don't really care about turning over huge amounts of information to Tiktok as well as to Facebook. That puts the western governments in a bind, to either ban wholesale or piecemeal, and it looks bad for them either way.
That's not a guaranteed win for China. It's hard to compete on both price and quality, and they're going to have to work hard to win a reputation for the latter. It's possible: both Japan and South Korea have done it. But they did so with a friendly US, not a hostile one.
They have the advantage of an enormous internal market, but it's not a wealthy one. They're going to look to Africa, which is also not wealthy, but there is money there, with less focus on privacy and more on price. Perhaps India and Latin America as well.
Because China can waggle a huge target market to tempt people into repeating well documented mistakes
Furthermore, Hong Kong has some international appeal and most people think of it as a nation separate from China. In reality, companies from China incorporate in HK to escape the aurora of being a Chinese compnay
I would expect this to continue. In fact, there are probably a few brands that are Chinese that you don’t realize are Chinese.
That's because of geopolitics: These countries are small enough that they cannot be a threat to the US. In fact they are dependent on the US.
China, on the other hand, is a strategic adversary irrespective of their IP laws (and enforcement of those laws) or even of their political regime.
IP is artificial construct supported and ultimately enforced by governments when it suits their purpose. For developing countries this IP just locks them forever into servitude as they can not afford to pay for IP. Never mind that. Even if they invent something themselves they'd still be breaking some patent. Personally I completely support a position where until country reaches certain GDP per capita they should be free from any IPO enforcements.
By the way the largest IP holder on this planet is also the largest thief of IP. This is how they've started.
Weren’t South Korea, Taiwan, and even Japan once known for their rampant IP theft?
Yes they stole even IBM Mainframe OS's repeatedly....and sold it.
That said, it is possible that China will reverse this self-made problem by developing and mandating use of artificial wombs or something similar. Authoritarian societies do not have many ethical scruples when it comes to problem solving.
With that said, my next phone will be an iPhone. I am trying to de-china whenever I can when it comes to buying stuff.
I have bad news for you, friend.
Isn't Apple extremely well known for it's production lines being in China?
Other than my car and some furniture, pretty much everything I've bought that cost more than $100 in the past 10-20 years has been made in China.
> Will a giant Chinese company ever gain the reputation of Samsung or Sony?
Perhaps not, but they'll likely continue to manufacture most of the products sold by the Sonys and Apples of the world.
From that point on they had a pretty clever long view policy but it would have been surprising if they hadn't. They spent the previous century getting fucked by foreign invaders, if they hadn't learned how to resist it by the 1970's then Chinese culture as we know it would have been doomed to collapse by the 90's.
And truth be told they almost did in 1989. If the CCP was a little less organized, if the military was a little less loyal and if the protesters had their shit together a bit more it could have turned into a full popular revolution.
It would have plunged China into a civil war again and there would be millions dead. China would be a worse position now by every metric.
Pretty much none of the tactics would have worked for a small country that China played successfully. If you are small you can choose to be independent and protectionist - and remain very poor, or join the party, but be pushed into the corner, hoping that with time the playing field will level out somewhat.
A WTO member can either comply with their treaty obligations (e.g. reducing barriers to trade) or have other members apply their own remedies (e.g. punitive tariffs.)
If the effect of compliance is worse than the punishment (e.g. underdeveloped industry eliminated by foreign competitors vs. continuing to operate despite high tariffs) they'll not comply.
If the punishment is worse (e.g. industry is basically competitive, but tariffs would make products hard to sell in foreign countries) they'll choose compliance.
At the bilateral level, there's not much difference to the pre-WTO situation, which might make you wonder whether it's all pointless. The advantage of the WTO is that it provides a shared target for compliance: if a country follows WTO rules, pretty much every other member will be happy with that. Which is a bigger incentive than having to please every trading partner individually.
Not true. I hope you are joking. Most countries that joined the EU in the 2000s and 2010s become pretty westernized within 5 years of joining. Have you ever spent significant time in these countries, pre-EU or post-EU? Also, the countries that benefit the most from being EU members are the new members.
> So far, the standard of living in post-Soviet EU countries is still higher than in China, but that's because of the much better starting point and also because it's just hard to provide wealth for over a billion people in a modern, heavily automated economy.
The standard of living is pretty high in a lot of those countries, and not all of them are post-Soviet. Look at Malta or the ex-Yugoslav countries (Slovenia, Croatia) for example. I do not understand why westerners (particularly Americans) like to talk trash about the EU. I hope the Americans doing this realize where they are going, as in the wrong way, or on the wrong trend line. Of course America can wake up from being on some trend line, but to win the battles they are up against, profound societal changes will need to occur.
U.S. life expectancy will soon be on par with Mexico’s and the Czech Republic’s: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2017/0...
Also, according to that article, American women's life expectancy is soon to mirror Croatia. You know, that war-torn, ex-Yugoslav country that had a nasty war in the 90s and displaced a lot of people. Americans should be embarrassed.
What isn't fine is the worldwide trend toward morbid obesity and metabolic disease. Americans, as usual, are the trend setters, but we are following them. That is what reduces life expectancy and especially life quality in nations that can afford to gorge on 100 pounds of sugar per person and year.
I am a dual US| EU (Croatian) citizen, who is culturally American. I live in Croatia. So, I hope you understand where I am coming from, even though I was wrong.
I also have type 1 diabetes (autoimmune and insulin dependent) which is a “metabolic disease”. It is more appropriate to say “type 2 diabetes” or “diabetes type 2” or “insulin-resistance”, rather than a metabolic disease.
The issue with America is we have a lot of unnecessary death. It is not just obesity and type 2 diabetes, although that is a huge part of it. Our healthcare system is designed to create as much profit as possible, without having to improve the health of the people using it. We have no adequate public health infrastructure because of this huge profit seeking and we suffer because of a lack of regulation. This all causes unnecessary death.
So far, the standard of living in post-Soviet EU countries is still higher than in China, but that's because of the much better starting point and also because it's just hard to provide wealth for over a billion people in a modern, heavily automated economy. However, even with their gargantuan population size, I see China potentially overtaking Poland or Czech Republic in terms of quality of living in the next 50-100 years.