Trade War Or Not, China is Closing the Gap on US in Technology IP Race (reuters.com) 149
China's rising investment in research and expansion of its higher education system mean that it is fast closing the gap with the United States in intellectual property and the struggle to be the No.1 global technology power, according to patent experts. From a report: While U.S. President Donald Trump's threat of punitive tariffs on high-tech U.S. exports could slow Beijing's momentum, it won't turn back the tide, they say. Washington's allegation that the Chinese have engaged in intellectual property theft over many years -- which is denied by Beijing -- is a central reason for the worsening trade conflict between the U.S. and China. Forecasts for how long it will take for Beijing to close the technological gap vary -- though several patent specialists say it could happen in the next decade.
And China is already leapfrogging ahead in a couple of areas. "With the number of scientists China is training every year it will eventually catch up, regardless of what the U.S. does," said David Shen, head of IP for China at global law firm Allen & Overy. Indeed, IP lawyers now see President Xi Jinping's pledge earlier this week to protect foreign IP rights as projecting confidence in China's position as a leading innovator in sectors such as telecommunications and online payments, as well as its ability to catch up in other areas.
And China is already leapfrogging ahead in a couple of areas. "With the number of scientists China is training every year it will eventually catch up, regardless of what the U.S. does," said David Shen, head of IP for China at global law firm Allen & Overy. Indeed, IP lawyers now see President Xi Jinping's pledge earlier this week to protect foreign IP rights as projecting confidence in China's position as a leading innovator in sectors such as telecommunications and online payments, as well as its ability to catch up in other areas.
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Re:Will the tables turn? (Score:5, Insightful)
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Not just China, other countries either have Great Firewalls in place, or will. The Aussies have one, Iran does, and I'm sure there are many others. By keeping the attackers limited to what is physically in the country, this cuts down greatly on what attacks can be done, and what succeed.
The US's worst problem is that C-levels of corporations can greatly profit when their companies are hacked. This will ensure that breaches, and egregious ones, will continue for a long time to come. The top company brass
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The US's worst problem is that C-levels of corporations can greatly profit when their companies are hacked. This will ensure that breaches, and egregious ones, will continue for a long time to come. The top company brass finds about the hack, short their stock, makes an announcement that their customers are hosed, and laugh all the way to the bank.
The companies with enough technology to even matter for that purpose are watched like a hawk by institutional investors. You're a total moron if you think both them, and financial institutions that are inevitably part of the shorting process, would allow that to happen, ESPECIALLY when they're the ones who were conned.
Re:Will the tables turn? (Score:5, Funny)
Does this mean all the other countries of the world can start stealing their intellectual property soon? It's been a bit one sided so far...
What do you mean start? I have been pirating Maoist porn at least since cultural revolution.
Re:Will the tables turn? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's not been one sided. The young US did exactly the same to the technologically most advanced nation of the 18th/19th century, the UK:
E.g. https://www.pri.org/stories/20... [pri.org]
A developing nation will always "steal" the knowledge about technology and manufacturing from other, more advanced, nations. This is the normal course of history, it has happened many times before and will happen in the future. Not only the US did it back then, but also Germany stole from the UK for example. In more recent times, Japan did it as well.
Just like you can't protect the latest blockbuster from getting torrented, you cannot keep tech to yourself, same unsolvable problem.
Chinese stealing right stuff, too (Score:1)
The Chinese are stealing the right stuff - like solar and other green tech.
And in the meantime, our policies are to go back to the 19th century and use coal.
When we lose our energy independence to China will be some tough soul searching.
well we need an WAR to over ride the EPA (Score:1)
well we need an WAR to over ride the EPA.
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Don't expect people to respect patents outside of their domain.
Then don't expect countries to allow you to sell your products in their country if it is breaking the patent laws of their country.
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The nations that are most economically free, meaning they can respond to market demands without kowtowing to officials [juliansimon.com] are the ones at the top.
As China becomes economically freer, they should take this lead.
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The answer is (Score:2)
Not. There aren't even any tariffs except on steel and aluminum, and those don’t apply to some of the biggest US trading partners. Talk is not a tariff. A tariff is not a "trade war".
News media should report the news when it happens, not before it happens — as they imagine it might someday happen.
Re: The answer is (Score:3)
Your should read the news then. The reported news isn't that there is a trade war. It's that there is fear and talk of trade war. You need to ignore this nuance to make the point you wish you could make.
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You have a better understanding than most not familiar with the topic. The way it is reported, most people think that tariffs are part of trade wars and that Trump has already started the trade war by himself.
And it's reported that way on purpose - to scare people.
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Note how "talk" and "fear" are headlined in the stories while actual concrete facts might get a brief mention somewhere near the end. Or they might not.
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Your should read the news then. The reported news isn't that there is a trade war. It's that there is fear and talk of trade war. You need to ignore this nuance to make the point you wish you could make.
The nuance is opposite the facts.
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Congrats on arguing for lying to people. No one will want to be called out as an "apologist" by focusing on mere facts.
Well, yeah (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong metric (Score:4, Insightful)
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This is being measured entirely by patents.
Yes, you know China is no longer a backwards country anymore when you can measure them in the "total patent lawyers" metric. China, welcome to the 21st Century!
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This is being measured entirely by patents. This is the wrong metric to use,
Reminds me about 25 years ago at a presentation I heard most patents are never used, the ones that are very small percentage of those make any money. Presenter also said "Patents don't prevent others using your idea, it only gives you the right to litigate."
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This is almost an irrelevancy.
And this was the money shot. When all's said and done, China has four times our population. Absent something significant (WW3 scale), in the long run, they'll tend to always have more people researching, and they'll tend to be the dominant nation in the world.
Mind you, I
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Eh..
Fail in the US (particularly SV): lick your wounds, dust yourself off, and try again
Fail in China: I'm not sure, but it probably involves a firing squad, and/or your entire family being disgraced for generations. (hyperbole or fact, you decide)
That's why we shouldn't worry too much about 'chinese innovation' .. not sure they're culture is really tolerant of what it takes to truly innovate (steal/borrow/iterate -- sure, but that just guarantees always being at least a step behind)
And besides, how many of
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*their.
What is preview, and how does one use it effectively?
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Re:China has more HONORS students... (Score:4, Interesting)
China has TONS of internal problems. They have 300 million "modern" people, and one freaking billion poor peasants that they're responsible for. They have a Communist system that we know for a fact fails. The only reason they held it together after Tiananmen is that the USA stupidly admitted them to the WTO, thinking that for some reason democracy would break out in China. China has zero tradition of democracy and has always been ruled by emperors or chaos. Unsurprisingly, it didn't happen.
The Communist Party is scared shitless of the people. If the people knew what had been done in their name, they would rise up overnight and kick the bastards out. There are tons of restrictions on public gatherings, surveillance everywhere, and no free speech. These are enormous problems that can never be solved, not without destroying the Party's rule.
Then there is China's horrible strategic situation. They are hemmed in by three rings of American defenses in the Pacific, hostile neighbors, and the vastness of Asia. Who cares if they dominate the South China Sea, it's their backyard, it's like complaining that the Americans dominate the Gulf of Mexico. The US Navy sits on the Strait of Malacca, China's jugular vein. Cut that and China is cut off from its sources of energy in the Middle East. One Belt One Road I hear someone say? It's 15 times more expensive to transport goods by land than by sea. They're doing OBOR because they literally have no other choice. Africa I hear someone else say? Again, no other choice. All the good spots in the world were taken long ago by the West. We're not in Africa because China forced us out, we're not in Africa because it's hopeless, you can't help them, their elites steal everything that's not nailed down and return with crowbars to steal the rest.
China is utterly dependent on foreign trade and American tariffs can really throw a monkey wrench into their plans. Besides, the tariffs are less about slowing China's rise than assisting America's re-rise. China would trade their honor students and their (poorly) speaking English population in a heartbeat for any other country's situation.
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You could say that about many Western countries too, including (if not especially) the United States.
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But honestly, if you're going to make some very specific statements about China as some outlier from the norms of modern societies, and those statements describe properties that most Western governments embody, are you really saying anything at all?
Oh my god, not internal problems! How can they po
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Such as? If you haven't noticed, they're already doing both.
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You didn't actually address any of my points. Instead you used a logical fallacy known as "ad hominem". Care to try again? Here's another argument:
China is a trade manipulator. Right now China enjoys the status of a developing country under the WTO rules, granting it the right to trade protections not available to developed countries. Sure, China is still developing--in parts--but is highly developed in other parts (the developed city centers of China now constitute a middle class as large as that of the
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China is not a "developing country" ... that was 40 years ago.
Why don't you travel there for once instead of spreading your american ignorance, hate and fear?
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Well,
then they changed the definitions, I was not aware of that.
However, actually they have no definition ...
"There are no WTO definitions of âoedevelopedâ and âoedevelopingâ countries. Members announce for themselves whether they are âoedevelopedâ or âoedevelopingâ countries. However, other members can challenge the decision of a member to make use of provisions available to developing countries."
How do you come to the stupid idea that I hate America? I most likely w
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China would trade their honor students and their (poorly) speaking English population in a heartbeat for any other country's situation.
China the people might sorta maybe, but China the leaders absolutely wouldn't. Preservation of party power is the prime objective, and economic prosperity is encouraged/tolerated because it furthers the prime objective. From an external perspective, this prime objective has one good side-effect. China will not risk an external war because such a war potentially threatens the prime objective. Saber rattling on the other hand furthers the prime objective, as long as an actual war doesn't start.
As far as t
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The Communist Party is scared shitless of the people. If the people knew what had been done in their name, they would rise up overnight and kick the bastards out. There are tons of restrictions on public gatherings, surveillance everywhere, and no free speech. These are enormous problems that can never be solved, not without destroying the Party's rule.
Well there's two ways of interpreting that, one is what you say. The other alternative is that the Communist Party got the people wrapped around their little finger and in fact feel very confident they can suppress any dissidents, malcontents and anyone else negative of their agenda.
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Democracy isn't the solution to everything.
You need a commitment to the rule of law, social standards against corruption, and a few other things first.
U.S. Scientists & Engineers Are Underused (Score:2, Interesting)
How many scientists and engineers do you know who are unemployed, struggling to make a decent living, or doing something unrelated to their academic training? How many more do you know who are languishing at jobs they hate and that underutilize their talent? How many do you know who are wasting their time and talent writing cell phone apps or something equally menial?
The U.S. technology sector is trading innovation for short term profits and temporary capital gains. Silicon Valley is more about venture capi
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It has certainly been my impression that there are far more people trained up and wanting to do a career in science than available jobs. But unless/until the coal miners of Pennsylvania are willing to vote in politicians who will tax away the money that rich people are spending on luxury watches and designer handbags and use that money to fund things like cancer research, I don't see much of a solution.
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I wonder where they got it from (Score:1)
Oh, wait, no, I know exactly where they got it from.
Not surprising (Score:2)
US tech hegemony is artificial. (Score:4, Interesting)
The US represents about 4% of the global population. China is 19%. If China ever got its political head out of the wrong end of its anatomy it would crush us. Even if they only manage not to be stubbornly stupid they'll be tough to keep up with in the 21st Century.
So how can the US maintain it's scientific and technological preeminence? The same way it got it in the first place: immigration. US 20th century STEM preeminence is built mostly by people who came here looking for religious and political toleration, especially around WW2.
No immigrants means no Manhattan Project or US space program. No Admiral Hyman Rickover, so no US nuclear navy. No Sikorsky helicopters. No US Steel, Bell Telephone, or Westinghouse Electric. Just excluding John von Neumann alone would leave a huge hole in US scientific prestige. And today, if you waved a magic wand and eliminated all immigrants in the US, more than half of the scientists and engineers working in the US would disappear.
Immigration doesn't bring the worst people here, it brings the best, or at least the most enterprising. Nearly half of US fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or children of immigrants.
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Population does not translate to ability to innovate. Culture plays much bigger role.
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That STEM dominance was built by already-educated people fleeing Europe to a similar culture with which they shared many values. Adding millions of low intelligence third-world peasants who are illiterate in their own native languages, much less English, is not a secret to success for any nation. Other countries wonder aloud what we think we're going to accomplish by it.
Because immigration was good in the past does not mean it's good in the present, or the future. That's a logical fallacy, I forget whi
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And it's a good thing that we're starving other countries of these people. They'll never get ahead while we rob them blind of their best people. This is very profitable for us and will ensure American dominance for a long time to come.
They can keep the illiterate ones, though. Nobody wants them. It's not America's job to be the world's toilet.
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If US redirects all energy into studying Bible, then the same thing going to happen here.
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How do you come to that brain dead idea?
Yeah but... (Score:2)
we're bringing coal back! #MAGA!
'new' IP (Score:2)
developing 'new' IP based on others old IP is easy
coming up with fresh new ideas is hard
Kai-Fu Lee on China's VC ambitions (Score:2)
Edge: A Conversation With Kai-Fu Lee [3.26.18] [edge.org]
After the boring stuff (a who's-who of artificial intelligence research, including one Bob Mercer) and the "~ ~ ~ ~" article divider, this one-way-mirror interview is all about the technological VC ambitions arising in China now.
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Unless you can make a cheap, point to point solution (laser beams) that work over distances, the biggest problem with another "internet" will be who lays the pipe, which tends to be the government, with private companies handed that privilege as a proxy.
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...the biggest problem with another "internet" will be who lays the pipe, which tends to be the government, with private companies handed that privilege as a proxy.
Citations please.
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Cable and telcos? The governments granted them the land, making them natural monopolies. If someone could make a reliable mesh system using lasers, this would allow some type of interconnected ad-hoc network to exist without having to have a dedicated ISP.
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If someone could make a reliable mesh system using lasers, this would allow some type of interconnected ad-hoc network to exist without having to have a dedicated ISP.
Good luck with that.
The US government would never permit the existence in the US of any communications network they did not control and could not collect bulk surveillance data on and trace/track any and every user at will. Authoritarian regimes don't operate like that.
After all, one does not allow their livestock/slaves the tools to be able to communicate securely and organize to free themselves.
Strat