[EliRivers]

China is far beyond copying the West. Great innovation is happening everywhere in China.

China's principal reputation for copying is in manufacturing and industry; it seems that the author's experience is in what I might call "small apps" [1], but the more interesting copying has been at the heavy industry end of the scale; for example, copying the German Transrapid train design (or a Siemens power plant!). Does anyone know to what degree China is still in the copying phase of this kind of heavy industry, and how widespread it is? I do know companies that operate on the assumption that anything they build in China is unprotected and anything they sell to China is a technology transfer.

[1] Compared to, for example, massive desktop applications or operating systems or specialised contracted commercial software that will run for over a decade from initial tender to release.

[desdiv]

>for example, copying the German Transrapid train design (or a Siemens power plant!).

If you're talking about the Shanghai Maglev then it's not a unauthorized copy but a licensed one[0].

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Maglev_Train#Technolo...

[EliRivers]

I'm talking about a group of people breaking into the storage area and spending the night examining and measuring foreign technology. That's not how licensing works. That's how reverse-engineering works.