[westiseast]

I suspect the amount is a mix of things:

* Investment in IP that then gets stolen. * Loss of potential earnings as American companies are locked out of Chinese markets * Loss of actual earnings as American/global consumers switch to Chinese companies (eg huawei) that are accused of unfair business practices or receiving unfair government subsidies.

Some companies “don’t care” because they aren’t actually losing money, they’re just not making as much as they could be.

But other companies are ‘coerced’ into not caring because what happens if they complain? They lose Chinese government contracts. They effectively admit to shareholders that their IP has been stolen and lost. They waste time and resources fighting unwinnable legal battles against Chinese national champions (ie. the Chinese state).

I’ve met plenty of small/medium sized business owners who are so sickened by their experiences with China and the Chinese market that they’re happy to just ignore it all and save themselves the heartache.

[_cs2017_]

If you count being locked out of the Chinese markets, I think the number is actually much, much larger than $50B. But that seems to be rather unrelated to hacking? In fact most countries openly or secretly try to lock out foreign owned businesses. If the point is that China does it more than others, perhaps it's true, but it's a lot more complex issue than outright hacking.

[westiseast]

I think the hacking and being cut out of domestic markets is fairly closely linked.

If you’ve already stolen the IP, you don’t need to let the foreign business in to provide that service.

Possibly even more widespread though has been the standard practice over the last 20 years of lettin foreign businesses setup shop in China, hacking/stealing all their tech, then the state uses its legal/political resources to make life horrendously difficult for the original foreign business.