Because it's easier and cheaper than developing it yourself. You can outsource the cost of R&D to another company/country and reap all the rewards for yourself. This is how many popular Chinese brands got to be competitive with more established companies so quickly. Alibaba is filled with devices that look like a Galaxy S10 and have the same chassis and screen and battery and processor and software as a Galaxy S10 but have the name of some fly-by-night company on the back... because if Samsung orders 100,000 phones and you already have the factory running, who will care if you actually produce 150,000 and sell the extras under your own brand? It's pure profit with no R&D costs.
The only thing their dictator cares about is China's economic success. International relations don't matter because... well, what are you going to do about it? Stop making stuff in China? Good luck.
> Because it's easier and cheaper than developing it yourself.
Why should the humanity invest resources twice to figure out how to make the same product or the same service on another place on Earth? That would be a bad allocation of our time, as a global specie. In the era of internet, sharing knowledge is instant, why not make use of it?
Because the extreme opposite end of that is, no one will take the risk and invest the money to invent something if they're never going to make that money back. If I spent $1 billion creating something that costs $5 to make and someone just takes it and sells it for $6, I'm out of business. The impact of global sharing of inventions would be that expensive inventions never get made and the country with the lowest minimum wage will always come out on top.
Being enslaved by a despotic government with the world's lowest quality of life and no hope of improving your situation sounds worse for humanity than spending a little more time inventing something twice.
Because it works. The earliest industrial base of the United States was created from textile production IP stolen from the United Kingdom, which eventually outcompeted British textiles.
The American government has been captured by the American CEO class, who don't suffer from IP theft since they get paid before the IP theft bears fruit, so the government doesn't care.
Because the world outsourced the production of everything to China to save some bucks, and you cannot sanction them as a result. It's beyond electronics -- you cannot manufacture commodities varying from bras to certain chemicals without China.
US historians will not treat the people running the US from 1975-2005 well.
Accountability tends to come in terms of sanctions. But even sanctions are hard to maintain against the nation with the single highest count of human population; that's a market corporations positively salivate over tapping.
a major part of the problem that is often overlooked is the fact that US companies are often afraid to admit publicly that they've been the victim of state-sponsored IP theft fearing repercussions to their share price.
The IP theft issue is likely much bigger than we know publicly because ever decision a company makes focuses on the outcome to the bottom line. Admitting that the fundamental IP your billion-dollar company was built on has been stolen can't possibly do anything but harm to your reputation in the market.
Do you want them to be held more, or less accountable, than, say, the US government spying on a French aerospace firm? Or on an energy company, and selling their secrets to a state-friendly domestic firm? [1]
What kind of sanctions do you recommend against countries practicing industrial espionage against their allies? What about their enemies? Are you ready to apply them to all transgressors, or just ones that you consider enemies?
Yeow, I guess the truth hurts. Yes, you seem to be correct, and I personally found it somewhat shocking (though perhaps not surprising) that the NSA did exactly what we're denouncing China for. I suppose you could argue that "there is only one documented case of the US doing it, but dozens or hundreds of cases of China doing it," which might be fair. Still, kinda not cool. Let Germany have their patent on wind turbine designs, or whatever.
In fact, that seems borderline incompetent espionage on the NSA's part. We submitted a patent that was basically identical to theirs, shortly before they did. Really? Hmm, I wonder how anyone could have figured out that something strange was going on?
Apparently Germany's intelligence services are forbidden to participate in industrial espionage, which includes defense against espionage. Therefore they were aware of the espionage but unable to inform the target company. They could only sit and watch.
If you look at the history of countries stealing IP, the answer should be self-explanatory.
Because other countries have done it, because it works, because it's good to have the capability to be industrially independent from hostile states, because they need to defend their people against foreign aggression (Or whatever excuse nationalists trot out to justify outsized defense departments), and because this is an opportunity for friends of the state to make good money.
The US does this exact same kind of spying, but it also does it to its so-called 'allies'. [1] Does reading this cause the same amount of outrage and incredulity, as the original article?
"The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence said it does collect information about economic and financial matters, and terrorist financing.
"What we do not do, as we have said many times, is use our foreign intelligence capabilities to steal the trade secrets of foreign companies on behalf of - or give intelligence we collect to - U.S. companies to enhance their international competitiveness or increase their bottom line," it said in a statement."
Secondly have you noticed there have been no additional news articles about this since 2015 when the story first broke? Don't you think if there was an actual violation that occurred that Airbus would still be looking out for its shareholders and there would be more legal cases and formal complaints?
If you look at PPD-28 you'll see that it strictly forbids economic espionage. I can think of lots of reasons why US Spy Agencies might be interested in looking at the network activity - "spying" - on companies such as Airbus, but one of those reasons isn't for economic advantages because it is banned by law. Executive order 12333 is also largely the legal basis for SIGINT and PPD-28 is a public policy directive that adds further legal and regulation nuance to how that executive order is done in practice. However 12333 clearly authorizing things on the basis that it is of importance to national security only. It is clear enough from reading it the authorization is not for economic advantages. So even without PPD-28 which confirms that is true and explicitly states it, even without it there has never been a legal basis in 12333 to do such a thing.
This is a quote from lawfareblog in an article linked below from 2014, also they did have some criticisms of PPD-28 when it was announced, however it states: "Third, it forbids economic espionage for non-national security purposes like advantaging US industry." In one of the most positive aspects of the author's analysis of PPD-28 they also stated how remarkable it is that the US even has a policy directive on SIGINT, because no other country states what they do with regards to SIGINT.
You can read more about PPD-28, what it says along with what I think is fair, informed and well researched analysis here:
Of course it's going to say that. What spies say, and what they do has never exactly been similar. Why on Earth would you trust them?
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Secondly have you noticed there have been no additional news articles about this since 2015 when the story first broke? Don't you think if there was an actual violation that occurred that Airbus would still be looking out for its shareholders and there would be more legal cases and formal complaints?
I expect that this was hush-hushed over diplomatic backroom dealings.
And there have been other legal cases and formal complaints. [1] [2] [3] As it turns out, complaining that the US spies on you, and steals your secrets accomplishes... Pretty much nothing.
> If you look at PPD-28 you'll see that it strictly forbids economic espionage. I can think of lots of reasons why US Spy Agencies might by looking at the network activity - "spying" - on companies such as Airbus, but one of those reasons isn't for economic advantages because it is banned by law.
As we've all discovered a few years ago, thanks to Snowden, the NSA is only somewhat constrained by the law when it operates domestically, and is not at all constrained by it when it operates internationally.
The only thing their dictator cares about is China's economic success. International relations don't matter because... well, what are you going to do about it? Stop making stuff in China? Good luck.