[nitrobeast]

And if Europe develop a company that threatens US leading tech / surveillance companies like Facebook / Google, or becomes the leader of the next tech wave, be prepared for US government actions to take it down. See: Japanese semi conductor industry in the 80s, Alstim, Bombardier, Tiktok.

[bitL]

One could argue that's what happened to NOKIA - the only non-US company controlling the largest growing market at the time. For anyone saying that it was dead already, you don't understand that despite minimal presence on the US market it controlled over 60% of the world's market and that could have lasted much longer due to loyalty of customers and upcoming MeeGo (that even US reviewers liked) if it wasn't Eloped.

[read_if_gay_]

Everyone I know here in Europe thought Nokia was dead when MS bought it.

[bitL]

Yes, when they bought it it was already dead, but I was talking about the time they were #1 and just got their new ex-MS CEO with a $20M bonus in case he sold the company. Then he proceeded to dismantle all that worked.

[ifmpx]

It doesn't even have to be the US government itself doing this; US companies are becoming large and strong enough to do as they please without regard to what lesser organizations and even countries have to say.

Perhaps governments around the world should do what the US did (and still does) to foreign companies before its too late.

[ineedasername]

They have yet to do this with rare earth metals, which represent a huge strategic threat to both the US and much of the rest of the world to rely on China for a vast majority of the supply.

[nitrobeast]

It has been said that other countries, including US, in fact have more rare earth deposits. If they choose to relax environmental laws and disregard patents held by Chinese corporations, more rare earth would be produced.

[ineedasername]

Yes, other countries have them. They're not willing to produce them at the higher cost required to obey environmental laws. I'm not sure how patent laws are a huge issue here: rare earths may have increasing market demand, but they've been extracted and processed for countless years. Only innovations China has made in the last ~20 years would be covered by patents. I'm sure there have been some innovations, but I'm also sure our other mining industries in the US would be happy to leverage their patent portfolio in a patent war if China wasn't willing to work on reasonable licensing terms.

A global strategic bottleneck in China for these things doesn't require patent or environmental law violations, it just requires us to pay more for them. For a critically strategic resource like this, the US should ensure a consistent supply chain independent of geopolitical concerns with China. And if China were to cut off supply then concern for their patents goes out the window too.