[jbhouse]

It's almost like China wants to make sure nobody ever lets them near useful IP again. This just seems counterproductive for them in the long run, though if you understand geopolitics better than I do, please help my understand how this is a good long-term strategy for China

[nucleardog]

As long as there's a chance to eek out some more money, companies will continue to do it. This isn't remotely a new thing.

There's a pretty reasonable chance part of the downfall of Nortel was a lot of their data being extracted by the government and provided to Huawei.

After Nortel shut down, the Canadian Department of National Defense picked up their headquarters to move into, but the move was delayed for years because the building was chock full of listening devices.

This started almost 20 years ago. But here we are still willing to gamble that they'll respect our IP because maybe we can make a few bucks.

[yourapostasy]

> As long as there's a chance to eek out some more money...But here we are still willing to gamble that they'll respect our IP because maybe we can make a few bucks.

What I observe is the motivation isn't to "make a few bucks", it is "give the perception that a few bucks will be made". It looks like the agency problem: move to China, convincingly explain to the board and shareholders that such a move was bold, strategically sound, daring, fiscally prudent, and courageous. Gather stacks. Show a few years of expense sheet fluffing, meanwhile cutting everything else that isn't measured. Exit stage left. By the time the chickens come home to roost, IBGYBG.

What I find curious is I don't really see Japanese corporations doing this, even though they also do a tremendous amount of business in China. I hazard a guess at an overall business leadership culture difference between Japan and America; America's is more value extractive-oriented ("unlocking" value), while Japan's is more value constructive-oriented (looking for compounding small, incremental improvements to deliver value).

[mbrodersen]

CEO’s will always be happy to sacrifice the long term for short term bonuses. Don’t underestimate the power of greed.

[audunw]

China is closing off and turning inwards. It's a fundamental political drive due to their communist party structure. They can't continue to let the wealthy get richer because it threatens their grip on power, so you see Xi reverting to traditional socialist policies and cracking down on everyone that threatens him and his supporters.

So basically they're just rushing to steal and copy all the technology they can, so they can make everything they need for themselves internally. Their goal isn't to compete internationally, just to be self-reliant enough to have a reasonably good economy while maintaining absolute political control.

China probably doesn't care that they can't access IP from other countries again. They've mostly gotten what they need.

The alternative is that the party gradually loses its power, and that liberalisation eventually makes the whole system collapse. It's the exact same forces that made the Soviet Union collapse and it's well known that this is Xi's biggest fear.

[xtian]

"Closing off and turning inwards"? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belt_and_Road_Initiative

[yourapostasy]

Viewed through the lens of the original Silk Road, the "closing off and turning inwards" trend is consistent with an increasingly Middle Kingdom posture. China is the center of the world in this posture, and in a very nearly literal sense all roads lead to China with BRI.

It also neatly dovetails with asserting greater, more finely-granular political and social control the leadership desires (from which all other power emanates in such a world-view). Chinese nationalism is strongly encouraged, and evolving it to a "New Middle Kingdom" posture will generate incredibly powerful historical resonance with Chinese.

Convincing 1.4B people to politically turn inward to only concerning themselves with domestic matters because China is the only nation that matters in an exceptionalism narrative, while delivering a practical logistics network to feed their ramping up resource requirements (because China cannot sole-source these resources domestically), could be a winning formula for a leadership that wants to maintain the bargain they have struck with the people: continued increasing prosperity in exchange for continued Mandate from Heaven.

This is just my uninformed perspective from the outside looking in, without extensive corroborating data and cultural referents. I welcome discussion on what is really going on.

[xtian]

You’re right, it’s an uninformed perspective. You’re starting with a conclusion of what the Chinese government’s intent is and then trying to find a way to fit the facts into that narrative.