Might be more far to say: they needed the US until they caught up. The massive straight up IP theft helps a lot here. Though theft might be too strong since a lot of companies knew what they were getting in to
> The massive straight up IP theft helps a lot here
I think this is vastly underestimating what "catching up" means. All my life, people have been saying "China copies". Now they are objectively better at many things (including robotics), and... well it seems that we cannot "just copy".
I saw western companies trying to "copy" superior Chinese technology, talking to brilliant engineers explaining how much they were learning by actually trying to copy.
The lesson I got from that is that China did not "copy"; they learned. And it took time, and now they are better. Now the western world has to learn from them, I guess.
Growing up moving around both conservative and liberal parts of the US, from middle school to college, I distinctly remember several US history classes where I was taught the exact same narrative about Samuel Slater. About how he was an American hero and the Father of the American Industrial Revolution because he memorized a bunch of industrial patent blueprints and brought them over to the US.
It got told as: the evil English made it illegal to even import blueprints for factory machinery, to keep the colonies in resource-extractive poverty, so they'd have to send raw materials overseas to get processed, then import the finished goods. (My other history teacher, the Anno / Dawn of Discovery video game series, also cemented this bit about resource extraction in my head at a young age.) But then thanks to heroic ingenuity and cunning, I was told, the US was able to outwit the colonizers and process its own raw materials, eventually gaining full economic, military, and political supremacy.
Producing great products is a game at which every player wins, because sellers must find willing buyers. It only fails if one participant panics and jumps out of the window, or if a significant number of people are not participating (this is always the case when wealth inequality is involved).
> The lesson I got from that is that China did not "copy"; they learned. And it took time, and now they are better. Now the western world has to learn from them, I guess.
And Apple played a huge role in teaching them. We should all thank Tim Cook and team for almost single handedly bootstrapping China 2.0, the China that runs circles around the west in terms of production and development.
Peter Zeihann really got it wrong in his latter books.
Ok, not my favorite narrative, but assume asymmetric application of intellectual property rights was a big factor. Wouldn't the US exploiting asymmetric labor wages, rights, and conditions be the even bigger story? It still feels like a short-sighted own goal. The US abandoned its ability to manufacture. Maybe dark factories and robotics can bring it back, but manufacturing supply chains are just so much more advanced in Asia than in the US.
> Wouldn't the US exploiting asymmetric labor wages, rights, and conditions be the even bigger story?
Yes, but "the US" is reductive. The exploitation wasn't done by the towns having their tentpole industries shipped overseas, it was done by the people shipping them overseas and pocketing the profit. US capital owners made a deal with the Chinese Communist Party that was good for both of them and bad for the US.
1. Treats low margin industries like mining and utilities as areas to focus investment and come up with incremental improvements, making those available to all companies. The West, by contrast, allows private companies to handle those industries, who logically don’t bother investing in them since their investors consider those basic industries to be low-value segments of the production chain. But now we see those advantages in China where investments have been made (e.g., the best battery chemistries and mining/refining, the cheapest power (when was the last time your local utility company focused on reducing pricing?)).
2. Because all companies in China have access to the same excellent infrastructure, they must compete furiously on quality/features/price of their products.
3. China allows foreign competition so long as they operate in China (see: Tesla) further insisting that their domestic products be globally competitive and that foreign products sold in their country benefit their local ecosystem.
Lol it was not ip theft it was American and European companies building factories in China themselves teaching them how to manufacture use their cheap labour. Well they learned and as they were the dong the manufacturing got better at it. I believe the current aerospace industry which the US leads in is also result of IP theft from the British then out innovating them.
> I believe the current aerospace industry which the US leads in is also result of IP theft from the British then out innovating them.
Jet engines, proximity fuzes, radar, how to make a nuclear weapon, etc. are all examples of British / Commonwealth technology "gifted" or "traded" to the USofA during the WWII years in exchange for production.
So, not IP theft .. but absolutely foreign ideas taken in by the US and built upon.
HN hates non competition clauses in contracts unless it involves Chinese workers.
But I think we underestimate the Chinese diaspora. They had been running factories, shops and banks from Singapore to Suriname for generations and answered the call from the PRC to share that knowledge base.
Sure but I think what people are actually concerned with today is China copying a product and dumping cheaply back in the country it was taken from. That scale and speed is not what was happening in the 19th century.
I personally have little issue with countries doing that for domestic use (I hate using term "IP theft"), but to re-export so quickly you can't run a viable business in your own country is not fine.
> Samuel Slater ... known as the "Father of the American Industrial Revolution", a phrase coined by Andrew Jackson, and the "Father of the American Factory System". In the United Kingdom, he was called "Slater the Traitor" and "Sam the Slate" because he brought British textile technology to the United States, modifying it for American use.
> He learned of the American interest in developing similar machines, and he was also aware of British law against exporting the designs. He memorized as much as he could, and departed for New York City in 1789. Some people of Belper called him "Slater the Traitor", as they considered his move a betrayal of the town where many earned their living at Strutt's mills
Because USAs military literally stole his IP? He had patents for GPS systems that US military took (by making his very expensive US lawyer making a silly ”mistake” and oops he lost against US companies and they suggested ”let’s forget about the money if you just hand us over that patent that the US military wants”
Well, I did, and to save others the time, the most relevant resource I found appears to be the book "Smuggler Nation: How Illicit Trade Made America” (2013) by Peter Andreas
IP theft may only be part of the story though. it’s a question of priorities. US optimizes for profit which can place limits reinvestment. China seems to optimize for ubiquity and dominance, and has the capital to throw at those goals. when you’re beholden to the shareholder/ceo/investor, you make concessions to stay within their will. when you’re beholden to the state, you do the same.
Wait until you hear about the history of US industrialization. This trope of 'they stole our ideas' needs to fade away, it's a coping mechanism based on the assumption of inherent superiority of American society rather than the natural wax and wane of civilizations due to varying structural factors.
This so much. You can also read up about when Germany sent industrial spies to Great Britain. And the first documented case of industrial spionage was against... China.
It plays this way: you're behind, you ignore IP rules. You're ahead: you create them to defend your newly-gained status.
Also please no moralizing here on IP when the entire OpenAI/Anthropic playbook has been "massive straight up IP theft". The irony.
Can we stop this crying baby already. Every country has stolen from the other. Did you really expect countries to settle on sewing closes and ship all profits to foreign companies for eternity? The IP is just an artificial concept that participants follow for so long as it benefits all parties.
I think this is vastly underestimating what "catching up" means. All my life, people have been saying "China copies". Now they are objectively better at many things (including robotics), and... well it seems that we cannot "just copy".
I saw western companies trying to "copy" superior Chinese technology, talking to brilliant engineers explaining how much they were learning by actually trying to copy.
The lesson I got from that is that China did not "copy"; they learned. And it took time, and now they are better. Now the western world has to learn from them, I guess.