That’s the exact argument you will use to convince yourself of any of China’s successes stories. They can’t possibly innovate because they’re Chinese and not western. Therefore, they must have stolen the tech. This is how Raegan convinced the public in 1980s.
China has enormous success stories that don’t depend on pilfering or extorting, and a rich history for thousands of years. In fact I think the Chinese governments behavior in this respect is below the divinity of Chinese people and Chinese culture. This plays out in the recent domestic behavior of the Chinese government towards its own people. I even said I welcome a multipolar world with a resurgent china.
But if you think forced technology transfer and industrial espionage by the Chinese state to benefit the Chinese states industrial interests - which have become pervasive in China under Xi with most major Chinese ventures being forced to take state funding and control - you are deluded, or are trying to delude. I say this with all the force of someone who has experienced the fact of what’s happening directly - you can throw racism or nationalism around all you want, but there’s a cold reality that exists independent of such concepts and I - and many others in technology - have experienced it first hand. It’s calculating, cold, and very much real - and race and nationalism have very little to do with it. It’s political and it’s absolutely real.
Btw, you can’t sit in a BYD and not see the technology transfers and the espionage spoils. China could be successful on its own merit, but not with the Chinese communist party controlling industry and civil society. I just hope some day Chinese people will be free to be that competitor on equal footing with the world. What happens in China today is a disgrace to Chinese everywhere, who are some of the most brilliant and hard working people out there. Until that day I welcome them to work with me here, and we can make great things together.
You cannot watch older Japanese animations and not see the heavy inspiration from Disney, but the style used in their shows today is far evolved. You equally cannot sit in a Toyota and not see the western influence. Travelling to America was literally part of their game plan to improve their own technology though at first it was for investigating automatic looms [1]. I would be surprised if Toyota did not reverse engineer a western vehicle. Today however, I imagine you need no convincing that Toyota is simply the superior product compared to its western counterparts and can stand on its own two feet.
Your counter argument might be that it's different with China because the government is assisting in this. To that, I would point out the Meiji Restoration in Japan. Similarly, their government encouraged young scholars to learn abroad in order to pull Japan forwards technologically. Not only that, the government hired foreigners known as "O-yatoi Gaikokujin" and " the main goal in hiring the O-yatois was to obtain transfers of technology and advice on systems and cultural ways." [2].
That last one sounds a lot like a government-funded technology transfer to me. It's definitely not happening today in Japan, but at one point the government deemed it necessary.
I agree on the point about BYD. We would definitely see the result of a technology transfer in a BYD car. But how much of that can just be attributed to hiring talent from foreign companies? There are articles about Japanese engineers being headhunted by Chinese automakers [3]. This is common in developing countries. A lot of top positions/ executives are senior engineers coming in from abroad getting a significant title bump and pay increase (the pay increase is even greater if you consider the cost of living in the host country).
If you consider headhunting talent to not be competing on equal footing with the world, then that's a completely separate discussion. But I wish to provide more peace of mind for you that this problem is indeed transitory. To do that, I will direct your attention towards the rhetoric used against minorities.
People say that minorities are criminals, but we know that's not true. It's poor people who are desperate enough to perform those acts who will turn to crime. Minorities get over-represented due to society being biased against them causing them to be in more dire financial situations. Nobody takes pride in being a criminal. The moment they are financially stable, they stop - 2nd generation immigrants have extremely low rates of criminal activity.
Similarly, China is still a poor country. We might not think of it because we think of Shanghai and Shenzhen, but their GPD per capita is lower than Russia's, and their HDI is lower than Ukraine's. As China develops, they will find more effective ways to compete that don't tarnish their image, just like other countries have done on their path of development.
My goal is not to debunk you. There are definitely some instances of shady IP dealings in China, but there are some instances that are clean as you have also pointed out. What I do want to get across though is that these are the growing pains of a developing country that successful countries also went through in the past.
People probably had this conversation about Japan when Japan was developing. They do not have them today. So too will we no longer have these conversations about China in the future.
[1] https://www.toyota-global.com/company/history_of_toyota/75ye... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_government_advisors_in... [3] https://asia.nikkei.com/Business/Automobiles/Japanese-engine...
