OH the HORROR!!

China has to learn how to play in order to become a welcome member in the World Arena. The fact that large organizations are reluctant to do business with them shows cracks in their untouchable master plan. Sure they're the popular kid on the block with the low cost of exports. However, they have to be careful with countries like India ramping up to take a large bite out of their place as a leading supplier of cheap / high labor goods.


Harbor Freight.....Think there might be a patent infringement or two in their product offering?

Where have we heard all of this before. Oh yeah - Japan, Taiwan, Korea..

Even the good 'ol USA had weak patent laws 200 years ago.

Most inventions evolve and BTW many of the famous inventors that we credit today "copied" their stuff from others...

Edison's Incandescent light bulb in 1879 was preceeded by many other incandescent light bulbs patented by other inventors between 1841 and 1878.

Wright brothers preceeded by unpowered gliders by Otto Lilienthan and unmanned powered airplan by Samuel Langley.

Morse's telegraph preceeded by those of Henry, Cooke and Wheatstone.

The alphabets i use to communicate with you? Sumerian, yeah that is in the Middle East.

The list goes on...

And plenty of Chinese folks will claim whatever they copy was invented by the Chinese long beforehand anyway.

well let's see, the Chinese invented:

paper
gunpowder
printing press
porcelin
compass
silk
wheelbarrow
crossbow

the reasons for the lack of more "modern" innovations are cultural and political. Don't underestimate them though...that would be a big mistake.

Hubris is what will eventually bring the US down.

Maybe so, but my point is inventions naturally evolve through application and copying. The Chinese certianly did not invent 2 of the most useful things in my life...Alphabets and the number Zero, brought to us by Humans in the Middle East.

I find the world a more meaningful/hopeful place when i think along the lines of the Human Race as opposed to Chinese vs Indians, Californians vs Bostonians, Christians vs Muslims etc.

That is spot on.

Some intereting stuff on 3 of the inventions you listed...

Porcelin, invented in China in the 7th Century, was imported into Europe from China in the 14th Century with no info on how it was made. Finally in 1700ish a German Alchamist named Bottger reverse engineered the formula.

Silk worms were smuggled out of China in AD 500ish.

Paper making technology around AD 700ish via a POW.

As for today's technology, it won't be long before China and India are at the forefront. What percentage of American university science phD candidates are Asian? And they're not all staying in the USA when they graduate.

First they'll have to reverse this pattern. Click on Physics, Chemistry, Economics.

As a generalization, Western countries can not compete in the global market of cheap labor. Outsourced helpdesks, cheap manufacturing, textiles, etc, have headed the way of India, China, with other countries working hard to get in on that action too.

The U.S. for example is not able to sell those goods or services on the global market. We just can not produce a service or good cheap enough for it to be price competitive with the competition. The average American will choose to buy the cheaper service or product that is produced overseas, then to buy made in the U.S.A. That is a reality, we all do it, move on. We can argue the value of only buying made in the USA, but at this point in the global economy, that would be analagous to sticking our heads in the sand.

The question becomes, what are we (the U.S. and other Western countries) able to produce at home and subsequently sell in the global market? Our Intellectual Property has been of large value. An American company sets up shop, hires a handful of American engineers, scientists, programmers, HR staff, finance team, marketing team, product team, etc, and goes about inventing or advancing some piece of technology. The company then takes this item of value to the global market place and sells its use to other foreign companies to be used in the mass production of the "goods" to be re-imported back to the U.S. to sell to the consumers. The U.S. company is a victim of thievery if that Internationl company instead steals the Intellectual Property, creates their own pirated technology, and doesn't pay the original creating company the licsense fees or royalties.

The balance of buying and selling globally is eroded at this point.

The Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement is part of the creation of the World Trade Organization (WTO) that was created to try and address this issue and increase the protection of IP rights. Along with the Paris Convention of 1883, the Berne Convention, etc.

It is all dependent on how willing all governments are to enforce these international intellectual property rights issues. It would appear that the Chinese government is at least complicit in some of these violations.

As with all matters, there needs to be checks and balances, so that over time the playing field is even. At individual points of time, one group may have an advantage over another, but left unchecked the imbalance does run the risk of becoming too scewed.

My $.02, and I didn't sleep at a fancy hotel last night nor do I own a business that does Intl business. :)