Many of you don’t know about airplane making in China. The US-China Economic and Security Review Committee of Congress published a long and detailed analysis of how China used teaming arrangements and joint ventures to learn to make their own airplanes. They stole whole areas of technology while doing it, but they were given just as much as they stole. In my next book, my argument will be that the Chinese have not done as well as they thought they would because they can’t steal the ability to invent new ideas or expand ones they have stolen. They have a quicker path to production, but you can’t steal your way to success in a product as complicated as an airframe. GM still taught the Chinese to make cars, but it is a market they still do not dominate. Maybe they can get better success with the goals of China 2025, but stealing technology is not going to get them there.
This trade war will end quickly, and the Chinese will be back to doing what they always do. They made laws that require the sharing of technology and that allows businesses to give it over with a clear conscious. They steal our technology in new ways that avoid getting caught in corn field in Iowa, or a chemical manufacturing plant in Virginia. No wonder so many businesses are upset with tariffs. That business as usual they are so warm to embrace is exactly what the Chinese want.
We have too many businesses that sacrifice their intellectual property future for access to markets that want to compete with them in the future. They ease their Board’s anxiety by saying “it’s the law” but knowing that law is corrupt. This semi-trade war is an acknowledgment that the US government does not recognize this arrangement as legitimate. This isn’t about tariffs at all. It is about basing a whole country’s economy on taking someone else’s property as if you deserve it.
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