The Wall Street Journal has a good article that points out the advantages and obvious disadvantages of joint ventures with China, which steals technology left and right. The article is balanced, giving both sides of an emotional argument on this kind of theft of trade secrets. It says, "China’s tactics...include pressuring U.S. partners in joint ventures to relinquish technology, using local courts to invalidate American firms’ patents and licensing arrangements, dispatching antitrust and other investigators, and filling regulatory panels with experts who may pass trade secrets to Chinese competitors." Of course, they also patent information in China that have already valid patents in their country of origin. This is out and out organized theft. The US-China Economic and Security Review Committee also has a good report on the use of joint ventures in the aircraft industry to steal technology for its aircraft, both commercial and military. GE is mentioned in all of these reports and I quoted GE in my last book because they were touting how well they did their agreements so they wouldn't transfer key technologies. How naive is that?
Peter Navarro is quoted as saying "The combination of naiveté and hubris on the part of U.S. companies seeking to enter the Chinese market, coupled with a sophisticated Chinese effort to extract technology has been a lethal combination." No kidding.
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