Rightways: Tech theft

Friday, June 21, 2019

US hypocritical in accusing China of tech theft

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https://youtu.be/tGD072hQGP8

The US has no lack of a “criminal record” in terms of technology theft.

The US has repeatedly ignored China's innovative breakthroughs through self-reliance and hard work but accuses China of "stealing" US technology and intellectual property rights. These arguments do not hold water.

These absurd accusations imply that the US must be the absolute leader in technological innovation - only the US is qualified to make major breakthroughs while others should merely follow its lead and import its technology, otherwise they are "stealing." Such logic is ridiculous.

A country's technological innovation capability is closely related to its scientific research resources, such as talents, capital, and scientific experimental devices. Leading scientific research resources have determined the US leading position in various science and technology fields. Nonetheless, economies including the EU, China, Japan, Russia and India have also mastered considerable scientific research resources and developed technological innovation capabilities with their own characteristics and advantages.

It is due to such relatively scattered distribution of global research resources that the US can never be an "all-round champion" of technological innovation. It is natural that other countries will catch up with the US in certain fields.

Historically, the US made a great fortune during WWII, and out-competed the Soviet Union in terms of comprehensive national strength during the Cold War. Even so, the US failed to gain absolute dominance over the Soviet Union in technological innovation.

As a major technological innovator keeping pace with the US, the Soviet Union set multiple world records in its golden age. The world's first nuclear power plant, artificial earth satellite, manned spacecraft, space station and intercontinental missiles were all built by the Soviet Union. As far as weapons and equipment are concerned, both the Soviet Union and the US had something in which they excelled. Even now, Russia, the successor state to the Soviet Union, surpasses the US in some respects.

The US made its first nuclear power plant, artificial satellite, manned spacecraft, and intercontinental missiles after the Soviet Union's success. Based on its current logic, should these US cutting-edge technologies be regarded as something stolen from the Soviet Union?

There are more examples. China led the US in the processing power of supercomputers for many years. In June 2018, the US retook the world's lead thanks to its machine "Summit" which could process 200,000 trillion calculations per second. By following US logic, should we say the US surpassed China by stealing China's supercomputing technology?

Some have already noted that the US is actually the guilty party that files the suit first. The country has no lack of a "criminal record" in terms of technology theft. In the first decades after its founding, the US tried hard to "steal" advanced industrial technology from the UK to develop its own industries.

During WWII, prior to Germany's surrender, the US established the Alsos Mission. The team was sent to Germany not to fight, but to capture top German scientists and their technologies ahead of the Soviet Union. It is said that Wernher von Braun, one of the founders of the US space program, was a leading figure in Nazi Germany's rocket development program.

When the Soviet Union collapsed, the US took the opportunity to obtain advanced military technology that the Soviet Union had accumulated for years and to lure away many top technical talents.

After that, plenty of US weapons benefited from the Soviet Union's technology to varying degrees, which saved the US time and money. The US technology theft from the Soviet Union has produced generous returns.

However, the US is not ashamed of such records. Many Hollywood blockbusters have molded American spies conducting such theft into the embodiment of justice, and molded theft into a just act. Perhaps it is precisely because of this that the US is now judging others by itself.

In recent years, China has continued to increase investment in science and technology. In 2018, the country's research and development funds amounted to nearly 2 trillion yuan ($290 billion), second only to the US. The efforts will naturally pay off.

Nevertheless, the US deliberately turned a blind eye to China's efforts to promote independent innovation and contain China's development. The past actions and current absurd logic of the US are being seen through.

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