One of the Earliest Industrial Spies Was a French Missionary Stationed in China

atlasobscura.com

43 points·lermontov··12 comments

Even earlier were the Byzantine monks who smuggled silk worm eggs out of China. Arguably not espionage, unless you consider the eggs to be DNA packages.

If you find the subject interesting I suggest reading "The white road" by Edmund De Waal. It gives a more human, broad and intimate insight into the history of porcelain both in China, Europe and... the USA.

Weren't the Dutch even earlier with [Delftware](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delftware)?

Weird to not even mention the Dutch.

> After much experimenting they managed to make a thin type of earthenware which was covered with a white tin glaze. Although made of low-fired earthenware, it resembled porcelain amazingly well."

They did not produce porcelain, but a product designed to look like it.

"[A]n effort to implement mercantilist economic strategies of technology transfer."

This is an amazing euphemism.

It's not. Calling it theft when technology is transferred to China, is an exaggeration.

In the short term, it is called IP theft and is considered negative. In the long run, it is called the diffusion of technology and is considered positive.

Not everyone believes in intellectual property or in the notion that copying is theft.

True. As a counterpoint, not everyone believes that technology diffusion is good and desirable.

Good for whom?

The ones who already "own" most of the intellectual property? Or the ones who don't own it?

Those who create it, those who distribute it, those who sell it, or those who consume it?

Yes. Isn't good and bad usually relative to ones own interests?

Definitely theft.

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