EU Considers Forced Tech Transfers for Chinese Investments
finance.yahoo.com
finance.yahoo.com
— If gentlemen lose, they change the rules of the game.
This is basically your average read-between-the-lines translation, given the recent context of Nexperia, Huawei, Tiktok, Chinese car import tariffs, what have you:
If we were the ones who invented processors, iPhones, and all the rest — then you, oh the slant-eyed ones, are expected to fork over the cash.
We, the mighty Anglo-Saxons, labored and sowed, and we deserve our reward. As for you, the slovenly types — you may keep 10% of the price for assembly, another 20% for components, and the rest goes straight to the casino’s profits.
But if you come up with your own processors, stop buying ours, and even start making your own batteries, software, or cars — then you’re expected to hand over all the technology behind them. We’ll decide for ourselves what to make, in what quantities, and whether we’ll even pay you anything at all. Meanwhile, if you dare bring your goods to our markets — well then, you’ll pay us with your inventions.
This is just a mirror of what has long been Chinese policy - and how they grew to the power they are in the first place.
As for the mirror angle, well, I am not saying it is wrong. Just amused by the hypocrisy of how easily notions of free market and what have you are thrown out of the window at the first whiff of burning.
There is no absolute and regulations are needed, and functioning markets not always exist, but overall the free market is a massive success. Just in the 20th century you can compare how countries that rejected free markets and market economy in general fared compared to those based on a market economy...
The free market is thriving in China.
The US have done very well economically in the 21th century, too.
I’ve always wondered how a company that fully controls its tech and can leave a country at anytime can be “forced” to transfer its core tech. From what I’ve seen, what gets transferred is usually older, commoditized or even out dated tech because it’s profitable to license.
Yes, copying happens. But I would call it as a common pattern in developing markets: entrepreneurs imitate to get a foothold, then iterate. It’s messy, but it’s also how a lot of industries bootstrap.