Well, after WW2, the US did not simply steal german technology, you stole their scientists! Wich by the way, is worse on the scale of theft.

Now when it comes to counter measures to the Chinese theft, it's pretty straight forward. Simply create a better economic environnement in your country (cut spending so you can afford permanent tax cuts and lower regulations) and companies around the world will fly back to the US.

But I understand the general frustration about it. If I was a researcher who spent months developing a new tech and it get stolen, I'd feel like dropping a nuke on them.

So yea, here you have it, either improve your economy or nuke them. If you want to break Chinas' back, now is the time.

You have a few options.

1) Seize international Chinese assets through the courts renumerative to the value stolen.
- Of course, they can just start nationalizing Western assets within China.

2) Permanent company bans from Western markets when Chinese companies utilize stolen technology.
- Retaliatory strategies could be used against Western companies in China.

3) Retaliatory tarriffs on all exported Chinese goods to the West.
- The reverse could be done to Western goods. This is also counterproductive - force US consumers to pay more but then give the money to the corporations that it was stolen from? This is a extremely regressive taxation policy.

4) Treat industrial espionage as an act of war. Complete naval embargo.
- Downsides are quite numerous.

Hard to give real solutions - but this I know: Stealing 1 Trillion dollars of knowledge capital from the US is theft and should be punished.

Abdel has a good point. The U.S. is not above stealing others' ideas. Furthermore, the environment here basically pushes companies out if they can find cheaper means of production elsewhere. No one comes to this country to produce, they come here to develop. We have excellent resources for product development, but china has the art of cheap production on lockdown.

Until the Chinese realize the effects of their dangerous currency devaluation, their stealing of ideas will continue to be standard procedure because they can capitalize on those ideas so cheaply. Hopefully as their technology evolves, they'll transition from production to development/high-end manufacturing and stealing ideas will become a thing of the past.

This all assumes, of course, that their government doesn't fuck it up.

Honestly, I think there are many paper solutions. As for as those that will actually work to an effective extent: zero. As you said, the motivation for China is simply not there. I read an article in FP that discussed China's culture when it comes to matters such as these. It's very different. To paraphrase: In the West: stealing is wrong. In China, if you can steal from someone, and get away with it, good for you. It's the victims fault for not being smart enough to avoid it.

lol yea wtv you seamonkey.

You cain't deny that alot of the German/Nazi military tech was copied by the US (e.g. the B2 bomber).

Simply because if you cut alot of spending to lower taxes + regulations, your production costs will shrink dramatically. Companies will come back to the US and won't have to do the join venture thing in China (eventhough some will for market penetration).

Remember, at one point of your history, the US had the cheapest products in the world, while being the best products in terms of quality and US employees had the highest salaries in the world. And that point in your history is when the size of your governement was tiny, almost no income tax and low regulations.

Right, but remember, they are buying your debt. Wich in turn allows your governement to pay his bills.

The Chinese government doesn't condone theft. It actively aids the theiving process. The sophistication of Chinese military hacking is bested by only a few organizations globally.

The sad thing is this: they have nothing of value that we can steal.

Okay? So they don't roll debt over. Who gives a shit? We can just inflate our way out of the hole. In the meantime they've just lost ~300 billion because their US securities have cratered in value.

A good dollar devaluation is probably what we need anyway.

Yeah good idea PetEng,

The minute we try to threaten them by inflating, they will sell of all some $3 trillion of our debt causing fucking world wide financial panic as our sovereign debt is worthless. Then the U.S. Government can`t even issue debt anymore as nobody would be interested in buying it and the fucking government will be insolvent.

Oh thats if Obama doesn`t tax us to hell.

China poised to overtake India as world’s biggest gold market this year

http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/china-poised-to-overtake-india-as...

I saw General Michael Hayden talk about US security. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Hayden_(general)

He said that every country tries to steal our secrets. China is the only one that tries to steal everything.

It boils down to companies being very behind in internet security. Not like it makes a huge difference, given the intrinsic lack of security with the internet.

This. Nothing else needs to be done.

during the 18th century the early american state offered bounties to british engineers to come over to the US with smuggled materials and methods. this is an old game. we are just losing it.

lol @ this thread.

The richest of Chinese and government officials are parking their assets in the US.

The best of the Chinese minds/engineers are studying here in the US.

Why complain? Get rid of the bamboo ceiling and those intellectual capital will never return to China.

The sad thing is, nope, won't happen, can't trust the Chinese. So they just come here, use our educational resources, go back to China to make it a better place.

No curry ceilings tho...

Touché.

Umm, I think stopping the semi-hard currency peg between Renminbi and Dollar should be the 2nd most important foreign policy goal for the US (after stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons).

I think tariffs percentages should be so steep on Chinese goods that they are forced to relinquish control and go to a free float.

Wow, this has to be the dumbest comment of February 2012 on WSO. Congrats.

There is no argument here. The German scientists were mostly desperate to come to the United States because the alternative was slave labor under Stalin--that or execution. Besides, German technology wasn't private intellectual property. It was technology from a conquered state. There was no intellectual property theft--it's called the spoils of war.

Once again, your comment was easily the dumbest comment of February 2012. You should be commended.

You're an absolute and utter moron. What don't you get? Intellectual property is a PRIVATE PROPERTY concept. Stealing military secrets IS NOT INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY THEFT and would have nothing to do with trade, trade violations, patent infringements, trademark violations, or lawyers. It's called WAR. China and the United States, as far I'm aware, are not at war--they are trade partners. Even so, the primary German scientists, such as von Braun, who was basically the father of NASA, CHOSE to surrender to the United States rather than the Soviet Union. As a result, he became a beloved, national celebrity in the United States.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wernher_von_Braun

Honestly, your assertions are so moronic that they really shouldn't have even merited a response. Comparing Chinese IP theft to America's use of German scientists post WW2 is so moronic that it's breathtaking.

I don't see China agreeing to stop the currency peg in a million years. It benefits their export industry too much. Also, increasing tariffs that high has many far-reaching implications that are undesirable. America can't produce low-level manufactured goods as cheaply and efficiently as China can. If tariffs like what you suggest were put in place, my Nike sneakers would increase ten-fold in cost, the iPhone would cease to exist here, and most consumer electronics would see massive increases in price. In other words, huge tariffs are the worst possible plan of action.

Not to mention the obvious expectation that China would quickly return the favor and cut off their middle class from all of the wonderful American/European luxuries that are being imported at increasingly high rates.

Dude, take a chill pill. This is an internet forum. Abdel's comment was all but lost in this thread except for the fact that you decided to take tremendous offense to it. Let it go.

you morons.

this CNY peg is the only thing preventing inflation from going ballistic in the US.

the chinese works 18 hours a day and saves half his pay so the american can relax 18 hours a day and spend twice his pay. for the american to be pointing his well-fed finger at the chinese and claim victimization for himself is the height of stupidity and ingratitude, not only toward the poor coolie who has to work himself to death so we can be fat and lazy, but toward the masters of US geopolitical strategy for making this bizarro world arrangement possible.

I want inflation to increase in the US. It's the only way to fix our debt problem.

You do realize that 15T worth of debt is 50K/citizen, right?

That's actually a real number - not some 10000% inflated number you just pulled out of your ass.

melvvvar is correct PetEng. Just think on it...

Besides, it is unjust to punish fiscally responsible people for not acting like white-trash/hood-rats and buying shit worth 10x your income.

The Chinese peg is highly distorting to everything. I have no problem with the effects of them going to free float (ie: 25% immediately appreciation of the Renminbi/USD, falling Chinese exports, increasing US exports to China, etc). The keeping it pegged only means the eventual free float will be that much more cataclysmic.