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China's Tech Copycats Transformed Into a Hub For Innovation (wired.com)
hackingbear writes: Following similar path of the 19th century America, China has advanced from being copycats to innovators. After its middle class has risen from 4% of population to 2/3 in the last decade, a generation both creative and comfortable with risk-taking are born. "We're seeing people in their early twenties starting companies—people just out of school, and there are even some dropouts," says Kai-Fu Lee, a Chinese venture capitalist and veteran of Apple, Microsoft, and Google, who has spent the past decade crisscrossing the nation, helping youths start firms. Major cities, i.e. Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, are crowded with ambitious inventors and entrepreneurs, flocking into software accelerators and hackerspaces. They no longer want jobs at Google or Apple; like their counterparts in San Francisco, they want to build the next Google or Apple. Venture capitalists pumped a record $15.5 billion into Chinese startups last year, so entrepreneurs are being showered in funding, as well as crucial advice and mentoring from millionaire angels. Even the Chinese government—which has a wary attitude toward online expression and runs a vast digital censorship apparatus—has launched a $6.5 billion fund for startups.
China makes cheap copy's / rips off other techs some times on the 3rd shift.
You can't have it both ways. One the one hand, /.ers consider copyright and patents (which prevent rip-offs) evil and useless and on the other hand, they complain about China ripping off their tech.
Yaknow, the copycatting hasn't changed. In fact, the endless copycats act as a barrier to entry. Why should you go to all the trouble to create a new product and prove a market exists, when all that's going to happen is 100 people open the same company offering the same product?
This is typical "Wired" journalism - seeing what they want to see, and breathlessly reporting it. Western journalists stick to the major cities. Even a trip to somewhere like Hangzhou is treated as a possibly hazardous excursion to the rural countryside. It's no surprise that they think the way they do, they like their own kind of people and do not like being around people who do not use words like "hackerspace" without cringing.
Chinese people have a very derogatory feeling toward startups. Only huge companies can make anything good, or so it goes. Small companies have a reputation of being poor and shoddy, like all the ones you know in your home town. People like Micheal Dell would have been laughed out of the board room and never gotten his first big contract. The environment is very skewed towards people like Bill Gates and Richard Garriot who came from rich families and used that to get started.
Then there are all the governmental barriers. You can't just start a company out of your garage - you need a registered office in the appropriate kind of office space. If you're a tech company, you need to have an address in a tech park, you can't just find wherever is cheapest. Of course, the tech parks all know this and are ready to offer you high prices and poor management. Try finding enough parking spaces for your employees, for example, it's a nightmare. Taxes are a big pain, the government frequently does not even know its own policies. Call the tax bureau two different days, get two different answers. Oh, and by the way, to even open a tech company requires millions in registered startup capital. It's not just getting a DBA and a tax number from your state government like you do for your garage company. It is a very involved process that takes 6-12 months and is full of bureaus who will happily reject your application for cryptic reasons.
Shutting down free speech with violence isn't fighting fascism. It IS fascism!
Japanese companies' structures are similar to what their ancestor's handicraft workshops. In fact, some of those workshops become today 'companies'.
That is, the culture of Japan affects how the the 'innovativeness' of Japanese. Overall, the Japaneses want to be respected by their skill of their profession.
Meanwhile, the Chinese want their name be written in history, their highest desire, no matter *how* they achieve this, example:
http://www.scmp.com/news/china...
“People die twice. Once, physically, and the second time, when they die from people’s memories,” Fan said. “My museums will be here even after I die. When people talk about the Jianchuan Museum Cluster, they will mention me. In that sense, I gain immortality; I will never die.”
It's worth pointing out that the U.S. became the industrial powerhouse it is by ignoring European patent and copyright law during the late 1800s/early 1900s, and illegally building tools and products based on European designs.
I'm of the opinion that IP holders have gotten fat and lazy by manipulating the legal process to extend IP law and duration far, far beyond the point where it's helpful to the economy. And if China can build this stuff cheaper and better by flaunting IP law, then the world will be better for it even if it screws over the IP holders. That's not to say IP is useless. Just that the pendulum has swung too far in one direction, and it needs to be swung back to return us to the point where IP law is benefiting society.
It was the same with Germany at the beginning of the 19th century, with the U.S. at the end of the 19th century, with Japan in the 1950ies and Taiwan in the 1970ies. It always takes some time for a society to learn all aspects of a trade, and until then, it it is mostly trying to copy the perceived leaders. What else is there except asking: How did they do it? and then trying to figure it out by trying it yourself. And if there is not much of intellectual property to protect inside a country, there is no incentive to even have this protection. And even more: the U.S. needed decades after introducing protections for domestic works and inventions, to expand that protection to those of foreign origin. You can read the letters of complaints Charles Dickens wrote when he learned that in the U.S., his novels were reprinted and sold cheaply, and he wasn't able to do anything about it. Only when cheap rip-offs of their own products started to flood the export markets of the U.S., it agreed to allow similar protections to foreigners.
After the war the Japanese were rebuilding and didn't have enough resources, so cars tended to be a bit flimsy and built with older or lower quality tools. By the 1960s that had changed though. The 1964 Olympics were a real pivotal moment, with the arrival of the world's fastest train (the Shinkansen, a real marvel of technology) and a general effort to push Japanese technology and products to the rest of the world. It just took a bit longer to figure out foreign markets and what they wanted.
Japanese car manufacturers worked with western manufacturers to learn from them during the 60s, and then improved on what they learned to overtake in the 70s.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC