China Is Nationalizing Its Tech Sector
The &quot;trade war&quot; thing has been the most&#x2F;only interesting ideas to come from trump, to me.<p>It was interesting in that he did recognized (fluked into?) an actual shift in public&#x2F;expert position. China is the pro-trade side. They&#x27;ll be willing to make concessions, do the work, etc. It&#x27;s the beijing consensus now, not washington.<p>Large american companies <i>are</i> still on the pro-trade side, being multinationals. They also have pretty obvious interests. They want market access, american IP protection, they want freedom to operate mostly independently of the CCP.<p>Market access is a typical request. This has been the basic definition of free trade for a while. They probably <i>can</i> get this protection. Independance is a trickier one. I&#x27;m not sure it&#x27;s realistic. Imagine a Chinese company operating in the states, with an a fully imported senior management and all &quot;c-level&quot; discussions in chinese. I dunno. I doubt they&#x27;ll get what they say they want.<p>The &quot;IP&quot; point is interesting. Why does the american economy want US IP rules everywhere so bad? Same reason Disney does. They have the biggest IP portfolio. A pharmaceutical company&#x27;s value (for example) is mostly IP. IE, the market cap <i>is</i> the IP portfolio.<p>Why would china want to use this IP system, where they start with fewer chips than the US? I&#x27;m not sure. Who says a fake Gucci is a crime, if the buyer knows it&#x27;s fake. Why should a US drug patent grant a worldwide monopoly. This one would be a concession.<p>Anyway, it&#x27;s not just pharmaceuticals that need IP. The economy is ethereal these days. Capital isn&#x27;t building and machines. It&#x27;s intellectual property of one sort or another, whether or not it&#x27;s legally formalized as such.<p>..<p>PS: I&#x27;m Irish, not American. Realize from the wild votes in both directions (didn&#x27;t think) that I&#x27;ve obviously waded into live american politics. I wasn&#x27;t trying to make any political points. Just musing and bullshitting on the shifting world of political interests after reading the morning paper. I&#x27;m not against anyone, nor do I mean anything too seriously.