Imagine you're the trainer for a car racer who keeps winning races.
A new race is announced, he
gets into the car, you stay in radio contact with him, the race starts and for
the first time, he falls behind as someone gets ahead of him. Do you think
you'd be doing him a service telling him he's ahead when he is not?
Believe it or not, Tom Rogan
has tried to do something like this, if not worse. To make his point, he wrote
an article under the title: “Pursuing Shenzhen ambitions, China will double
down on intellectual properties theft,” published on October 14, 2020 in The
Washington Examiner. But as it turned out, while trying to show that America is
still ahead of China, Tom Rogan proved that China is ahead of America and will
stay that way.
Rogan began the discussion by
making this assertion: “China lacks the technology industry to lead the world
in global high-value exports.” Well then, does the rest of the article prove
this point? No, it does not as you'll see in a moment. Still, however,
immediately after making that assertion, Tom Rogan came to this conclusion: “To
strengthen its position, Beijing will have to double down on intellectual
property theft, and America will be the primary target.” This would be his
guess based on the assertion he cannot prove.
He goes on to explain that
China will double down on stealing American technology because of two reasons,
one being that, “The United States is now denying China access to high
technology software and hardware”.
What? What is he talking
about? If the US is denying China access to its technology only now, it means
that America was not denying it before. But not denying it before, means that
what China was getting then, was not stolen. In other words, zero is what China
has been stealing from America, according to Tom Rogan. And to double down on
zero, like he says China is doing, means that China is still getting zero
stolen technology from America. Is this paradox what Tom Rogan is trying to
communicate? If yes, for what useful purpose?
Whatever it is, to strengthen his
argument, Rogan did his own doubling down. Here is how that sounds like:
“After all, China lacks the
three things that make the US technology industry so successful: a vast
research and development base, attractiveness to high-value foreign talent, and
the credible rule of law that protects their developments against competitor
theft”.
Let's look at each of these
three things separately:
First, whereas in the advanced
economies, 10% or less of the research and development (R&D) base exist in
universities and government owned laboratories, fully 90% or more exist on the
premises of the industries themselves. For example, in the same way that drug
and auto makers do their own research, so do most other industries. America
used to lead the world in all categories of industry, but now that American
industries have moved to China, so did the R&D they used to do in America.
The point is that there is very little R&D to steal in America at this time,
but there is much that can be stolen from China.
Second, let's ask this
question: From where did America used to get most of its “high-value foreign
talent?” From China more than anywhere else. So now that the talented Chinese
are finding more opportunities in China, and now that America is closing the
door on them, these talented people are staying home. They are doing in China
the work they used to do in America. Just think about it, every future Eric
Yuan of Zoom Video Communications who could be in America, employing American
workers and adding to the American GDP, will now be in China, employing Chinese
workers and adding to the Chinese GDP.
Third, Tom Rogan says that
America has the “rule of law that protects the development of innovators
against competitor theft.” Which competitors are these? If we think Chinese, we
fall into the double down controversy that led us nowhere. But if we think of
American companies stealing from each other, we wonder why would they not also
steal from China as well? But if that's what they have been doing, it reveals
the truth about Tom Rogan reversing reality by attributing the sins of
Americans to the Chinese. And that's not a good thing to do.
As to Tom Rogan's claim that China lacks the technology to lead the world in exports, he is ignoring Huawei, Tik Tok, WeChat and many other Chinese products which are taking the world by storm. He tried to disparage Huawei near the end of his article by insinuating that it used to be successful because it relied on stolen American technology. But now that it cannot steal anymore, Huawei products are no longer successful, according to him. Well then, if this is true, why is it that America is blocking Huawei at home, and trying to block it abroad as well? It’s not because it is unsuccessful; it’s because it is too successful.