Just,
I see your point. As I stated, there are plenty of easy solutions that foreign companies apply to minimize the risks. There is No need to have a trade war over it. You will note Austtralian and European companies have been doing fine over there. So what is the problem with the US companies?
As you touched on Microsoft and IT, let me discuss with you about Steve Jobs and Bill Gates.
In the early days, both were known as Thieves - stealing IT technologies from their competitors, rebrand them as their own and sell them.
Any way, as to China - every single year, there are millions of hungry sons and daughters of farmers, who go to the cities looking for education and jobs - in fact, the number is about the same size as the population of Australia (about 23 M).
That is what you get - all 23 M hungry young Chinese seeking to be the next Steve Job or Bill Gates. Whether they go to work for a Chinese company or a foreign company, their aim is to gain as much knowledge as possible (including any IP information), so they can go back to the farming community (after about 5 years) to start a business with their family.
I know this as this is the average turnover of staff in our business and its the same with many companies located there.
And when they get back home, they will open up their own business and sell it via Alibaba.
This happens every single year: 23M Steve Jobs or Bill Gates from the countryside, aspiring to make it. And that is how (IMHO) 800M Chinese are lifted out of poverty.
In the US, there maybe a few thousand of young Steve Jobs per year, but not the millions that China produces every year. Therein lies the difference.
Any way, the US can not compete against their own neighbours in Canada and Mexico any way.
They wasted too much of their treasury in building military bases around the world and going to wars around the world, instead of building education and infrastructure at home.
As to military espionage - well, all I can say all sides do it. If you read Assange and Snowden's infor, you get an idea.
Yes, the US does have superiority in military power and it could sell those technologies to the Chinese (hundreds of billions if it wanted to), but it won't as China and Russia are enemies. So the Chinese and the Russian resort to military espionage. Of course that is not any different to what the US does any way. Refer to Assange and Snowden.
Any way, going back to IP problems - its really not that hard to protect. There are millions of foreign companies in China including ours, and we have ways to work around it. If you ask the foreign companies in China now, they will tell you its not a big issues.
The Trump administration has made a big issues because they have other agendas - its just like they are using the recent tariff against Mexico to try to stop illegal immigration.
Here is the irony of all this. Trump's own resorts used to employ illegal immigrants and Trump's own daughter ran a very successful clothing business, with all her clothes imported from China.
And the very FIRST overseas trip by President Trump was to Saudi Arabia to meet the King and his son (shortly after he imposed the Muslim ban into the US). Note, this is the regime that kidnapped the Prime Minister of Lebanon and chopped up a journalist in its own consulate in Turkey.
Bottom line, the US is Not doing it to get a level playing field with Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, China and Europe. Its doing it to ensure their domination continues.
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