Let's face it. By hook or by crook, countries take technology from each other. The taker likes to call it a transfer of technology. That's roughly the way Britain defended its pilfering behavior when it took Portugal's shipbuilding technology and ended up ruling the waves. China took, and is still trying to take, America's chipmaking technology so that it will get ahead of America by 2025, as we are told.

Meanwhile, Uncle Sam doesn't exactly have a clean record when it comes to "tech theft."

For America, it's not quite enough to beat Britain in the American Revolution. It envied British industrialization so much that it had to out-industrialize its former colonial master. Pretty much like what China is doing today, the newly-minted United States set up a tech spy network on British soil. Lo and behold, Yankees got British water-powered textile mills and mechanical looms---two of the most advanced manufacturing technologies at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution.

America didn't stop there. It picked China as its next victim. Thanks to the growing China trade, American ladies and gentlemen were amazed by the porcelain wares imported from the Qing Empire. If you happen to be visiting Mount Vernon, go check out George Washington's Canton porcelain platter. If you happen to be reading Henry W. Longfellow's poetry, go check out the following lines:

"The willow pattern that we knew

In childhood...

Filled us with wonder and delight,

Or haunted us in dreams at night."

What thrilled Longfellow so poetically was some "willow pattern" etched in his porcelain ware---a perfect mix of art and technology. That said, Longfellow must also feel indignant at the sight of "willow pattern" knock-offs made in the USA.

We are civilized enough to know this much is true: Once you let your guard down, you are bound to lose something.

Author: Lingyang Jiang