U.S., China Clash Again Over Tech (Unbelievable Chinese Demands)

Internet News ^ | May 13, 2005 | Tim Gray

[Golden Eagle]

WASHINGTON -- Beijing's proposed government procurement policies are threatening U.S. software sales in China, and Congress wants something done about it.

Just exactly what, however, remains to be seen.

Although China joined the World Trade Organization (WTO) in 2001, it is not a member of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement. In order to gain access to the worldwide government sales market, Beijing passed a government procurement law and began drafting regulations.

Its first set of regulations involved software sales to the Chinese government. According to U.S. officials, Beijing stacked the deck against American software companies.

"We are concerned that the overly restrictive definition of domestic software contained in the draft regulations has the potential to sharply restrict the sales of U.S. software to the Chinese government," Benjamin Wu, assistant secretary for technology policy at the Department of Commerce, told a House committee today.

The proposed rules require American companies seeking to do business with the Chinese government to manufacture all their products in China and register the copyrights in Beijing. In addition, at least 50 percent of the product development must be done in China.

[Golden Eagle]

The only thing more outrageous than China's demands are those that have repeatedly insisted something like this could never happen.

[FreedomNeocon]

Pffft... if any 'up and coming' nation is going to steal the software sector from us its India, not the Chinese.


Me thinks china is overplaying its "we have a massive market" card.

[Golden Eagle]

FYI. Please ping others if you maintain a list.

[Dallas59]

HA! China...the "copy it and sell as your own" Nation!

[Texas_Jarhead]

"Me thinks china is overplaying its "we have a massive market" card"

and how...

[Nathan Zachary]

LMAO! All they have is copied microsoft stuff. Complete with all the bugs!.
Good luck China, I hope you don't plan on using that stuff to control those nuke plants your building!

[grey_whiskers]

You know, I wondered why Microsoft had spent all those hundreds of millions of dollars for software facilities in China. Now I know.

The only thing that could make Microsoft software worse is for the documentation to be written in Mandarin...with India (heavily-accented) help desk staffers.

Looks like that's where we're headed.

Full Disclosure: what about the possibility of the deliberate introduction of back doors, spyware, whatever, by the Chinese coders, at the behest of their government, right into the Microsoft OS?

[1ofmanyfree]

...all your backdoor are belong to us...

[LasVegasMac]

The only thing more outrageous than China's demands are those that have repeatedly insisted something like this could never happen.

Wrong.

The demands from the clowns in Mexico are most offensive, and more obvious.

Still, your point is well taken.

What is one to do?

Chicoms on the left....import city.....

Mexico on the south....illegal import city....

Nuke 'em.

Next problem?

LVM

[Quix]

The Chinese will virtually ALWAYS make demands that are to us outraeous.

And, they will laugh at us and lose all respect for us and treat us as easily managed; easily conquered serfs whenever we let them get away with it.

Certainly they will scream; throw dust in the air and make multiple big serious scenes if we do NOT let them get away with it. But the only time they will treat us as anything approaching civilized equals is when we force them to treat us as equals--as much as any Westerner can force Asians to do that. Which, usually, is not much.

[ShadowAce]

[endthematrix]

Not my backdoor, no sir!

[bbenton]

Flame me as needed guys...
It's really time to take off the kid gloves period. Someone should start a national signature drive like the Recall Davis, and kick the UN out of the US. However this drive should aim to remove every US Senator and House member. These guys have strayed so far off course with our country it sickens me. The few good guys are drowned out by the total bipartisan political hackery. We are in the middle of the war on terror, huge deficits, and we have three nations ( N. Korea, China and Iran ) on our "about to get whupped" radar and our elected officials are debating steroids in baseball. It's time for new leadership that will put America first.

In regards to China's insane demands, they are trying to partner up with India to create the hardware/software capitol of the world where China makes the hardware with child/slave/prison labor and India provides the software. This is just a lame attempt on China's part to make china the hardware/software capitol. China's economy and military are growing at a (supposedly) insanely good rate. They are on the highway to evil superpowerdom.
However right now we could cut them off short and most likely destroy the commies without firing a shot. If we were to ship a backbone to congress they could
A) Stop the planned import of junk Chinese cars. It's not free/fair trade if one trading partner literally uses slave labor to compete in the other's market that doesn't use it.

B) Demand without exception or delay that China lets it's currency be naturally adjusted on the open market. The currency would instantly (and for a short term IMO) jump twenty to thirty percent thus making their garbage more expensive and less desired. This would virtually sink their economy. If this happened then the peasant masses would most likely revolt and then you could kiss our commie friends goodbye as in most Chinese revolutions they lose up to 40% of their population.
While I don't wish for upwards of 500 million people to die it would be vastly in our best interests to get this showdown over with while we can take them and before we lose half of the Pro baseball players.
China is planning 100 to 200 years down the line and we are spending millions to figure out why chimps pick their noses.

[familyop]

Just don't buy. Don't buy anything that we don't really need. The dollar is still too high. In software, build consultant teams for projects. Get away from dependence on employers, and compete.

[panaxanax]

........we are spending millions to figure out why chimps pick their noses." You caught me! Do you have a hidden camera in my office?

On a more serious note, you are truly correct and I don't think you'll be flamed. There does seem to be a lot of people out there that are just not taking the Chinese threat seriously. They better wake up quick.

I also agree that we need to clean out the House and Senate. Did they forget who they work for......and who hired them?

[Calvinist_Dark_Lord]

Flame me as needed guys... It's really time to take off the kid gloves period. Someone should start a national signature drive like the Recall Davis, and kick the UN out of the US. However this drive should aim to remove every US Senator and House member. These guys have strayed so far off course with our country it sickens me. The few good guys are drowned out by the total bipartisan political hackery. We are in the middle of the war on terror, huge deficits, and we have three nations ( N. Korea, China and Iran ) on our "about to get whupped" radar and our elected officials are debating steroids in baseball. It's time for new leadership that will put America first. In regards to China's insane demands, they are trying to partner up with India to create the hardware/software capitol of the world where China makes the hardware with child/slave/prison labor and India provides the software. This is just a lame attempt on China's part to make china the hardware/software capitol. China's economy and military are growing at a (supposedly) insanely good rate. They are on the highway to evil superpowerdom. However right now we could cut them off short and most likely destroy the commies without firing a shot. If we were to ship a backbone to congress they could
A) Stop the planned import of junk Chinese cars. It's not free/fair trade if one trading partner literally uses slave labor to compete in the other's market that doesn't use it.

B) Demand without exception or delay that China lets it's currency be naturally adjusted on the open market. The currency would instantly (and for a short term IMO) jump twenty to thirty percent thus making their garbage more expensive and less desired. This would virtually sink their economy. If this happened then the peasant masses would most likely revolt and then you could kiss our commie friends goodbye as in most Chinese revolutions they lose up to 40% of their population.
While I don't wish for upwards of 500 million people to die it would be vastly in our best interests to get this showdown over with while we can take them and before we lose half of the Pro baseball players.
China is planning 100 to 200 years down the line and we are spending millions to figure out why chimps pick their noses.

Calm down FRiend. We ALREADY HAVE a recall system, it's called the elections. The House of Representatives have to run for reelection every two years. i personally believe that such a short term is unrealistic on the basis of what one has to spend to be elected these days, and would propose a four year term, with only 1/4 of the house coming up for election in any given year. The Senate already operates under such a system, the difference being a six year term, and 1/3 of them coming up for relection every two years.

There are some objective facts here:

• China needs US money FAR MORE than the US needs cheap electronics and plastic junk.
• Military hardware is expensive, whether one buys, or developes their own. China is spending like a drunken sailor after six months at sea.
• Aside from coal reserves, China has no natural resources. They must import ALL of their oil, and pay for it with COLD.HARD.CA$H.

Bottom line: If push comes to shove, in a trade war...if we tell them to take their cheap products and shove it, they get pushed. Our hurt is only temporary.

There are other ways that can illustrate the point of our displeasure.

i read a lot of Tom Clancy (when he was writing novels and not the cheap pulp $#!t that he writes these days). In the Book Debt of Honor, Clancy, through his characters proposed The Trade Reform Act (or words to that effect). It took a look at the trade laws in the offending nation, and changed US laws to mirror the laws of the offending nation on THEIR imports. If they tightened the Laws against US products, we tighten our laws against theirs. If they loosen, we loosen.

In the book mentioned, it meant that the same strict inspection standards applied to US automobiles imported into Japan were applied to Japanese cars imported into the US.

The idea does have some potential, and would restrain those not inclined to play by the rules of the game.

[Nowhere Man]

China is planning 100 to 200 years down the line and we are spending millions to figure out why chimps pick their noses.

That's my fear too with Red China. Sometimes I wonder if the episode in Star Trek (TOS, the one with Kirk, Spock, etc), "The Omega Glory," where they beam down to an alternate Earth and discover there was an atomic/bacteriological war that is still dragging on between the "Yangs" (Yankees - Us) and the "Comms" (Red China, Chi-Coms) where sometime during the war, the Chi-Coms invaded the United States and they are being slowely driven out through attrition. One of the plots was where Captain Kirk consulted one of the "sacred texts" of the Yangs and it was the U.S. Constitution.

IIRC, in the 1960's, some World War III literature and movie plots did entertain the possibility of war not between the Soviet Union and the United States but between Red China and the United States, sometimes with even the Soviets as our ally. I remembero ne low-budget movie where the goal was for the Chi-Coms to dig a long tunnel from Red China to the US for an invasion until we stopped them. Another one was called "The Bamboo Saucer," came out in 1968 where an alien spaceship crashed landed in Red China and a combo CIA-KGB team had to go in and fly it out. In 1971, there was a movie called "Earth II" about a sovereign space station being threatened by Red Chinese orbiting H-Bombs and it was up an American astronaut and Soviet cosmonaut to team up and disarm the bombs. It's interesting how these things come around again when you think of the book series by Jeff Head about war with Red China although unlike the 1960's, if you think it is a possibility that we would end up fighting them, you could be branded a kook in some circles. B-(

[bbenton]

I agree with what you said, especially about Clancy. I personally think he has someone ghostwrite off an outline he created.
We need to get this showdown with china over with and restore the American industrial machine. We may get it cheap now but what counts is will we be able to get it when we need it. If we make a stand with Taiwan and China goes for it do you think we can get combat boots and clothes and other military products they produce for us?
We blindly outsource and ship production overseas and become a nation of middlemen. You know how people think of middlemen.
If we take away gubmint protection for failed businesses IE. Airlines and GM. If we make the unions eat what they cook they will become less tenacious. We can rebuild American industry and then when we need to tell a third world country to take a hike we needn't worry about all the stuff they make for us.

[JasonC]

So, it is time to start exporting viruses. They want no working computers, fine.