Chinese innovation isn’t due to theft

Diving deeper into the quagmire, a collaboration between PricewaterhouseCoopers and the Center for Responsible Enterprise and Trade used "several proxy measures" to conclude "that trade secret theft could be estimated to be between 1% and 3% of [U.S.] GDP"—yet another exercise in creative estimation.

These audacious leaps in logic are how we came to believe that China stole its way to becoming an economic and technological powerhouse.

If It Were Any Other Country

These flawed findings keep company with claims that China's engagement with "open-source intelligence" is espionage rather than what it genuinely represents: a commendable dive into the world's collective knowledge pool.

The book Chinese Industrial Espionage: Technology Acquisition and Military Modernisation by William C. Hannas, James Mulvenon, and Anna B. Puglisi sheds light on this extensive journey, tracing its roots back to Mao Zedong's era. By the mid-20th century, China had already begun assembling an impressive repository of global scientific and technological knowledge—including 11,000 science and technology periodicals, half a million published research reports, more than 5 million patents, and more than 200,000 industry standards—a practice that has expanded over the decades to provide invaluable resources to millions.

Had it been undertaken by some obscure, impoverished nation, this effort would likely be hailed as an extraordinary leap toward enlightenment and development. After all, the West does not benefit from the rest of the world being poor and illiterate. It does benefit significantly when other nations adopt its technological standards and contribute to the global knowledge economy.

Despite these vast repositories of information, China's technological landscape under Mao remained largely barren. Little advancement was seen until economic reforms in the 1980s triggered a boom powered by the unleashing of market forces and entrepreneurial spirit.

It was freedom, not spying or stealing, that made China rich.

And yet, despite the open, almost academic nature of this endeavor, the hawks inevitably characterize the Chinese open-source effort as nefarious, pointing to "nontraditional" researchers, who may be employed by the Chinese security apparatus. No doubt these bureaucrats—like our own—gleefully report to their masters on their "intelligence yield." It's still just going to the library.