China Plans Domestic Software Quotas 473
October_30th writes "In order to fight the alleged Microsoft monopoly, the Chinese government is establishing quotas for foreign software. While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically. Regulations like this are, of course, expected to come under fierce criticism from the WTO."
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:In other news... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
You really have to put yourself into a Chinese man's shoes to understand. If a company goes overseas and offers you a job that pays $0.70/h, 12 hours a day, in a tiny little hot room, there's no way you would do it, right?
Not necessarily. Getting $0.70/h may be a blessing if the alternative is making $0.40/h for a domestic company, or more likely not working at all. We can only assume that because this Chinese man freely accepts the job that no other better alternatives exist. To remove this job opportunity for him may make us feel morally superior, but it won't help him put food on the table.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not saying that standards of living aren't lower, and yes, I'm glad I live in the UK and not Kenya, but perspective is required.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
At any rate, the economics of sweat shops don't make sense. In the US the typical garment worker earns around $.25 per T-Shirt manufactured. That means we could double that person's salary by increasing the cost per T-Shirt by another $.25. Somehow I don't think that an extra quarter per T-Shirt is going to be a crippling economic disadvantage to you and me. Hell, we could double your example Chinese worker's salary at a cost of much less than $.25 per T-Shirt. How would this be a bad thing?
My point here is that there is no real economic reason for garment workers to be so economicly screwed. For those who are interested, here in the US a company called SweatX is producing quite nice clothing at prices comparable (maybe $.25 more per item) to other manufactureres. Look at their website here: SweatX [sweatx.net]
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
I think America dislikes Cuba a lot more than China because there was a lot of American investment in Cuba when Batista was dictator and Castro nationalized, i.e. stole, that capital. It's a matter of revenge. We can't have foreign countries stealing our investments, ya know? And Cuba was setting itself up as an example, so we went and made an example of it. That, and a lot of the folks in Florida are from the former Cuban upper class and they hate Castro and they're very politically active.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
My god... I can't believe you lived in China and you call what you saw Fascism.
The profound changes you saw in China iwhere I live as an expat, btw) are the effects of rampant Capitalism, not Fascism. The classes divide, the poor are insanely poor, and the rich drive around in Ferraris. Freedom of speech spreads, free entrepreneurship takes root, and people turn from the collectivity to think for themselves.
Take a hard look at America, and you'll see it's not Fascism that the Chinese are emulating.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Informative)
You are engaging in wishful-thinking-economics. Since one white cotton T-shirt can basically be substituted for any other white cotton T-shirt, the T-Shirt market is extremely elastic, that is, suppliers that can provide a shipload of T-shirts for just $10 less than their competitor will get the contract from the supermarket chain, no matter whether or not the individual customer would have been ready to pay $0.25 more or not. If the supermarket chain would indeed add, as a bonus, $0.25 per shirt to benefit the labourers, it would quickly be outperformed by other, not-so-generous supermarket chains, retail margins being extremely low as they are. Suppliers would, as well, underbid each other by approximately $0.25/shirt to get the contract that is now worth $0.25/shirt more to them.
This is called "market economy". Its mechanics have been well understood ever since Smith and Riccardo, and there is indeed a rational reason why trade flows are what they are. To change the equilibrium result, e.g. to raise Chinese worker's salaries, some form of government intervention would be required, which by definition would destroy some measure of wealth by disrupting the equilibrium.
Consider, though, that every single Chinese worker works at $0.25/shirt not because the State forces her to (China is now capitalist in all but name), but because she considers herself better off in that position than in any other (e.g. unemployed, other job). If any social engineering remains to be done, then, it's up to the Chinese government to institute it (e.g. with minimum wage laws), and not the U.S. or European taxpayer.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Informative)
Communism is one of those systems that sounds really good on paper and doesn't work in the real world at all. To an idealistic person who is caught and educated early on the ideals of Communism I'm quite sure that it sounds good and that any criticism of the Party will result in eye rolling. However as a person who has a non-Party Approved knowledge of h
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Interesting)
1. Workers should be paid more and have better conditions because then they are more efficient - I'm going to take the role of a greedy Nike executive here. If I can make more money by investing in better conditions, which would increase efficiency, and increase output, then I most certainly will do it. Look how profitable it is! A great catharsis for my greedy whims! In short, while
True, but still completely unethical. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
One such 'suggestion' is tarrifs. This will undoubtedly put millions of Chinese laborers out of work, and will also drive up the price of the good that consumers pay. The only 'benefit' is allowing a domestic competetitor to overcharge their customers. That is what I would call unfair. Even if x number of Americans become unemployed I can guarantee they will be infinitely better off than if 100x Chinese are unemployed.
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:In other news... (Score:3, Informative)
1. Trade doesn't effect wages - Wages depend on supply and demand curves. But trade isn't really about wages, trade is about goods. And with trade, both parties have more goods than they would have without goods. This is the only case in economics where a 'free lunch' exists. Standard of Living isn't how much money you make, but how much stuff you can buy with it. Free trade makes things much cheaper for everyone.
2. Because free
Re:bullshit argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Now all that's left is Wal-Mart, and nobody ca
it dosn't work that way (Score:4, Insightful)
But what they forget is that the economy of the country they are outsourcing to is going to grow, and they can sell their products there. There's also the fact that A) not all their customers are going to lose their jobs, and B) Not all the people who lose their jobs are their customers. In most cases, income lost due to poor consumer confidence won't be more then the amount of money saved by outsourcing.
It should be obvious with the "jobless economy" that it's possible to have a good economy without a strong job market.
Don't like it? then vote for Kerry in November. I'm willing to put up with trade inequity if it means getting rid of bush. A good job market after I graduate collage is just a tasty bonus.
Re:bullshit argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Secondly, the idea that Americans can be stuck with the term USians doesn't make sense. After all, that term could just as easily apply to people from the United States of Mexico, or probably a dozen other countries with United States in their name.
Finally, I think I'm going to start calling people from the U.K. "UKians", and I'm also going to start calling people from the E.U. "EUians". After all, so
The Continents (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, that's not quite right either.
See this as reference [wikipedia.org], there is more than one way to divide up the continents.
Your way, with both North and South Americas, isn't listen there, but it's usually used when one talks of political/social divisions instead of geographical, IIRC.
Re:bullshit argument (Score:3, Insightful)
Then why do Mexicans calls us "Estunadu Unidunese", literally "United Statsian"
Completely offtopic, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't unique to North America. It happens all over the globe, England included. Such is the nature of living languages.
Re:Completely offtopic, but... (Score:4, Insightful)
Seriously, what I find interesting is that when the U.S. government does something objectionable to those in {insert sovereign nation here} the response from many foreigners is, all too often, to criticize all Americans. "Ugly Americans" and so forth. For my part, if the government of, say, China, does something that I find disagreeable, any criticisms I may have for that action I reserve for those in power who made the decision to take it. I see no reason to insult all those of Chinese nationality or extraction by calling them "Chinesians" or "Chinks" or any other racial epithet because I personally happen to dislike their government or what it has done. That is particularly true given how little control most people in the world have over their respective governments. To all you non-USians out there that persist in identifying all Americans with the decisions made by our leaders I have two words: grow up.
Re:bullshit argument: CLARIFICATIONS (Score:4, Insightful)
The parent is correct that if everyone earned 70c/hr, yet remained as product as they are now, the value of the dollar would be much higher, so the purchasing-power-parity in 2003 dollars would remain the same, and hence the "real" cost of living (in PPP 2003 USDs).
The grandparent is correct that if everyone *WERE* to earn 70c/hr, we would have a depression.
How can the parent and grandparent be correct? The fourth-dimension, time, the axis Mardy (Michael J Fox) wasn't very good at in Back to the Future, needs to be remembered. When experienced with RAPID deflation, which implies the power of the dollar increases rapidly, we enter an economy which is reluctant to make investments. The best investment, in a deflating curency, is to hold on to your bank notes or bonds, not to lend loans on houses that this year will cost $100k but if the owner forecloses five years from now will only fetch $20k of a much stronger greenback.
Thus, if we have rapid deflation, or sustained deflation, we will enter a depression where the financial elite close their purses and reap the rewards of monetary growth without making loans to those paupers we commonly refer to as ourselves.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Informative)
Americans work the most hours on average, but are NOT the most productive on average per hour worked - they rank 3rd there, I think. The researchers explained it with some relatively simple logic: after X number of hours, you start to lose some productivity. Sounds reasonable to me. They still win the overall productivity per worker prize, which isn't too shabby.
And, BTW, you look like a fool when you say "USian" (I am NOT calling you a fool, only saying you appear as one to someone who doesn't know you, such as myself). People who live in the USA are "Americans". People who live in North Americans are called "North Americans". People who live in South America are called "South Americans". There is no continent called "America", last time I checked, and thus there is no reason to get confused unless you're a total moron. By the same token, calling Mexicans "Americans" is idiotic, too, because they're not. They're "North Americans".
Sorry about that, but it's a pet peeve. Just refer to residents of the United States as that ("residents of the US"), if you can't bear to bring yourself to say the hated term "American" (which, you know, is accurate: "United States of America". Hence, "American", for the last word).
-Erwos
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
From a more practical standpoint dictatorships are simply incompatiable with free nations. The free nation may be willing to suffer the existance of a dictatorship; but the existance of any free nation anywhere is a threat to the dictatorship. If a free nation exists the dictator's people can hope to escape there, can see that there really is an alternative. Simply by existing freedom is a threat to dictators. Naturally they will do whatever is in their power to destroy the free nation(s) if they can.
Additionally it is a historic fact that dictatorships are inherently unstable forms of government. The "funeral games" immediately following the death of the dictator can easily turn into war against neighboring nations. From a standpoint of simple self preservation free nations should do whatever they can to help pro-democracy movements in dictatorships overthrow the dictator. The fact that US policy (under presidents and congresses of all parties since around 1860) has been one of encouraging dictatorships is one of the most amazing examples of stupidity that I have seen in a very long time.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
You are also correct regarding dictatorships and free nations. But I wasn't talking about voter rights or religious rights in my example. That Chinese person is free to choose the jobs he is offered. The government can step in and disrupt this (and they used to) but it perpetuated China's lingering poverty. Despite living under a dictatorship, the choice of jobs still remains (but not political ones of course).
I also suspect that over the long run, as Chinese people become more and more prosperous, they will become more intelligence, which is the true sword again depotism. The US should play no part in this overthrow. At best, it draws massive international scrutiny. At worst, it results in horrific warfare and thousdans of deaths, which will no doubt happen if the US went to war with China.
The best course of action is to just keep trading with China. As they become more prosperous they will find their own ways of undermining the regime.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Insightful)
In other words, when people locally can't find work because it's legal for someone else to do it for seven cents an hour in another country under sweat-shop conditions, that $49 DVD player is even more out of reach to them than it was a few years ago when it was $299 and they were making 20K.
Still, the original speaker was talking about labor practices, not quotas and terrifs. I believe these 'solutions' may be too heavy-handed... by cutting out the opportunity for domestic companies to exploit cheap labor, they will find themselves at a large disadvantage to international companies who can. Either way, the rich westernized nations will lose because their standard of living is simply too far above the rest of the world to maintain without complete isolationism if these practices are allowed to continue.
Perhaps there is no way to keep a line in the sand between the haves and have-nots of today on an international scale. Still, this mass-employment of slave labor and sweat shop workers doesn't seem to bode well for the eventual average global standard of living that will emerge. I would argue that it would be in the international community's best interest to ban, not globalization, but these these practices of exploitation. Cheap labor is great for CEOs who want to squeeze a few more bucks out of their companies and make their investors happy at the same time, but it will only serve to internationally reduce the value of human labor itself.
Two Sides of the Coin... (Score:3, Informative)
The problem of child labor and the labor conditions is that what we consider right and what the people of the country consider right are two entirely different things. That is the entire problem in a nutshell.
In the case of child labor my father could have not employed children and that would solve
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the Chinese were doing something illegal wrt to clothing, the most likely of which would be dumping products in US markets, then the US would likely appeal to the appropriate trade organization and ask the practice to stop. This might result in tariffs placed on China and theoretically increase sales of US domestic products in that category.
The interesting thing is that MS claims it is not a monopoly, and the prices it charges are determined by a competitive market and are generally the cheapest it can sell the products for and still make a profit. If we accept this as fact, and look at the deep discounts offered to in certain US and non-US markets, it appears that in fact MS is dumping product, a practice that is defined as unacceptable under many treatise.
We therefore have a situation in which MS is a monopoly and charges arbitrary prices not controlled by the free market, or it is the habit of dumping product onto certain markets, with the assumed intention of destroying competition. In either case, the action warrants defensive measures to protect those markets.
oh really (Score:5, Informative)
That's quite different... (Score:3)
It sounds like the Chinese government is going to ban most of the foreign software. But, all the facts quoted by the articles only indicates the Chinese wants more Linux in government desktops.... It is *not* a violation of WTO. Just like US government can say it wants a bigger share of MS/linux/BSD/Macs for the government desktop due to security/stability/easy-to-use or whatever. In any case, Linux is more like an "international" product.
Re:In other news... (Score:4, Interesting)
According to the WTO Agreement governing trade in Textiles and Clothing [wto.org] must be made subject to GATT disciplines until Jan 1, 2005, at the latest. That is, all textile import quotas that were legal unter the 1973 Multifibre Agreement must be abolished, and WTO Members must afford textile imports full most-favoured-nation treatment (i.e. you can't discriminate between imports of different countries any more) and national treatment (i.e. you can't treat imported textiles less favourable than those of national origin, such as by taxing them higher).
This was the principal concession made to developing countries during the Uruguay Round that gave birth to the WTO, liberalizing the clothing sector where developing countries tend to have the competitive advantage. This caused them to accept other WTO packages such as GATS [wto.org], TRIPs [wto.org] and TRIMs [wto.org], liberalizing areas where developed counties tend to have competitive advantages. (Never mind that the EU and US in particular have since resorted to all kind of dirty tricks to delay and circumvene the liberalizing provisions of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing...)
However, the US-PRC situation is peculiar: As a condition to agreeing to China's WTO accession - which had to be OK'd, as everything in the WTO, by consensus of all Members - the PRC Accession Protocol provides that the U.S. may legally maintain import quotas on Chinese clothing up to 2009. After that, China can sue the US in the WTO Dispute Settlement Body (a kind of World Trade Court system) if quotas are maintained.
As to the Chinese software quota, this seems to be a clear-cut violation of the WTO Agreement on Government Procurement [wto.org], in particular Article III [wto.org] thereof. It's possible, though, that the Chinese may invoke exceptions, such as the security exception of Article XXIII [wto.org]. The same provision was, incidentally, used (or abused, IMHO) by the U.S. to deny Iraq reconstruction contracts to the countries opposed to the war. At any rate, given the interests at stake, expect legal action by the U.S. soonest if this measure is not abolished immediately.
Heh. (Score:3, Funny)
Alleged? (Score:3, Funny)
Maybe they should make some alleged quotas if it's only an alleged monopoly?
Nothing 'alleged' about Microsoft's monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Nothing 'alleged' about Microsoft's monopoly (Score:3, Insightful)
The article doesn't mean that MS had been convicted of being monopoly (hence the "alleged").
Re:Nothing 'alleged' about Microsoft's monopoly (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder if MS actually got paid for the operating systems that comprise their "monopoly" in China...
Re:Nothing 'alleged' about Microsoft's monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Nothing 'alleged' about Microsoft's monopoly (Score:3, Informative)
Silly china (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Silly china (Score:3, Insightful)
So chances are 5 years from now, they might learn the lesson, then again Microsoft might suddenly start selling Linux tommorow too...
Thing is the Chinese market should be robust enough to handle using mostly domestically made software, they manage quite well with their P1 like processors in the hardware market, who says
Where is Free Software produced? (Score:2, Interesting)
IANAL ... (Score:2, Interesting)
If this doesn't apply to Free Non-Comercial software, that will be an amazing incentive for people to start using, or at least looking at, GNU.
Re:IANAL ... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:IANAL ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:IANAL ... (Score:3, Funny)
Quotas are generally a bad idea... (Score:5, Insightful)
However in terms of software this may be a blessing for China. Linux's problem isn't price so much as it is marketing. However the real question is whether China will be able to use Linux or must they code their own O/S?
Re:Quotas are generally a bad idea... (Score:4, Interesting)
One example documented in Michael Pollan's book The Botany of Desire [amazon.com] is the U. S. marijuana industry. U. S. grown pot used to be of rather poor quality. Law enforcement cut off the supply from foreign competators. Under this unintentional protectionist program, U. S. grown pot became some of the best in the world.
Alternatives to the Microsoft desktop will reach critical mass a lot faster with some protectionism. Short term, the people in the Chinese goverment will be using software they find unfamiliar, and a little harder to configure, and perhaps a bit awkward to use. But this shall pass. They are obviously willing to take short term hit to come out ahead in the long run.
Re:Quotas are generally a bad idea... (Score:4, Informative)
You may or may not have a point about software. The difference to other industries are the extreme network effects. This requires some more thought than can be put in this /. post.
They already do produce 70+% domestically (Score:2, Funny)
offshoring ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Software developed locally in the US vs that which is shipped off to India ? Congress critters trying to change legislation on H1B? Am I trolling ? They're both quotas, one on workers and the other on software (their product).
How exactly is demanding American workers be given preferential treatment for IT jobs different from a market in a country putting a quota on foreign software?
Neither one of those is right, but some people in those countries want both to happen. Having said that, this could be the sh
Hmm -- where do Linux and *BSD fit? (Score:2, Insightful)
While they may have good intentions.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It will help local software companies, but there will probably be no net gain to the nation as a whole. When you restrict the ability for domestic companies to use foreign software (especially when it is the best tool for the job) you are handicapping economic growth.
Uh, NO. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Uh, NO. (Score:5, Interesting)
A though experiment illustrates this. Take the case of a single pair of shoes worth 50 dollars. If the shoes are exported, the nation loses one pair of shoes, but gains 50 dollars. If it imports the shoes, it gains one pair of shoes, but loses 50 dollars. Whether a nation imports or exports shoes depends on how much it values a pair of shoes over 50 dollars.
Currencies are goods as well, but they are goods all too often ignored by the politicians and media. They are a particularly useful good, in that they are the best good suited for buying foreign goods. If the US (as an example) imports more than it exports, then the other nations are going to have a surplus of US dollars usable only in the US (or the currency markets). Currency fluctuations lead to this kind of imbalance. If you see a trade imbalance, take a look around and you'll probably also see a recent fluctuation in currency values.
There are other causes to a trade imbalance symptom, however. The point is, the trade balance in an of itself is not a problem. At most it's a symptom of another problem.
Re:While they may have good intentions.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most of China's IT requirements are local, ie they don't sell a lot of software overseas. So their IT products 1) don't have to be world class, and 2) are better adapted to the local economy.
On the other hand, by creating even sub-world class standard software locally, they are training and building up their ability. If they do this for a generation, their subsequent products may well be world class the same way Japan's are.
China's economy (and therefore its IT usage) is different from more developed countries', so why should they use foreign technology which is adapted to more advanced nations? It would be like using an enterprise CRM system to manage the local garage sale.
IMHO, they're doing the right thing for their economy as a whole.
Excellent News! (Score:5, Interesting)
"I believe the era of exorbitant profit for software should end," said Li, the science ministry's deputy director in charge of new technology. "Basic software services should be cheap, just like water, electricity and gas."
This is great news for Open Source, whose goal is to make software cheap and affordable for everybody. Microsoft has been making exorbitant profits from their products for way too long, and I'm glad that China is embracing the new way of Open Source where software is a basic social right of all citizens.
This move isn't solely in support of Linux, because China wants its own software industry to have a chance to grow and flourish before Microsoft gains total dominance there. Once the Chinese software industry has grown, the largest software companies there can be socialized and given to the People of China.
Re:Excellent News! (Score:5, Insightful)
Free speech is a right. Software is a commodity.
Re:Excellent News! (Score:3, Insightful)
Water cannot be a "basic social right." By definition, water must be purified by someone. Someone must do work to produce drinkable water. Therefore, water is a product for a consumer.
Although water costs money to clean and transport it is a basic social right to have access to it. It does not follow that something is a product for a consumer just because it takes work to be produced. We can commoditise things that cost money, examples would be water, public transportation and health care. Although all th
Re:Excellent News! (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, but it must only be created once and can be used millions of times afterwards.
Which is exactly the reason why software is not just another product that can be treated by the same laws like other products. It's fundamentally different and models that would fail miserably for most other products can turn out to be the best for software.
Water, Electricity, Gas ... Not Cheap (Score:3, Insightful)
Water is not cheap -- neither is gas, nor electricity. Just ask the tens of millions of people who can't afford them.
Furthermore, ditto food -- not cheap, for the starving.
-kgj
goverment computers (Score:3, Funny)
A Crippling Decision... (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
Ok, limiting software that people can use limits people's choices (obvious), but it also removes the ability for people to choose the absolute, best software they need to do their job. Consequently, you'd have to make some purchasing decisions which might actually affect the ability of your company to do work. Imagine how a video post production house trying to get by without AfterEffects, Flame, 3D Max, Maya - you get the picture.
The only way they could possibly circumvent this is by loading their machines up with 70% worth of crap they don't want - hey ho, I think I've found the solution!!
This is not good in anyway (Score:5, Interesting)
From the article -
China says it is merely trying to level the playing field for its own software companies.
Bah! If every country were to level the "playing fields" - there is no point in such things as patents and WTO laws.
Why does the US still buy Japanese and Chinese products? Maybe the US should "level" the playing fields too. Why does any other country have to respect any other country's patent or trade laws?
As much as I like the fact that this means widespread adoptation of Linux - just remember that they are essentially violating even the basic trade law premises of free and fair trade.
The article's ending makes it worse -
So far, Linux has not made big inroads. IDC software analyst Jenny Jin estimates it has "a very small percentage" of the operating system market, probably less than 4 percent.
I wonder what this means. Homegrown Windows like OS? Whatever it is, this is plain wrong.
While other countries respect trade laws at the expense of their workers, industry and economy, why should China be allowed to be any different?
Re:This is not good in anyway (Score:5, Insightful)
"While other countries respect trade laws at the expense of their workers, industry and economy, why should China be allowed to be any different?"
The whole point of trade is that it isn't an expense. It's the only 'free lunch' there is in economics. If Japan were to put up big barriers to US imports, the US would be MUCH worse off by putting up barriers to Japanese imports.
Protectionist policies hurt everybody, except for a minority of grossly inefficient competetitors interested in keeping their profits high by exploiting consumers through tariff legislation.
Re: Protection CAN BE Good (Score:3, Interesting)
The best example is my highschool, which had an idiot coach who reserved the tennis courts four and half of the five days to the Varsity team players, giving only 2 hours for JV players, many of whom had never played tennis before.
The end res
70%? (Score:5, Interesting)
So how do they plan to calculate the percentage? Number of software packages? Size in megabytes? Lines of source code? Weight of documentation?
Chinese programmers: Please make lots of free, useless little utilities so for every foreign software package your people need, they can install two of yours to balance them.
Copied it from laws for US auto industry. (Score:4, Interesting)
Interestingly, the Japanese did this by opening assembly plants in the US. And employed US auto workers.
The US auto companies had claimed that there was a cultural gap, that the reason US car manufacturing had such a hard time with product quality was the US union auto workers. (Union reps said it was management techniques.)
The Japanese hired UAW members. And got better quality than in Japan. B-)
A friend of mine, a union organizer, put it this way:
"The US auto workers will give you what you ask. If you ask for quantity they'll give you quantity. If you ask for quality they'll give you quality. And if you ask for trouble they'll give you trouble."
B-)
What had ACTUALLY happened is that the Japanese had wholeheartedly adopted a management style promoted by a US theoritician, with major worker involvement and worker-to-management information and idea flow. Meanwhile, spured by the McCarthy-era anti-Communism witch hunts, the US executives eliminated anything that looked socialist or communist ideas from their own workflow, cutting themselves off from information and ideas from their blue-collar workers - who knew the actual processes and factory goings-on the best.
Re:Copied it from laws for US auto industry. (Score:3, Informative)
There were no such laws passed in the US. There were a whole lot of "Buy American" calls from workers and some politicians but there were no laws passed because it is illegal under the WTO and it anti-competitive behaviour and most people who understand the free-market knows that it would be counterproductive.
Japanese auto-makers opened American plants because during much it was much cheaper to produce the vehicles and sell them locally rather than import them from Japan (or elsewhere) where yo
voluntary (Score:3, Informative)
United States of cotton goods (1957), steel (1969),
wool and synthetic fibers (1972), color televisions (1977),
and automobiles (1981).
http://www.jinjapan.org/access/trade/friction.htm
http://www.cpas.c.u-tokyo.ac.jp/cis/asia/eng/85-H
70% of software blah blah (Score:3, Insightful)
possible way around it? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:possible way around it? (Score:3, Interesting)
[Disclaimer: I've founded and am running a software company developing security-related software in Shanghai.]
In security-related softwares/hardwares, there are requirements that the systems be developed in China. But that does not prevent foreign companies to get thru the backdoor anyways. Consider RSA, Entrust, Verisign, Norton, those firewall vendors,
All they have to do is find someone here (and preferably someone with good relationship) to start an
Dragonball Z (Score:5, Funny)
China's only hope is to gather together the 8 magical Dragonball CPU's to summon the Eternal OS, who will grant them one wish so they can defeat the evil Bill Frieza.
Will China be able to find all 8 Dragonball CPU's in time? Will Bill Frieza anhillate the earth? Find out next time on Dragonball Z!
Do you think? (Score:4, Insightful)
Ah the WTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Either get the WTO to grow some balls and challenge China or scrap the organization. I am tired of Chinas constant protectionist bs while forcing free trade on other countries. And before the China supporters flame me I know that there overall trade deficit is not that high, but if you take a look at there trade policies(namely demanding technology transfer, and destroying any standards that are foriegn and turning around and forcing companies to use Chinas standards if they want to do business) you can tell that they do not plan to trade with these other nations very long. Trade with China is a very bad idea, maybe once the WTO actually enforces its rules, it might not be so bad, but for the time being it really pisses me off..
Re:Ah the WTO (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Ah the WTO (Score:4, Informative)
- the Conprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
- the Treaty Banning Antipersonnel Mines
- the Rome Statue of the Internaitonal Criminal Court (ICC)
- a protocol to create a compliance regime for the Biological Weapons Convention (BWC)
- the Kyoto Protocol
- the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty.
The report continues: "The U.S. is also not complying with the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Chemical Weapons Commission (CWC), the BWC, and the UN framework Convention on Climate Change". And as the parent comment mentions, there are plenty of violations of the WTO as well.Dear Mr Bush: It's not your 'FREEDOM' that the terrorists don't like...
Re:Ah the WTO (Score:3, Insightful)
You spelled "USA" wrong. The first letter isn't "C" and the middle part isn't "hin".
Re:Ah the WTO (Score:4, Interesting)
More to the point, though, the WTO legal system is not effective enough: countries that win a WTO case gain the right to "withdraw concessions", that is, to retaliate with protectionism of their own against the losing party. This is supposed to dissuade would-be offenders from violating the agreements in the first place. However, if a small country such as, say, Cuba, wins in a WTO court against the USA, the volume of retaliatory action Cuba can take is so small compared to U.S. overall trade streams that U.S. exporters won't notice at all.
Past cases show that only the Big Three (USA, EU and Japan) have the economic clout to actually force other countries into WTO compliance. This has been demonstrated in the US-Steel case, where President Bush was forced to abolish illegal steel tariffs in order to avoid EU retaliation against products from U.S. states Bush needs to win in the presidential elections.
Affirmative Action in...erm...action! (Score:4, Insightful)
China and the WTO (Score:3, Insightful)
If China believes it has the capacity to create a powerful software industry, it should get out of its way rather than remove incentive for them to compete.
Wipeout for WIPO (Score:3, Interesting)
The US goverment should do this to (Score:4, Funny)
That would sure help preserve the US IT industry.
Then again, Bush would have to care first.
Steve
Define "percent", WRT software... (Score:4, Insightful)
I see a great opportunity here for some clever Chinese student to make a fortune...
Write and sell a fairly cheap (whatever would compare to USD$20?) set of a few thousand "utility" programs, that do basically nothing (such as "print-a", which "inserts the ASCII character 0x41 into the standard output stream, for use in automated scripting requiring the letter 'A'", as an example of what I mean), but absolutely guarantee that a company can remain in compliane with this quota no matter how much imported US software they use.
The only problem involves the definition of "percent" as relating to software - Does it mean "per 100 packages" or "per 100 bytes"? If the latter, a similar approach would work (such as "lib-a", which fills exactly 70% of your hard-drive with readily-accessible "A" characters), but would certainly seem a lot more wasteful of a large HDD...
Not such a big deal. (Score:5, Insightful)
While the details are still unclear, the government may require that up to 70% of software on Chinese computers is produced domestically.
implies that they plan to issue a general nationwide ban on too much foreign software. However, that's not what the article says. It actually says:
Officials say a new law will be announced by this summer requiring a minimum percentage of software purchased by the government be produced in China.
So we see that this policy would only apply to government purchases. Thus, this is little different from when a corporate IT department standardizes on choosing certain software products and not others.
The U.S. federal and state governments also promote a variety of policies by placing extra conditions on their procurements and contractors.
So, while this is somewhat interesting, this doesn't look to me like as big a trade issue as a lot of posts seem to be making of it.
Why doesn't the US file a complaint with the WTO? (Score:3, Informative)
Possible bad things (Score:5, Interesting)
1 - mass civil disobedience, encouraged by the Chinese government looking the other way: China writes some code, and makes up the slack by pirating everything else. Everyone justifies the piracy by pointing at the government and saying "well, I'm not allowed to BUY it". The rest of the world ends up feeding China's growth but doesn't actually get any money.
2 - GPL black hole: code goes into China but code doesn't come out. What's to stop a desperate Chinese coder from "borrowing" a pile of downloaded source, making a few changes, and selling binaries within China? Nothing. The rest of the world ends up feeding China's growth with free code, and gets nothing in return. The Great Firewall of China might aggravate that even further - maybe insiders *want* to share their code with the rest of the world, but aren't allowed to?
3 - hmm. China's also making custom processors. What's to stop there from being a positive feedback loop here of Chinese code for Chinese chips driving Chinese chip sales in China, which drives Chinese code in China? Nothing - that may even be by design. This'd close off sales of both hardware and software to China even more. Good for China, bad for everyone else.
Like many other posters, though, I don't think China could get away with this, because of the WTO. They'd get hammered not only by the US, but also the EU, India, Japan, and anyone else who makes software that I'm forgetting.
said Li Wuqiang of the Ministry of Science and ... (Score:4, Funny)
You my friend get +5 Insightful from me.
US moving from capitalism to mild socialism? (Score:3, Insightful)
The US was the champion of capitalism, sometimes even arm twisting countries into opening their markets. Those that did so were endowed lavishly with grants and loans. Of course, opening markets and free economies lead to more social freedom too which would be better in the longer term.
But then, perhaps the US forgot the implications of free competition on their own economy. Suddenly americans want protectionist legislations. Outsourcing is the top-demon.
Ahh
Well
Now when you look at what is happening in america, china and maybe what will happen in many other countries, are we going back to a milder version of socialism?
Disclaimer: I would have never been against protectionism for the sake of protecting jobs in any country. But then you worked so hard at doing away with that system. You promoted competition. Good. But dont get scared when it comes back at you!
Protectionism != Socialism (Score:3, Informative)
Same as 1970s Steel Produce (Score:4, Interesting)
WTO and Microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
The Chinese appear to be acting unilaterally in what they perceive as their best interest. Maybe they're just following the U.S. lead.
I honestly believe the rule of international law is an important value, but also believe the U.S. could stand some introspection on this very same point. And as for Microsoft, I can't tell that the company has learned anything from its run-in with the Justice Department, except for how to be sneakier in extending its monopoly, a reinforced appreciation for the power of public perception, and perhaps a clearer understanding of why it's worthwhile to donate generously to politicians who don't believe that the power of large businesses should in any way be restrained.
Brazil in the 80s (Score:3, Informative)
Eventually, the exception system was widely abused. Some companies used the protection to develop, some companies suffered of the lack of competition.
Horrible idea. How are they going to enforce it? (Score:3, Insightful)
Obviously, they can't go by lines of code with closed source systems.
Ultimately this could backfire and cause the computer industry there stagnate as
A) companies spend time writing applications that they don't need to write in order to maintain quotas. It would be better for Chinese coders to spend time writing code that actually needs to be written and
B) it means people actually need to worry about software was written. That requires a lot more information and checking. Chinese OEMs, VARs, etc, are going to have to spend a lot of time (read: money) on figuring out where all this code comes from.
Any time you add an "unnatural" regulation, you're creating a lot of expenses beyond what it would cost simply to comply by forcing people to figure out if they're complying.
A "natural" regulation is something like "don't drive over 75mph" or "you must add iodine to salt if you produce it". It's obvious if you're driving over 75, and it's obvious if you're adding iodine to your salt. Pretty much any taxation would be an example of an "unnatural" regulation. It's natural to simply give the person all the money for the job they do, and it takes a lot of work to figure out how much you owe in taxes. And it creates a huge infrastructure (and cost) in collecting and enforcing those taxes.
Of course, it's a gradient, but I'd say this requirement is pretty unnatural. How do they figure OSS with or without some Chinese contributors? What about code from US companies with outsourcing operations in China? It seems like a big mess to me.
One easy way to do it would be to require that 70% of licensing fees go to Chinese companies. It's pretty obvious who you're paying, and it would certainly accelerate the adoption of OSS in the middle kingdom
EU has done this in 1989 (Score:4, Informative)
That Directive requires that European broadcasters reserve a majority of broadcast time for European works.
If China is attacked under WTO rules, they can point to this unfortunate precedent for cultural protectionism.
Please, RTFA! (Score:3, Informative)
The problem with most of the replies here is that they didn't read the article.
requiring a minimum percentage of software purchased by the government be produced in China
So, please, don't cry about companies not being able to choose the best tool. They can. It's more like the decision of the Munich local government. But it seems most of the US-based commenters lose their ability of independent thoughts when it comes to China.
I am not going to read these comments (Score:5, Insightful)
They only allow free trade when it serves their interest. This is not to say they are the only ones, because the EU also protects their markets wherever they can.
Only Americans seem to think that the US allows free trade, which it doesn't. The only countries that swallowed this load of crap and opened their boarders to foreign products were developing and least developed nations.
While the EU and the US heavily protect their markets (mainly through subsidies, 'cause they can afford to) in some areas China is now doing the same in other areas.
What China is doing is bad, but they are just following up on the example set by the US.
WTO needs to be disbanded (Score:3, Interesting)
The WTO is running around acting like a sovereign nation, dictating what the entire world must do, at the least common denominator.
China is a independent nation, they shouldn't bend over due some 'committee'.
Re:Article Text, Site Slow (Score:3, Funny)