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Pastimes : The New Qualcomm - write what you like thread. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (9221)	1/19/2010 2:59:51 PM
From: Art Bechhoefer	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 12235

The whole censorship idea is not new, nor is it confined to China. Thinking about Avatar, which I saw in the 3D version, and the Chinese decision to ban the 2D, made me recall that Verdi's opera, A Masked Ball, was also banned until some important corrections were made (having to do with the notion that a king, any king for that matter, could be assassinated like any other person, when kings were deemed special and immune to such treatment). But the fact that other countries in other times have banned works of art, or whatever one chooses to call them, should not detract from Chinese policies that lead to unfair competition and unfair business practices. It is a long standing fact that Chinese businesses like to copy things protected by copyrights. They do this with movies, books, software, or anything they'd like to sell without constraints on profits from having to go through the needless and profitless work of adhering to international law. The U.S. should take a strong stand on these issues, in contrast to what it has done over the past decade. For example, concerning Qualcomm, when the U.S. displayed too much support for the independent candidate for prime minister in Taiwan, the Chinese adopted policies that relegated the QCOM CDMA business to a minor role in the growth of wireless communication. This was clearly intended to show the U.S. that unfriendly policies toward China would be felt in the form of less business opportunities for U.S. businesses. Other countries defer to the Chinese as well, as one may recall recently, when the Dalai Lama was denied an official visit with top officials in several countries that were worried about future business in China. And in the U.S., there seems to be little interest in the issue of heavily polluting Chinese industries being able to drive business away from U.S. companies, which have to spend more on pollution controls than Chinese companies do. No thought of compensatory environmental taxes here, or anything else that might engender an unfavorable reaction from the Chinese. Nor are there anything more than words spoken concerning the artificially pegged rate of exchange between the yuan and the dollar. There is no need for all this kowtowing. If anything, it makes matters worse by conveying a feeling of weakness. And it encourages illegal copying and sales of items using proprietary technology developed outside China -- for no return whatsoever to the innovators whose business is innovation. A stiffer policy toward these abuses need not be announced publicly. It need only take place in the form of (1) delays getting Chinese exports through customs, (2) behind the scenes pressures to show tangible results against piracy of intellectual property, or (3) outright compensatory environmental fees (don't call it raising tariffs) to even the pollution playing field. Put another way, there are legitimate ways to send a message. And the message needs to be sent. Art