“Microsoft Corp.’s revenue in China this year will be about 5% of what it gets in the U.S. even though personal-computer sales in the two countries are almost equal”, according to Steve Ballmer (in the Wall Street Journal).
Foreign buyers also suffer from China’s lack of respect for their intellectual property rights (their designs, their drawings, their samples, their brand names…).
When a Chinese manufacturer makes a product according an importer’s design, it usually tries to sell the exact same thing to other companies. Worse, samples and drawings find their way in the showrooms of various intermediaries.
Only the most professional and the largest exporters pay attention to their customers’ intellectual property. With all the others, foreign buyers need to deploy a LOT of persuasion, threatening, and monitoring.
Where does this problem come from?
I read several times that the Chinese tend to consider the act of copying as flattery. Only beautiful/useful things get copied, and it is good for society…
But there is another, and probably more profound, reason.
The China Sourcing Information Center just published a thoughtful article (Cultural element to intellectual property theft in China?) that describes the absence of the concept of privacy in China:
There certainly is a different mentality in China as opposed to the West when it comes to issues of what is considered private versus public. This difference was made clear to me many years ago on my first day as an exchange student back in the 1990’s at a Chinese university located in Harbin. I returned to the dorm after lunch and found my Chinese roommate sitting at my desk with his feet on my bed, leaning back in the chair while filing through my personal belongings in the draws and on the desk.
Tim Clissold described something very similar in Mr. China. He even noted that the Chinese didn’t have a word for “privacy”.
And there is a direct relationship between this cultural trait and the disrespect of IP rights:
The same mentality extends into the business world, yet is in dramatic conflict with the western mentality of public versus private domain. Just as the room mates in the dorm had no ethical objections to using my personal items like my computer, some suppliers may not even think twice, or feel embarrassed, about using for their personal gain, what you believe to be your IP.
What do you think?
“He even noted that the Chinese didn’t have a word for “privacy”.”
hmmm, have you tried checking your English-Chinese dictionary?
隐私: yǐnsī: secrets / private business / privacy
隐私权: yǐnsīquán: privacy right
个人隐私: gèrényǐnsī: personal privacy / private matters
隐私政策: yǐnsīzhèngcè: privacy policy
Ricky,
Thanks for your comment. I admit I didn’t even ask around me to see if it was true. I am only citing from the book.
Are these words commonly used for personal (intimate) privacy? That was the meaning of the author.
I think these cultural explanations are overrated. They just want to make money — it’s that simple. They also know that (a) the courts are on their side and (b) they can’t innovate.
M,
The lack of ethical framework in today’s Chinese society also plays a role, that’s for sure… Hey, that’s another cultural explanation right there 😉
Yes, a lack of ethical framework in China is a massive issue. In my time as an expat, it’s always seemed that the places where the most theft (of IP) went down was in the various Chinatowns of the cities, where merchant families had hitmen on staff and would even steal off other family members.
Not to mention that it was always the Chinatowns were always notorious for underage brothels with trafficked girls kept in slavery.