China passes US in IT race
p2p news / p2pnet: Communist China has overtaken the US as the world’s top exporter of laptops, mobile phones and “other information and communications technology devices in 2004,” says the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
“China exported $180 billion worth of so-called ICT goods in 2004, compared with U.S. exports of $149 billion, the OECD,” Reuters quotes it as saying.
“OECD officials said that China was likely to take top spot in 2005 too, but hard proof would take many months to collect,” it says, going on:
“The United States was world leader in 2003 with $137 billion worth of exports of ICT goods, followed by China with $123 billion, the OECD said in a statement.”
China used to rely heavily on Europe and America for computer chips and other components, “but is now turning to suppliers in Japan, Taipei, South Korea and Malaysia, the OECD said, adds Reuters.
Also read:-
Reuters – China Trumps US as Top PC, Phone Exporter, December 12, 2005
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December 13th, 2005 at 6:31 am
Why is this a suprise or even noteworthy? It is the direction that the US has been headed in with all this IP protection. At this early a date is the only suprise. The roping off of IP in both applications and ideas can only lead here. You can’t borrow from a previous idea, you can’t use a patented idea, that means either you got to discover a new way to do it or abandon the idea completely.
All new inventions are based on old work. Now that old work never reaches the public domain, there is nothing to work with to allow new inventions. Instead those countries that don’t hold the reigns so tight on patents find that they are inventing and having need of newer technology to continue.
The US forgets that it was once in the same place as China. It did not honor copyrights from foriegn countries and had an aboundance of works that were literally ripped off from prior works. Now that corporations have established themselves at the top of the food chain, all has changed.
No need to weep that they follow in the same footsteps as those before them. No one can read the writing on the wall to decipher that others have stood at this doorstep before them. Alas, they also can not see where that footstep leads once again. What a shame.