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The Jingoistic tone of this article is pretty distasteful
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What a terrible article. Lots of unprovable allegations and over-the-top adjectives, very light on actual facts. Looks like it was written by representatives for the prosecution or DuPont.

The author throws "America" and "China" in there, and seems to assume that that’s enough to prove guilt.

It's a story about industrial espionage, it includes allegations and claims from both sides; what did you expect, Xinhua news?
I find it fascinating that the article never uses that term. It comes close to it, using "economic espionage" twice, but otherwise refers to the activity as trade-secret theft, or just "plain" theft.

Which it is, of course. But I couldn't shake the feeling that the author, and likely the editor too, have both made sure to avoid calling it industrial espionage. To me that term would have a very loaded connotation: "Company X is competing in an industry, and have inferior technology to someone else. Of course they will resort to espionage. They would be stupid and financially irresponsible not to."

Or maybe I'm just too cynical and jaded.

No, this is a great article, because it shows that America is good and China is bad. Dupont are the innocent party here, they've been wronged, and we should pity them. Maybe we should start a kickstarter to try to raise some money for them?
It's probably a submarine article commissioned by Dupont's PR firm.
"It’s about stealing something you can make a buck off of. It’s part of a strategy to profit off what American ingenuity creates."

This may be a quote of the assistant attorney general of the U.S. Department of Justice’s national security division which can be easily ignored but the next paragraph just makes it seem like the author wants you to accept the quote as fact.

"A 2013 study estimated that China accounted for as much as 80 percent of the $300 billion in losses sustained by U.S. companies from the theft of intellectual property."

What absolute nonsense. It truly makes this article come across as American propaganda.

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Do you have facts that counter that 80 percent number? I'm curious why you think the Chinese aren't stealing American intellectual property. It's not propaganda if it's true, and everything I've seen indicates that the Chinese are trying to steal American IP on a regular basis, so please state anything you know that counters this article.
The claim is about as hollow as the claim that software and media companies lose exorbitant amounts of money due to piracy. No, a large portion of that revenue would have been non-existent anyway for a number of reasons.

It reminds me of the time I attended the annual American Chamber of Commerce Asia conference in 2010, that year in Beijing. One of the keynote speakers was the Asia CEO for Honeywell. They went into China, tried to localize their products, and were slaughtered by copycats. He said a common saying among those copycats was that Honeywell created the market demand for industrial products that previously didn't actually exist in China before, but it took Chinese companies to supply products that actually met market needs at prices customers were willing to pay. Honeywell didn't cry foul and pout. They revised their R&D strategy to be able to make good local products from the ground up and fought back the way market competition should happen. He said the lessons they learned now form the base of their strategy for entering any new foreign markets.

Yeah, there are all sorts of shenanigans that can happen everywhere. The question should always be how do you fight back and win with something superior, not how do you cry foul.

So you're claiming that having people prosecuted for theft of IP is "pouting" and that companies should just accept it and not complain? So if I came to your company and stole all of your trade secrets you'd just say "Well played, I guess I'll just have to compete better!" Interesting.
Do bear in mind that DuPont got started with TiO2 by taking a patented process and just using it, screwing the Australian license holders.

Funny how they cry foul when the shoe is on the other foot.

I'm surprised that a lot of the leaked information about DuPont's process came from disgruntled ex-employees. Surely DuPont's problem is with those ex-employees leaking sensitive information than anything else.
Expect a lot more disgruntled employees now that DuPont is merging with Dow.
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The article liberally drops anti-Chinese sentiment at every paragraph. Things like:

"Of Chinese heritage, Liew was born in Malaysia in August 1957."

That would be the equivalent of writing:

"Of Kenyan heritage, Obama was born in the USA".

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I don't disagree with you. However the article does bring up a topic that isn't discussed that often yet.

Where do the loyalties of naturalized US (and Canadian) citizens truely lie? I feel that this was less of an issue until the US began allowing dual citizenships i.e. you no longer have to renounce citizenship from your country of origin in order to become a US citizen / you can become a citizen of another country and still be a US citizen. On the surface, you'd expect this to be simple; these individuals would be most loyal to the US... As a naturalized US citizen of Chinese descent, I've had some interesting conversations with other naturalized US citizens of Chinese descent that would show that it's more complicated than that.

I'm not sure how, but the topic of "what would happen if China and the US ever declared war on each other?" came up. To my surprise, the other naturalized Chinese Americans told me that they would be conflicted as to who they would support. For context, these are educated people with post-grad degrees from places like Berkeley with occupations to match. They also seem completely naturalized with accents that would fool people into thinking they were born and raised here. The kicker is that neither person was born or raised in China but each grew up in some Southeast Asian country, yet they're essentially comtemplating treason solely due to their race. I found it strange. Since what I have is just anecdotal, I'm guessing (and hoping) that most naturalized US citizens are way more loyal than that and I feel that Chinese Americans born and raised in the US don't have this issue at all. Still I have a feeling that this is probably only going to get worse when you have stuff like birth tourism happening i.e. You get US citizens who spend most of their lives in a foreign country resulting in loyalties to that foreign country

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/05/01/china-us-birth-tour...

To be fair, China isn't the only country related to this issue. I could be wrong but the US probably has the same problem with dual citizenships involving Russia, Israel, Turkey, or any other country that isn't 100% aligned with US interests

Of course, this has a fix. Just don't allow dual citizenships in the US. Force people to choose.

This is the same thinking that put hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans in concentration camps.
How would ending dual citizenship lead to internment camps? Did you even fully read my comment?
Because you buy into the idea of opposing ideologies, of national identity, of otherness, of suspicion based on nationality.

You can, rather, look at this from the perspective of arguing parents, where they want you to pick one or the other. The only way to win is to not play, and to derive identity from your self, rather than what patch of dirt you happened to be born upon.

> Because you buy into the idea of opposing ideologies, of national identity

In an ideal world, we wouldn't have things like this or racism; but it's extremely naive to pretend it doesn't exist. If you have any familiarity with current events in East Asia, you'll know that nationalism is on the rise.

On a related note, did you not read this portion of my comment? "I'm guessing (and hoping) that most naturalized US citizens are way more loyal than that and I feel that Chinese Americans born and raised in the US don't have this issue at all." Everything isn't black and white.

> You can, rather, look at this from the perspective of arguing parents, where they want you to pick one or the other. The only way to win is to not play, and to derive identity from your self, rather than what patch of dirt you happened to be born upon.

There are multiple problems with this analogy. 1. You only get the 3rd choice if you're willing not to live in either parent's house when we're talking countries. 2. Another problem is that you're looking at this from a Western perspective. In the East, especially in Asia; you derive your identify more from the group and not the individual; so if you consider yourself more 'Chinese' than 'American', you're going to symphatize more with one side. It's a different culture that you're obviously not familiar with.

Actually, grew up in Hong Kong and Beijing, and am of no particular culture, so saw this all the time. I know it's the reality, but it doesn't make it right.
I never said it was right. I'm just not ignoring it and pretending it doesn't exist.

I also don't appreciate being made to look like I'm demonizing ALL naturalized US citizens, when I've made it very clear that I wasn't, especially since I'm one of them. Really, you should fully read a comment before making a rash post. This isn't reddit.

> what would happen if China and the US ever declared war on each other?

> they're essentially comtemplating treason solely due to their race.

Do you realize how racist you sound? You sound the same as the people who would put Japanese-Americans in internment camps but not German-Americans or Italian-Americans.

How exactly am I racist? I'm just repeating what they said. If they had to choose sides, they wouldn't know who to choose (because on the one hand they're Chinese, while at the same time they identify with US culture). It wasn't committed, but it is the contemplation of treason which is insane since the only given rationale was their race. At least with mainland Chinese they can logically point out that they were born and raised there.

> You sound the same as the people who would put Japanese-Americans in internment camps but not German-Americans or Italian-Americans.

Considering I'm also of Chinese descent, I obviously don't want that. I guess you didn't read my entire comment, since I also mention countries besides China? You're making a really strong and ridiculous assumption about me with a really shitty accusation. It's even more annoying when I've proposed ending dual citizenship as the solution. Please read comments fully before responding.

No. You certainly arent racist, and loyalties are very much a question for expatriate communities. Certainly in mine. For example, I can imagine people doing softer things such as irrationally advocating in support of their native land.
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> Where do the loyalties of naturalized US (and Canadian) citizens truely lie?

See, for example, the Cricket Test. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cricket_test

> The cricket test, also known as the Tebbit test, was a controversial phrase coined in April 1990 by the British Conservative politician Norman Tebbit in reference to the perceived lack of loyalty to the England cricket team among South Asian and Caribbean immigrants and their children. Tebbit suggested that those immigrants who support their native countries rather than England at the sport of cricket are not significantly integrated into the United Kingdom.[1]

I think it's dumb, but a bunch of English people at the time seemed to think it was useful and relevant.

Supporting a country in cricket and supporting a country in a war are two very different things. To be very clear, we weren't talking about cricket, soccer, or the Olympics; so bringing it up is useless.

That's the thing about dual citizenship. It's not irrational to support your country of origin, unless you're part of a class of persecuted people. That is the place where you were born and raised, and where you derive your (initial) cultural values which you may or may not keep.

http://www.latimes.com/opinion/editorials/la-ed-dual-citizen...

"But the concept of dual citizenship is problematic both symbolically and practically, and could become divisive if more immigrants decide to avail themselves of the privileges of U.S. citizens — as we believe they ought to do. U.S citizens with strong ties to their ancestral countries have been accused of divided loyalties in the past even when they didn't possess citizenship in those countries — witness the internment of 110,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans during World War II. But when a U.S. citizen is also a citizen of another country, the accusation is even easier to make."

Ending dual citizenship would help prevent a future version of Japanese internment in the US.

The better solution would be to not have people be 'loyal' to any country at all. The whole thing is just a way to be able to demand all kinds of services where no obligation to provide should exist in the first place and where - usually - there is no loyalty in the reverse direction.

Any country that wants my loyalty to a flag or some abstract concept has lost my vote of confidence right at the gate. Countries - just like people - should be judged by their actions and loyalty should be earned rather than demanded.

Like completely ending corruption or racism, it would be a better solution, but is it a realistic one that you can achieve within a decade?

> countries - just like people - should be judged by their actions and loyalty should be earned rather than demanded.

I agree. On that note, maintaining a dual citizenship is an action that will be judged. Even with the constant influx of immigrants, it's rare to see. Less than half of 1% of a population of about 300 million people maintain dual citizenships. Most immigrants that attain US citizenship do not maintain a dual one.

Considering that overwhelming evidence that he was a paid agent of the Chinese government who was recruited on the basis of his ethnicity, it seems highly relevant.
This brings the movie The Spanish Prisoner to mind.
I like how the DoJ makes it sound like spying is fine and dandy, but theft? Well, we can't have that...
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