Applications by Chinese companies see 200-fold increase since 1999 https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Comment/Data-suspicions-threaten-to-tear-China-and-west-apart Analysts say that if Beijing's security organizations want an individual's data, they will get it, despite personal privacy laws. (Source photos by Wataru Ito and Kosaku Mimura) JAMES KYNGE April 1, 2021 China is shooting for the sky in its ambitions to secure patents for innovative technologies and products. But even as it unveils world-beating goals, analysts in the West are asking with increasing urgency whether they can trust Chinese technology in a networked world. In the latest statement of intent, Ge Shu, a director at the State Intellectual Property Office, was quoted this week as saying that China aims to register 12 "high-value innovative" patents per 10,000 head of population by 2025, up from 6.3 in 2020 and 3.9 in 2015. The motivation behind the goal is clear. "This will mean that the innovative capacity of our country is greatly improved and the gap between [China] and the U.S. and Japan is narrowed," Xinhua, the official news agency, quoted Ge as adding. Judging by the current trajectory, China may well achieve its aim. In 2020, Chinese companies led the league table of applications for international patents at the World Intellectual Property Organization, a UN agency. But more impressive than the overall number of patents that Chinese companies applied for was a growth rate in applications of 16.1% from a year ago -- by far the quickest rate of any major economy. Since 1999, Chinese companies have registered more than a 200-fold increase in patent applications to WIPO, a much faster rate of increase than the companies of any other country. The same trend is evident in Europe. Data from the European Patent Office shows that patent awards to Chinese companies rose 10% in 2020, faster than for any other large economy. On its current trajectory, China could challenge Germany and Japan to rank second to the U.S. in seven years in terms of annual patent applications to the EPO. All of this reveals an unambiguous shift. Centuries after falling behind, the country that once gave the world the "four great inventions" -- gunpowder, papermaking, printing and the compass -- is now close to reasserting leadership in global innovation. But just as this happens, deepening suspicion over data privacy and cybersecurity is hampering the uptake of Chinese innovative technologies in the West. This is potentially damaging to China's prospects because the majority of the patents it has won from international bodies in recent years are in networked technologies that collect user data. "Critical and strategic technology sectors include areas like smart cities and smart cars where the data collection involved can be so pronounced that who is doing the collecting matters more than ever," said Danielle Cave, deputy director of the international cyber policy center at ASPI, an Australian think tank. Cave added that a fundamental bifurcation may emerge in the world between technology and vendors that are trusted to safeguard data privacy and those that are not. In such a climate, increased consideration is likely to be focused on the rules, laws and norms that govern a company's home environment, she added. This is where China is particularly exposed. Its domestic laws require companies to hand over data whenever the state requires it. The National Intelligence Law, for example, says that "any organization or citizen shall support, assist and cooperate with the state intelligence work in accordance with the law." Although China is planning to adopt a Personal Information and Protection Law to provide safeguards on individual data privacy, it is unclear how watertight this may be. Several analysts said that if Beijing's security organizations wish to access an individual's data, they will have no trouble in doing so even after the law is passed. Such suspicions inform a hardening attitude in the U.S. toward global communication networks. "The United States and China are competing over who designs, builds, and sets the standards for global networks," wrote Jonathan Hillman and Laura Rivas in a new report for CSIS, a Washington-based think tank. "The next decade could be decisive," the authors added. Such attitudes pose a particular challenge to countries and companies in Asia. Almost all large Asian tech companies have a presence in China and sell products and services into the booming Chinese market. The technologies they have developed are as applicable to China as to anywhere else. Disentangling a mass of overlapping linkages between China and the outside world in intellectual property, capital markets, sales networks and other systems may not be possible. More likely is a decade of stops and starts characterized by messy delinking in some areas, cooperation in others and mutual suspicion in still others
"are asking with increasing urgency whether they can trust Chinese technology" How is this even a question? Everyone knows, or should know, the obvious answer.
So do you trust US tech any better? Both are as bad as each other, the authorities have a hotline into all of the tech firms, regardless of what the laws say.
There are marginally better protections in the US. I am also much more comfortable with Zuck having my info (theoretically, I don't use his products) than someone in China. The more significant issue is the extensive track record of constant lying, cheating, and outright fraud. These things do exist in other parts of the world but seem more pronounced with Chinese stocks/companies. Better opportunities elsewhere.
Assuming you're in the US, the Chinese government won't and can't sanction/cancel you for 'bad' data on their servers, while the US can. Same in reverse. I'd personally trust the Chinese far more with my data (using the argument above) than my own government and I'm no commie lover. The Chinese government has no power over me (assuming I'm not in China). This is the sad state of the world we're in now, where many 'trust' the commies more than their own governments when it comes to their personal data... As for the trusting the tech firms re investing, that's a different question, or maybe in my first post, I didn't answer correctly to your point. So yes, I agree with you if you're talking about investing. Trust Western tech companies far more than commie ones. Too much monkey business as you rightly point out.
Nobody is talking about Chinese companies stealing your data, it's of no use to them assuming you're not Chinese/living in the West. My point is simple, China is far less of a personal threat having my data via using their tech products than US/Euro companies who are abusing it like nobodies business, and will continue to do so. I therefore wouldn't be surprised if there's a general shift over the coming decade for people in the West to use Chinese tech for the reasons listed above, and the canny Chinese probably know it...
I'm not so sure I share your degree of confidence in Chinese companies or their government. chinese-hackers-charged-in-alleged-cyber-theft-of-145-million-americans-data
That's hacking Phil, not the abuse of personal data by a corporation/country. Stick with CuckZuck and all the other creepy Fag Valley companies, they're on your side...