GE Venture Will Share Jet Technology With China 266
A user writes "This week, during the visit of Chinese president Hu Jintao to the United States, GE plans to sign a joint-venture agreement in commercial aviation that shows the tricky risk-and-reward calculations American corporations must increasingly make in their pursuit of lucrative markets in China. GE, in partnership with a state-owned Chinese company, will be sharing its most sophisticated airplane electronics (NYT reg. required, reg.-free alternative here), including some of the same technology used in Boeing's new state-of-the-art 787 Dreamliner."
You can see where this is going... (Score:5, Interesting)
"The Capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them." -- Vladimir Ilyich Lenin
Re:Good deal for China (Score:2, Interesting)
You have a disturbing fondness for graphic rape analogies.
Re:Repeating history (Score:4, Interesting)
More specifically jet technologies like the WS-10, an engine which is a nut-for-bolt ripoff of the Russian AL-31.
By now Chinese companies are famous for making partnerships with foreign firms and then burning their partners once they think they can get away with it. Whoever made this decision at GE is an idiot.
Re:Repeating history (Score:4, Interesting)
Give me a break? You buy this drivel?
It's not drivel; I'm just pointing out that there's nothing "irresponsible" about a company selling its crown jewels if it can make a short-term profit, because that's all its owners care about. Maybe you don't like it, but you don't own the company. I don't like it either, but I don't own GE (nor do I hold any stock in it).
You just made the case that because our system is set-up to externalize as many costs as possible in favor of short-term profit, it must be OK.
I never made any moral judgments, I only pointed out that the players in the system are doing exactly what they're supposed to do. If you don't like it, you need to change the system. (Good luck with that; our elected leaders like things the way they are.)
In the technology world, we have an entire industry dedicated to figuring out the impact of technological change on society and the human implications of that change. It's called Science Fiction. We think about what could happen; what could go wrong; what could go right and we write millions of stories about it.
Yes, of course. There's many good stories that I think offer a pretty good glimpse into what our future is like. The movie "Blade Runner" I think shows an accurate view of what cities in America will look like in 20 years, for instance.
Read, for instance, stories about Chinese Mothering [wsj.com] to see where the individual is repressed to favor some other goal of more immediate and concrete utility. If mothers are forcing their wills relentlessly on their children all over China, what lessons does the Chinese ruling class take to it's job of governing and use of its increasing power? Since most of us aren't in the ruling class, we have a lot to lose if they become the next hegemony.
Yes, they're more interested in the good (and success) of society; the happiness of the individual is unimportant. If a few kids get depressed and kill themselves, so what? There's plenty more to replace those. However, it seems to be a successful strategy so far, so we probably better get used to not being top dog any more. I certainly wouldn't want to live that way, but I can't say that their system is a failure.
It's taken a lot of hard, expensive work and lives were lost in developing the technologies that gave us the edge to "win" the cold war. Now we're bartering this long-term advantage for some short-term profits? And you say this is justified?
I never said it was "justified", only "responsible" (to the people who own the company).
I see this as a sign that we're circling the drain. Our grandparents' generation would recognize this for what it is: Treason.
What makes it treason? Giving away important technology? Where do you draw the line? Was it treason when garment manufacturers moved manufacturing operations offshore? Is it treason to buy food produced in other countries? Is it treason to have software developed in India? Exactly what international trade is treason, and what isn't? How do you determine that? Some people seem to think buying a Japanese car is "treason", but buying an American car (made in Hermosillo, Mexico) isn't, even if the Japanese car is made in Mississippi. Do we need to seal the borders and stop all trade in order to not be treasonous? That would kinda suck for anyone needing gasoline, since we can't produce enough for our demand.
I see this as a sign that we're circling the drain.
Of course we're circling the drain, but the causes are many and complex, not just because one company is selling some avionics technology to the Chinese. At many levels, and for many reasons, our society is regressing, and is no longer able to compete with the Chinese.
My advice? Get out while you can.
Re:Repeating history (Score:4, Interesting)