recent DISCUSSION

• Mattias Ganslandt says:

  A few comments: (1) I have never come across an example of a government that pursues a ”strategic” policy in the international arena in the interest of consumers. Whenever governments use the s-word it means rent extraction, either for domestic firms or for political stakeholders, (2) As a general rule small countries, SMEs and consumers benefit from a rule-based global system as opposed to a strategic political game between geopolitical giants, (3) Evidence that unilateral innovation systems should be superior to a global, reciprocal, system based on “national treatment” is simply lacking. I would argue that the case for global innovation incentives is particularly strong in the ICT sector, due to a combination of supply and demand factors. For truly global technologies, services and goods it makes sense to have truly global rules.
• vanessayzhang says:

  Mattias, It’s an interesting piece on the strategies of ICT standardization set by the Chinese policy makers. The Chinese officials have also publicly expressed their desire to reduce their reliance on foreign standards as well as their dependency on foreign IPRs. As a strategic sector in China, ICT may attract political attention and ICT standardisation would be enhanced by its laws, regulations and rules. China has revised the Patent Law and is currently updating the Telecommunications Law. In addition, the authority has recently advanced the implementation of the Anti-Monopoly Law and included antitrust enforcement in the IPR field in the draft guidelines. It is clear that strategic ICT standardization is a one-way decision for the Chinese government.
• arebentisch says:

  “The first is to reduce the cost of foreign technology, particularly by reducing the burdened of royalty payments to foreign IPR holders by Chinese businesses, for example in the DVD industry. Second, some areas within the ICT industry suffer from dependency on foreign standards not adapted to Chinese interests.” — In theory that is the natural thing to do for a government, to reduce strategic dependencies of their economy. It is exactly the opposite of protectionism but it may follow from a protectionist mindset. So the question is: Why doesn’t the EU follow the same path given the strong strategic dependencies of EU markets in the field of ICT? What are the actual obstacles for a pro-competitive market approach in Europe? The most simple answer is that lowering dependencies does not pay off for the official and implies conflicts with foreign business stakeholders who operate in Brussels as if they were on domestic grounds, at times even supported by undue intervention from third nations into the inner affairs of the Union and (real or perceived) trade pressure. Additionally a Polish colleague recently spoke of a “Comprador Bourgeoisie” attitude that is responsible for the capture of regulators. I guess it is more simple. European industrial policy officials actually follow the neo-merkantillist mindset of dependency-creation. In markets where European market players, in the field of ICT with a strong ICT component, face harmful dependencies they do not follow the interest of their constituency because public servants always follow what they perceive as a dominant force (while SME market players and consumers are usually underrepresented in Brussels). That bias of officials should be the same in China, however, a) there is an access barrier for foreign stakeholder b) China is independent and self-sufficient, feels powerful. c) strategic thinking is part of the business and administrative culture. On the EU level the change of mind is just a matter of time.