2018年CRI US companies and scholars refute 'forced transfer of technology'

At the just concluded 2018 Yale US-China Forum 1 held in New Haven 2, Connecticut, cooperation between Chinese and American companies was a topic that drew heated discussions among guest speakers.

A number of US companies and scholars have refuted the US government's allegation that the Chinese government has forced American companies to transfer technologies to their Chinese counterparts, which have served as justifications 3 behind the US trade restrictions 4 against China.

CRI’s Washington correspondent Liu Kun has the story.

Steve Chapman is Group Vice 5 President of China & Russia Operations at Cummins, one of the world's leading diesel 6 engine manufacturers.

With his decades of experience leading the company's business in China, Cummins was able to establish several research and development centers in the country.

At this year's Yale US-China Forum, he said that technology transfer from Cummins to its Chinese partners was never forced.

It was simply a decision by the company to become more competitive locally.

"In our industry, it's part of being competitive. You know, if we want to manufacture locally and provide a competitive product to our industry, we've got to bring our technology. So we actually license 7 it to our joint 8 ventures with a partner and manufacture from there. So I just think to me, it's more of a competitive decision," said Chapman.

Another guest at the forum, Stephen Roach, is now a senior fellow at Yale and the former chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia and the firm's Chief Economist 9. 

He said the American government is distorting the facts by initiating 10 the concept of "forced transfer of technology."

"I think there's a real distortion of this idea of 'forced technology transfer' occurring within the structure of a joint venture. I was a part of a joint venture at Morgan Stanley. I wasn't forced to do it. This was a structure that we used to establish a business in China. When you build a business with a Chinese partner, of course, you are going to share the way in which you conduct your business. And if that involves some proprietary 11 knowledge of systems and technologies, then that's the cost that we had to incur 12 to do that business," said Roach.

While cooperation between Chinese and American companies was at the heart of the discussions at the forum, China's ambitious "Made in China 2025" industrial upgrading plan also created a lot of debate.

Announced by the Chinese government back in 2015, the plan has been fiercely attacked by the American government in its recent "Section 301 investigation 13" report.

To a lot of the guests at the Forum, politicizing "Made in China 2025" is to misinterpret China's intentions.

For Steve Chapman, the plan in essence shows the determination of the Chinese government to catch up with the advanced economies in the manufacturing industry.

"To me, 'Made in China 2025' is really a focus on raising the level of manufacturing: a lot of the traditional enterprises, raising it to global standards. And to me, that's not bad," said Chapman.

Instead of being confrontational 14 with the plan, Stephen Roach said there are probably opportunities American companies can tap into.

"China is developing a lot of technologies that are going to be important for the future development of the United States and any other countries around the world. Artificial intelligence, using autonomous 15 vehicles, new materials, and certainly addressing a lot of the infrastructure 16 challenges the United States needs in terms of high speed rail," said Roach.

Stephen Roach also said that the US should learn from China's push for innovation in the infrastructure sector 17.

For CRI, this is Liu Kun reporting from New Haven, Connecticut.