I'm curious, is there a list somewhere of these world-changing industrial espionage incidents? Here's two more I remember off the top of my head. Not sure why the top results are the Smithsonian Magazine but here are some links:
The Brazilian monopoly suffered a fatal blow in 1876. In that year the English explorer Sir Henry Wickham (1800–67) gathered about 70,000 seeds from wild rubber trees in the forest close to the city of Santarem, in the state of Para. Wickham smuggled the seeds out of Brazil and took them to Kew Gardens, London, where they were sown. Many of them germinated, and 3,000 seedlings were sent from London to Ceylon (now Sri Lanka). In 1877, 22 rubber plants were sent from Ceylon to the Singapore Botanic Gardens. The trees were growing there when in 1888 Sir Henry Nicholas Ridley (1855–1956) arrived as the gardens' first scientific director. Ridley spent years studying the trees, and in 1895 he discovered a technique for tapping the latex without seriously harming the tree. That made it practicable to cultivate the trees commercially. In 1890 Ridley exhibited the first cultivated rubber trees, and in 1896 the first rubber plantations were established in Malaysia. Most of the trees were grown from Ridley's seeds. Growers went on to produce hardier, disease-resistant varieties, and large rubber plantations were developed in Ceylon and Singapore as well as Malaysia.
This similar to Chinas stand on IP: copying is ok so long it doesn't happen to our IP. But this is how small economies can grow quickly, by ignoring IP. So nearly every western nation had a period of ignoring copyright and/or IP.
“Foreigners seemed to prefer having a mixture of Prussian blue and gypsum with their tea, to make it look uniform and pretty, and as these ingredients were cheap enough, the Chinese [have] no objection to [supplying] them as such teas always fetch . . . a higher price!”
This quote and the preceding paragraph about the distrust of the Chinese tea manufacturers are quite something. I hadn't considered the "made in China" stereotype for quality had been around for centuries.
Historically (before ~1800 let's say) China was known for its very high-quality goods. In fact, the Silk Road trade and later trade with the Spanish was almost exclusively Chinese goods flowing out and gold and silver specie flowing in - mainly because their domestic production was good enough that foreign goods couldn't compete. This was enough of a thing that the Romans became concerned at the amount of specie flowing out of the empire to pay for silk and other Chinese goods.
mainly because their domestic production was good enough that foreign goods couldn't compete
Most international trade (well intercontinental anyway) was restricted almost exclusively to luxury goods. And Europe didn't have to export in that regard besides glassware up until the 19th century. Transportation costs were way too high to export/import anything that might have taken up more space across long distances (especially over land).
After the industrial revolution imports to China remained at relatively very low levels due to heavily protectionist policies by the imperial government until the opium wars.
Obviously opium was the most egregious example and by modern standards China clearly had the right to restrict its imports. Opium just happened to be the most profitable one, however importing anything else (like cotton, furs, steel tools, mechanical items) besides gold/silver was very hard as well which why (amongst other thing) many Chinese people living on the coast weren't that keen on supporting the government (of course China was in sate of near permanent civil war and endless revolts during most of the century).
This is was the reason for the Opium Wars with the English. The English wanted Chinas tea but the Chinese didn't want anything from the English so the English were bleeding gold and silver into China.
So the English forced Opium onto the people of China against the will of the King of China. China rebelled, the English conquered and forced the Chinese to open their ports and accept Indian-grown opium as trade for Chinese tea.
That continued until the English found the secret plants that made the Chinese tea. They stole those plants and planted them in India.
That's a very dramatic narrative. As if the English or the Chinese were united among themselves. As if Chinese traders and smugglers didn't collude, or that the opium ban was a purely moral one and not commercial.
Depends on which storyteller you listen to. The English would tell you that the Chinese were being unfair in their trade and had it coming it to them (the wars). The Chinese would tell you that they have had a century of humiliation[1].
Somewhere inbetween those stories lies the truth. However as with the current crisis, it was the English that invaded with their Navy, that would make them the aggressor and hence the bad-~guy~human. Taking todays value system and applying it to events that happened some 180 years ago.
The fact that the world's production of nutmeg until the 19th century was restricted only to the remote Banda islands I think falls in that category. The Dutch protected their source with vigilance.
Or just a List_of_ article or even just a category on Wikipedia. There are mentions, sometimes articles dedicated to, other cases but not organized across the topic that I can see, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#History
I cant recall where you can see footage, maybe on the documentary "Murder Mountain" where they talk about smuggling Cannabis seeds from Afghanistan to California in the 1960s or 1970s by sewing the seeds into the edge-trimming-folds of (wallets?) to get the seeds into the US... then creating cannabis farms in mendocino county california...
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I'm curious, is there a list somewhere of these world-changing industrial espionage incidents? Here's two more I remember off the top of my head. Not sure why the top results are the Smithsonian Magazine but here are some links:
Samuel Slater brings cotton mill technology to America in 1789: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-industrial-esp...
Robert Fortune learns Chinese tea production methods and brings them to British India in 1848: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/the-great-british-tea...
Someone (maybe you!) should write a book about this!
Theres the smuggling of wild rubber tree seeds, which eventually got to Malaysia.
https://geography.name/how-rubber-moved-to-asia/
The US actually encouraged "IP theft" well into the 19th century and did not recognise foreign copyright.
On their side the UK not only banned export of certain technologies to the US but they also banned emigration of the people knowledgeable about them.
This similar to Chinas stand on IP: copying is ok so long it doesn't happen to our IP. But this is how small economies can grow quickly, by ignoring IP. So nearly every western nation had a period of ignoring copyright and/or IP.
That not so weird Taiwan does the exactly the same with their semi conductor engineers that want to go to China.
This quote and the preceding paragraph about the distrust of the Chinese tea manufacturers are quite something. I hadn't considered the "made in China" stereotype for quality had been around for centuries.
Historically (before ~1800 let's say) China was known for its very high-quality goods. In fact, the Silk Road trade and later trade with the Spanish was almost exclusively Chinese goods flowing out and gold and silver specie flowing in - mainly because their domestic production was good enough that foreign goods couldn't compete. This was enough of a thing that the Romans became concerned at the amount of specie flowing out of the empire to pay for silk and other Chinese goods.
Most international trade (well intercontinental anyway) was restricted almost exclusively to luxury goods. And Europe didn't have to export in that regard besides glassware up until the 19th century. Transportation costs were way too high to export/import anything that might have taken up more space across long distances (especially over land).
After the industrial revolution imports to China remained at relatively very low levels due to heavily protectionist policies by the imperial government until the opium wars.
Obviously opium was the most egregious example and by modern standards China clearly had the right to restrict its imports. Opium just happened to be the most profitable one, however importing anything else (like cotton, furs, steel tools, mechanical items) besides gold/silver was very hard as well which why (amongst other thing) many Chinese people living on the coast weren't that keen on supporting the government (of course China was in sate of near permanent civil war and endless revolts during most of the century).
This is was the reason for the Opium Wars with the English. The English wanted Chinas tea but the Chinese didn't want anything from the English so the English were bleeding gold and silver into China.
So the English forced Opium onto the people of China against the will of the King of China. China rebelled, the English conquered and forced the Chinese to open their ports and accept Indian-grown opium as trade for Chinese tea.
That continued until the English found the secret plants that made the Chinese tea. They stole those plants and planted them in India.
That's a very dramatic narrative. As if the English or the Chinese were united among themselves. As if Chinese traders and smugglers didn't collude, or that the opium ban was a purely moral one and not commercial.
Depends on which storyteller you listen to. The English would tell you that the Chinese were being unfair in their trade and had it coming it to them (the wars). The Chinese would tell you that they have had a century of humiliation[1].
Somewhere inbetween those stories lies the truth. However as with the current crisis, it was the English that invaded with their Navy, that would make them the aggressor and hence the bad-~guy~human. Taking todays value system and applying it to events that happened some 180 years ago.
[1] = https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Century_of_humiliation
The fact that the world's production of nutmeg until the 19th century was restricted only to the remote Banda islands I think falls in that category. The Dutch protected their source with vigilance.
Or just a List_of_ article or even just a category on Wikipedia. There are mentions, sometimes articles dedicated to, other cases but not organized across the topic that I can see, for example https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_espionage#History
I cant recall where you can see footage, maybe on the documentary "Murder Mountain" where they talk about smuggling Cannabis seeds from Afghanistan to California in the 1960s or 1970s by sewing the seeds into the edge-trimming-folds of (wallets?) to get the seeds into the US... then creating cannabis farms in mendocino county california...