Adapting or...?

Does East Asia (Especially China) Copy?

In my previous post, I briefly outlined the fundamental differences—at least from our Western perspective—between our own education system and those of East Asian countries.

I believe that those who read it did not find much new information, as most of us struggle to step outside our own value systems.

However, an essential element of all East Asian education systems is the introduction of Western values while simultaneously teaching their own traditional value systems. This is not only a result of modernization but also a consequence of nearly three centuries of colonization. During that time, we in the West did not only bring back unknown objects from those regions but also value systems that quickly became integrated into European culture—as if they had always been our own. It is a well-known fact among historians that tea leaves, porcelain, brocade, and the use of pearls as jewelry all arrived in Europe from Asia.

Physiocrats, who believed that a nation’s wealth lay in the prosperity of its agricultural sector, admired contemporary Chinese economic and tax policies. Supporters of mercantilism and the practitioners of cameralist welfare policies were delighted to discover that East Asia had developed in parallel with us, using similar methods. It is less commonly known that Japan (which, like the German principalities, was not a unified country in the 18th century) implemented a gold-based monetary system as early as 1705—more than a century before Britain introduced its gold-backed pound system.

At first glance, all of this may seem irrelevant to the question posed in the title. However, the West often considered the regions targeted for colonization in East Asia to be backward compared to its own level of development. In many cases, these societies were even seen as incapable of progress—not necessarily because they were unfamiliar, but because they were fundamentally different. And difference, if not material, is often perceived as frightening or incompatible with our own values.

In the 1970s, when Japan flooded the global market with cheaper and better-quality products, it was naturally assumed that they were copying (or, more bluntly, illegally stealing) Western technology, designs, and production methods. The same accusations were made against South Korea.

Three decades later, China is now seen as the one copying and illegally using Western technology. Due to its significantly lower labor costs, it can sell its (often excellent-quality) products at lower prices on the global market.

There is one common element in this repeated argument—one underlying motivation that we are not even aware of: prejudice.

It is simply inconceivable that China (or any other non-Western country) could be better than us. If they are successful, it must be because they copy and violate Western intellectual property rights. Therefore, we impose protective tariffs, import restrictions, and non-tariff barriers on Chinese products (in both the EU and the US).

Let’s examine the flaws in this logic, motivation, and course of action.

First, China was not the first to apply the rather one-sided rules of globalization. Neoliberalism is not a characteristic of Chinese economic policy. While many debate this, China merely took advantage of two general principles that were widely established in the early 21st century: the promotion of international capital and export trade—both of which had already been encouraged two decades earlier. The Belt and Road Initiative primarily benefits those countries where, historically, the West has only sent IMF or World Bank officials—with limited success. (In short, the Global South.)

The cross-border flow of knowledge and technology has much older roots and has been a regular (and accepted) practice in Europe since the first Industrial Revolution.

Yet no one accused the German or British governments of theft. Similarly, it is now largely forgotten what the leading European colonial powers took from Africa and Asia without compensation.

Numerous historians have proven that simply adopting the most advanced technology of an era does not guarantee success. If the recipient country lacks the expertise to not only use but also develop that technology, the mere act of copying another country’s technological achievements will never result in long-term progress.

In other words, East Asian countries have done nothing different from what European countries did before them: inventions and technological innovations—often through illicit means—spread rapidly across borders. These technological adaptations were then followed by competition in global markets.

The ability to adopt new technologies presupposes technical expertise, and East Asia has proven capable of further developing these innovations.

This was true in Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan, and in the past decade, China has followed the same path with remarkable speed and efficiency. (See, for example, the rapid rise and competitiveness of China’s Deep Seek artificial intelligence technology.)

The West must finally accept that no matter how much we threaten tariffs, no matter how much we point to Chinese state subsidies (as if many Western countries had not previously built successful industrial sectors through government support), China’s economic and financial institutions—ironically, drawing on Western experiences—operate more effectively than the so-called “free market” system.

The East Asian model of development-driven economic and financial policy, which began in Japan in the first half of the 20th century and was successfully adopted in South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan, is now being implemented in China.

The next section will explore this in more detail.

Ferber Katalin

Berlin