Copycat Knockoffs: Short Cuts In Engineering Or The Sincerest Form Of Flattery?

The title ask "Shortcuts In Engineering...?" It could be a reflections of the shortcomings. China's primary offerings to the west appears to me to be (1) a massive low-cost labor force, and (2) a massive ocean of potential consumers (though most are too poor to afford western goods).

I speculate lots of China's people have some "West Envy", perceiving the west's lifestyle and products to be highly desirable. That's why they create cars that look like those highly desired western models. I also believe the Chinese have not yet developed an automotive styling language of their own that appeals to the west, so in their mind, their own designs are inferior.

Keep in mind that although the Chinese vehicles pictured might bear a string (or outright copied) exterior resemblance to western models, they are by no means a copy. Their construction, quality, fit and finish, and interior design leave lots to be desired. It's kind of like a pig in a fancy party dress.

But who knows where the future will take China. We once laughed at "made in Japan." We laughed at the Koreans' Hyundai Pony in the 1980s. China won't always be the China we see today.

Great comment .

Assembling something vs creating something new. Asia can glue crap together but without the West, they'd just be sitting their playing golf and tennis and whatever western sports we give them because they wouldn't have anything to copy.

The Japanese may be the leader in Asia but their innovation is still miles behind the US and Europe. South Korea is just Japan Inc part 2.

As for their consumer market, it will only be available to us until we either do too well or they have developed their own companies that can copy whatever we create. The Chinese consumer market is a pile of BS, it'll be gone once we teach them everything they can't do for themselves.

All this is made possible because we're the United States of Corporate America. Until profits are hit, nothing will change regardless of whichever party big money elects.

Lack of vision, creativity, and integrity. The Chinese cannot think outside of the box so they embarrassingly just copy.

Yup, just as we scared the living sh!t out of the Chinese during the first Iraq war by showing them how far ahead we were and that we could massacre any "wave after wave" meat grinder strategy they had on the books for the last 40 years.

Now all they do is steal our military and tech secrets and pretend they thought it up themselves. Our boys can still kick @ss though since we actually provide our military with proper training, not just teaching them how to hold parades.

I hate China and everything it stands for. They copy and steal everything. From military equipment to automobiles the West, Japan and Korea do all the research and development and hard work while China sits back, hack our computers and steal our technology to produce products.

Your comment is mostly correct except the Koreans don't do any R&D either. According to the OECD South Korea has a technology deficit, mostly with Japan meaning inorder to create their "tech" they have to use patents owned by us but mostly by the Japs. They just spend lots of marketing $ to make us think they invent things.

China as everybody can see has theirs specific characteristic they like to copy everything that's not new if we know that why America provide them with machinery and equipment with the justification of the cheap labor , at the end they steal the machine or copy all of them and later they can make it by then self that's what happens now. Other example was when Ford sale Volvo to them ,because they don't care ,they just care about the money in theirs pockets like everybody , now they have more reason to create theirs cars with better quality and technology because they have a complete power on Volvo with theirs company named Geely, soon we noticed how the quality of theirs cars improve very fast. When you see that someone doesn't respect the other one you can't provide this person or country with more resources because they want to walk over you crush or pulverize if it necessary . No way.

Where are the legal action against this , they did that before to BMW X5 , Porsche Cayenne , and so on.

Standard reply by the Chinese gov't. "It's not true" and "We'll look into it".