The United States invents, China imitates… and Europe regulates?
There was a time when it was true to say that most innovation took place in the United States, only to be imitated and copied ad infinitum in China.
No longer. “Made in China” once meant cheap products, often counterfeit and always of low quality, but these days, China is increasingly at the forefront of everything that has to do with state-of-the-art technologies and engineering, from decarbonization and energy to AI.
So much so that it seems obvious the US trade war is little more than a last-ditch attempt to slow down China by depriving it of what little it still doesn’t manufacture, namely the most sophisticated microprocessors. However, this defensive strategy is short-term, typical of a backward looking West that still pretends borders mean something, and moreover, has simply incentivized China to reach its goal sooner.
In reality, Europe is scarcely different. It hopes to make regulation its competitive advantage, while failing to understand that regulations provide no advantage beyond fining foreign companies that want to market their products and services here.
What’s more, paradoxically, Brussels fines precisely the companies whose products and services have the biggest market share, that is, the most successful and those that, therefore, we here in…
