THEY USED to gripe about too much technology transfer in China.
But in the past year or so, foreign business and political leaders have started to fret
that too little is happening.
No longer do they worry so much about Western tech landing in Chinese hands;
rather, they fear that China is now too effective at preventing its best stuff from passing to foreigners.
A former Chinese trade official reacts to the pivot with empathy rather than mockery.
"It is a bit hypocritical but it's understandable," he says.
It might be tempting to craft a morality play out of this,
as if countries outside China are getting their comeuppance.
But at its heart this is a practical problem,
a question of whether China will be able to dig a moat around its world-leading technologies,
from electric vehicles to artificial-intelligence-powered robots.
Chaguan is inclined to take the other side of the bet—
namely, that knowledge will flow as it normally does,
from those who have it to those who want it.
A reverse tech transfer will, over time, occur.
In principle, the mechanism is straightforward.
Countries can offer Chinese firms market access as long as they set up local manufacturing.
In practice, none of this is automatic—and all of it is fraught.
The European Union is now at the forefront,