It’s not particularly an ethical or glamorous approach for sure, but almost country that we currently consider an “innovator” have historical periods where copying and stealing of ideas was rampant. Copying and digesting the state of the art is simply the fastest way to get yourself to a point where you can start innovating. There was a huge amount of industrial espionage in early Industrial Revolution among European powers, particularly between France and England. The U.S. was also a huge player in industrial espionage from Europe in the 18th and 19th century. A lot of Cold War progress in aerospace and rocketry from both sides was also “borrowed” from Nazi Germany. Post-war Japan also started off by producing cheaper copies of European and American automobiles/electronics before establishing themselves as innovators in their own right. So on and so forth. I’m not saying it’s the right thing to do, but for most industrializing nations it seems to be a pragmatic and common phase that always comes to pass. Chinese industry is still doing a lot of reverse engineering and copying but they’ve also started to become more recognized as innovators in many sectors in recent years like drones or 5G network infrastructure. I’m sure in the coming years we’ll be looking at products from India or SEA in a similar light as copies or clones with global supply chains move spreading to those regions.
