Faked microchip shames all of China

[lovuian]

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/270231_chinatech15.html

SHANGHAI, China -- Not very long ago, China saw itself as a nation on the verge of a high-tech breakthrough.

But today, China appears shamed at a scandal that has already begun to tarnish that vision. It involves a computer scientist named Chen Jin who became a national hero in 2003 when he said he had created one of China's first home-grown digital signal processing computer chips, a sophisticated microchip that can process digitized data for mobile phones, cameras and other electronic devices.

His milestone met with breathless excitement and held the promise of closing the enormous gaps with the West in science and technology.

On Friday, however, the government announced that it was all a fraud. Chen, the government said, had faked research conducted at Jiaotong University and simply stolen his chip designs from a foreign company. Chen was fired from his university posts and stripped of his government honors and privileges.

In a society in which the fear of public shame runs especially deep, the story of Chen has a profound resonance. Now, after all the honors and accolades bestowed on this 37-year-old favorite son, who returned home to China from the United States with a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin six years ago, people here are beginning to question whether China is pushing its leading thinkers too hard to innovate and catch up with the West.

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Ya gotta wonder don't ya...

[Poll_Blind]

1. And the bill for the bullet will be sent to his family...

:scared:

PB

[Hardrada]

2. Texas connection. I see.

[girl gone mad]

4. And that's relevent how, exactly?

UT is a good school, and the largest University in the country.

[Vidar]

3. We could use some of that "fear of public shame" here.

[Judi Lynn]

5. You've got THAT right!

Who wouldn't pay a month's salary to see THIS in person?

[formercia]

10. Some people are shameless.

especially those on a mission......

[merwin]

6. *tinfoil hat time*

Could it be that this was a ploy by the Chinese government in order to use this breathrough to profit themselves rather than the people?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

7. Intellectual property thieft is rampant in China.

Historically, the government has done very little about it. Perhaps this indicates a changing attitude on the part of the government towards this sort of behaviour.

[Canuckistanian]

8. Here's China's big weakness as I see it

China is the 500 Lb gorilla in the tech world, but for all that power, they have shown remarkably few innovations or breakthroughs.

Their universties are turning out highly educated people who are going to spend their careers implementing other people's designs.

I see it time and time again. They seem to be showing almost the same traits as the Japanese, who, in the 1960's, were extrememly skilled at "reverse engineering" something, then copying it at a very reduced price. There were some innovations, sure, but it was more on the level of "putting two things together that have never been put together before".

[NewJeffCT]

9. eventually, however...

the Japanese got to be so good at it that they dominated much of the field of electronics and surpassed GM, Ford & Chrysler in automobiles.

China, with 10 times the population of Japan, has the potential to be even more dominant across more fields.