Did China steal Japan's high-speed train?

April 15, 2013: 5:00 AM ET

The company that makes Japan's legendary Shinkansen bullet trains certainly regrets working in China.

By Michael Fitzpatrick

FORTUNE -- One China defender recently claimed his countryman's "bandit innovators" could be good for the world. That was small consolation for the Japanese, who say that China pirated their world-famous bullet train technology.

"Don't worry too much about Chinese companies imitating you, they are creating value for you down the road," said Li Daokui, a leading Chinese economist at the Institute for New Economic Thinking's conference. Such "bandit innovators," he expanded, would eventually grow the market, leading to benefits for everybody.

Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI), maker of Japan's legendary Shinkansen bullet trains, bitterly disagrees. After signing technology transfers with CSR Sifang, the builder of China's impressive, new high-speed rail, KHI says it deeply regrets its now-dissolved partnership. It planned to sue its previously junior partner for patent infringement, but it backed down recently.

Risk analyst Michal Meidan of Eurasia Group believes KHI is wise to drop the IP suit and stay out of China. "Every firm working in the high-tech space in China should be aware of the risks related to weak IP protection in the country but often has few choices but to go into these agreements if it wants to gain market share there," she says. "The intense competition prompts companies to make concessions on technology transfers, as the Chinese are very good at playing off the competition."

What could drive the normally unlitigious Japanese into such a frenzy? Not only did China copy their technology, say the Japanese, after patenting remarkably similar high-speed-rail (HSR) tech, CSR now wants to sell it to the rest of the world -- as Chinese made. Both Japanese and European rail firms now find themselves frozen out and competing with their former Chinese collaborators for new contracts, inside and outside China.

With a diminishing domestic market, Japan's train industry is hoping to pick up orders abroad for its HSR. Before China stepped in, undercutting Japanese offers by about half, Japan looked very attractive to foreign buyers with its record for fast, reliable train systems.

With more than 300 million annual riders, Japan's Shinkansen -- 50 years old next year -- trains carry more passengers than those of any other HSR system. It has suffered no fatal accidents. The U.K. was impressed enough to complete a 540 billion yen deal with Hitachi, which also builds Shinkansen, to supply bullet trains by 2016.

The Motherland of train travel is not alone. Everyone is shopping around for high-speed solutions including the U.S., as the $180 billion global rail industry continues to boom.

Outside of Britain, Japan could easily find itself edged out by the Chinese competition. This makes KHI's Harada Takuma, who worked on the Chinese collaboration, very angry. Under the licensing agreements with KHI, China's use of the expertise and blueprints to develop high-speed railway cars was to be limited to domestic application, he explains. "We didn't think it was not risky. But we took on the project because terms and conditions under the tech transfer should have been binding. We had a legal agreement; we felt safe."

The Chinese authorities, for their part, see no problem. As Beijing busies itself filing for HSR patents abroad, it claims China developed her own HSR based on Japanese and German technologies which it claims were merely "digested." When it was suggested that China trains were mere knockoffs at a press conference in China recently, the Ministry of Railways spokesman asserted that China's HSR was far superior to Japan's Shinkansen, and that the two "cannot be mentioned in the same breath."

Others, such as a few Chinese engineers, have admitted no real innovation. That they were "just standing on the shoulders of giants" as one rail technician put it. Wherever the truth lies exactly, KHI's train technology transfer saga is unlikely to be over soon.

TQ chôm công nghệ tàu cao tốc của Nhật?

Cập nhật: 13:41 GMT - thứ ba, 16 tháng 4, 2013

Tàu CRH của TQ giống hệt tàu E2 Series Hayate Shinkansen của Nhật, chỉ khác nước sơn

Nhật Bản lâu nay vẫn cáo buộc Trung Quốc đã vi phạm sở hữu trí tuệ đối với công nghệ tàu cao tốc nổi tiếng thế giới của Nhật.
Bị coi là quốc gia đánh cắp sáng chế, nhưng có người Trung Quốc lại coi việc này là điều tốt cho thế giới.
Trang tin CNNMoney dẫn lời Li Daokui, một kinh tế gia hàng đầu Trung Quốc tại cuộc hội thảo của Viện Nghiên cứu Tân Kinh tế nói: “Chớ có lo lắng quá về việc các công ty Trung Quốc bắt chước quý vị,” bởi điều đó rốt cuộc sẽ thúc đẩy tăng trưởng thị trường và khiến mọi người đều được hưởng lợi.
Người Nhật không nghĩ vậy.
Kawasaki Heavy Industries (KHI) sau khi ký hợp đồng chuyển giao công nghệ với nhà sản xuất Trung Quốc CSR Sifang thì nói họ vô cùng hối tiếc về mối quan hệ hợp tác nay đã không còn tồn tại.

Hàng nhái

Trong năm 2004 và 2005, hãng KHI cùng năm hãng nữa của Nhật hợp tác với đối tác Trung Quốc nhằm sản xuất chung 960 toa tàu cho 120 đoàn tàu theo mô hình tàu Hayate của Nhật (E2 Series), rồi cung cấp cho Trung Quốc.
Trung Quốc đã nhanh nhảu đi đăng ký sáng chế cho một loại tàu trông rất giống với tàu Hayate E2 Series, chỉ khác mỗi phần sơn quét, theo tường thuật trên trang tin Japan News Today.
Hãng KHI lúc đó đã định thưa kiện đối tác về tội vi phạm bản quyền, nhưng gần đây lại thôi.
Giới phân tích cho rằng việc rút lại chuyện kiện cáo và rút khỏi thị trường Trung Quốc của KHI là một quyết định khôn ngoan.
Lý do khá đơn giản.
Bởi vấn đề bảo vệ bản quyền trong lĩnh vực sở hữu công nghệ ở Trung Quốc là rất non yếu, cho nên các hãng nước ngoài nếu muốn chiếm thị phần đều phải chấp nhận rủi ro.

Cạnh tranh

Shinkansen của Nhật hoạt động gần 50 năm mà chưa hề có vụ tai nạn chết người nào

Nhưng đối tác Trung Quốc không chỉ dừng ở việc vi phạm bản quyền, mà còn muốn đem bán công nghệ chôm được ra toàn thế giới.
Nay, không chỉ Nhật Bản mà cả các hãng xe lửa châu Âu cũng lâm vào tình thế phải cạnh tranh quyết liệt với các cựu đối tác Trung Quốc trong việc giành các hợp đồng mới, cả ở trong và ngoài Trung Quốc.
Từng là nhà cung cấp rất hấp dẫn cho các khách hàng nước ngoài nhờ các hệ thống xe lửa chạy nhanh, an toàn, đáng tin cậy, nhưng nay Nhật đứng trước đối thủ Trung Quốc với các hợp đồng chào giá chỉ bằng một nửa.
Tàu cao tốc huyền thoại Shinkansen đã trải qua 50 năm hoạt động, phục vụ trên 300 triệu lượt hành khách mỗi năm và chưa từng xảy ra một vụ tai nạn chết người nào.
Ấn tượng mạnh mẽ về mức độ an toàn của công nghệ tàu cao tốc Nhật Bản, Anh quốc đã ký thỏa thuận trị giá 540 tỷ yen với Hitachi, nhà sản xuất Shinkansen, nhằm cung cấp tàu cao tốc tới năm 2016.
Nhưng ở các thị trường khác ngoài Anh, hãng Nhật dễ dàng bị Trung Quốc cạnh tranh.
CNNMoney dẫn lời ông Harada Takuma từ hãng KHI, người từng làm việc trong liên doanh với phía Trung Quốc, nói rằng theo thỏa thuận cấp phép giữa hai bên thì Trung Quốc chỉ được sử dụng kỹ năng chuyên môn và thiết kế được trao cho các ứng dụng nội địa.

Vụ tai nạn Ôn Châu khiến Bắc Kinh ra thanh tra toàn diện ngành hỏa xa Trung Quốc

“Chúng tôi tham gia dự án bởi tin rằng các điều khoản và điều kiện về chuyển giao công nghệ phải được tuân thủ. Chúng tôi có thỏa thuận pháp lý, chúng tôi cảm thấy được bảo vệ,” ông nói.
Giới chức Trung Quốc chả thấy có vấn đề gì.
Bắc Kinh tất bật đi đăng ký bản quyền ở nước ngoài, và nói Trung Quốc đã tự phát triển được công nghệ tàu cao tốc nhờ vào việc “nghiên cứu” công nghệ của Nhật và Đức.
Thậm chí hồi 2007, phát ngôn nhân của Bộ Đường sắt Trung Quốc trong một buổi họp báo tại Trung Quốc từng nói rằng tàu cao tốc của Trung Quốc vượt trội hơn nhiều so với tàu Shinkansen của Nhật, theo tường thuật trên trang China Daily.
Bất chấp một thực tế nhiều người khác, trong đó có cả những kỹ sư Trung Quốc, thừa nhận rằng thực ra tàu của Bắc Kinh chả có tí mới mẻ nào, mà chỉ đơn thuần là sản phẩm “đứng trên vai những người khổng lồ”, theo lời một kỹ sư hỏa xa.
Và bất chấp một thực tế là tàu cao tốc Trung Quốc khiến người ta vô cùng quan ngại về mức độ an toàn, đặc biệt là sau vụ tai nạn thảm khốc Ôn Châu khiến hàng chục người thiệt mạng hồi cuối tháng Bảy 2011.

Theo:BBC

Japan News Today

Japan News, Japan Pictures, Japan Videos

Chinese Claim Japanese High Speed Train Technology as Their Own as Japan Regrets Sharing Technology

In Japan business groups are alarmed by China’s efforts to export high-speed railway trains it claims was built with native technology but which have obviously been duplicated from technology developed in Japan.

Copied Chinese CRH2

Japanese E2 Series Hayate Shinkansen

According to Yomiuri Online , Japan was reluctant to provide this state-of-the-art technology to China. This caused China to adopt a conventional railway rapid-transit system, instead of building a high-speed railway system involving linear motor cars.
In 2004 and 2005, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd., and five other domestic companies in cooperation with a Chinese firm jointly produced 960 train cars for 120 trains modeled on Japan’s Hayate (E2 Series) bullet train, and supplied them to China.
China has filed patents for a train that is very similar to the E2 series Hayate. In the case of the CRH2 shown above it is an exact duplicate of the Japanese Hayate E2 Series with a different paint job.
In the words of a Land, Infrastructure, Transport and Tourism Ministry official, ”[Japanese] people involved in the project feel rather unhappy about this. China copied the technology of the supplied cars and claims it as original technology,”.
On Tuesday, the ministry announced that on Friday it would create a new post equivalent to a bureau director that would be in charge of infrastructure exports. This move is intended to promote Japan’s high-speed railways business overseas and to deal with China’s aggressive patent acquisition moves.
China has joined overseas projects based on high-speed railway technology introduced from Japan, Germany and other nations. It has started building railway tracks in Turkey, and is moving to enter other markets such as the United States, Russia and Brazil, among other countries.
China’s Railways Ministry controls every stage of train manufacturing, from design through to production and operation allowing faster progress than other countries, prices of train cars are about 20 percent cheaper.
China South Locomotive and Rolling Stock Corp. (CSR), a state-owned company, and General Electric Co. of the United States are working together to win a U.S. project. According to the Railways Ministry, GE wants to transfer technology from CSR and has had legal experts examine whether the transfer could become a sticking point due to patents owned by the Chinese company.
According to Yomiuri, Japanese companies remain unsure what to do until they better know what they are up against.
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Suy tư... Thinking...

Wednesday, April 17, 2013