Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in Chinese manufacturing as the “China Cycle”1:A multinational company puts its factories in China, lured by some combination of cheap production, big contracts, and the dream of huge market opportunities.China appropriates the multinational company’s technology, through some combination of joint ventures, acquisitions, reverse engineering, and espionage.The appropriated technology makes its way into the...