The Rising Influence of Rising Affluence

[DewDiligence]

DuPont...suspected its onetime partner in China was getting hold of its prized chemical technology, and spent more than a year fighting in arbitration trying to make it stop.

Then, 20 investigators from China’s antitrust authority showed up.

For four days this past December, they fanned out through DuPont’s Shanghai offices, demanding passwords to the company’s world-wide research network, say people briefed on the raid. Investigators printed documents, seized computers and intimidated employees, accompanying some to the bathroom.

...In DuPont’s case, the dispute concerned a process to produce supple textile fibers from corn, a $400 million business for the company in 2017. The antitrust investigators...told DuPont to drop the case against its former Chinese partner.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-china-systematically-pries-technology-from-u-s-companies-1537972066

Yes, this is a form of resource nationalism—hence the thread it appears in.