On a greater scale this is the clash of 'Western', as in US/Europe, and East-Asian mindsets and culture. If you look into other areas like pharma, the same battles are being fought, with India and China essentially ignoring 'our' patent laws for their domestic markets (see their recent changes in laws).
China has forced manufacturers to build factories in China in order to be able to sell products there, regardless of industry. Siemens managed to build one Maglev train in Shanghai - all the others are being build the Chinese themselves, now that they have the tech. Airbus? Same thing, China is jumpstarting their aircraft business.
Big picture is that this KILLS true Western style innovation as there is no reward for being first. If you're a founder you should be scared of the copy machines in East-Asia. For now they only focus on their own markets, but once big enough they will come after you.
Look at what 800App is doing with salesforce.com - they copy the shit out of it, pixel by pixel, essentially destroying the Chinese market for SFDC. SFDC chose an interesting tactic, they invested in 800App:
http://salesforcerumors.com/2011/09/25/salesforce-com-invest...
Google can't come after Baidu. Facebook couldn't do much against vKontakte, their Russian 1:1 clone (the chuzpe is breathtaking).
If this ever effects the US or Europe to to great an effect I'm pretty sure WTO can help. China is not selling these sorts of products to the world yet so it's a pretty meaningless threat so far.
Specific companies and even specific markets can still have substantial growth in US/EU. However for something saturated like the car market you are almost certainly correct.
China has forced manufacturers to build factories in China in order to be able to sell products there, regardless of industry. Siemens managed to build one Maglev train in Shanghai - all the others are being build the Chinese themselves, now that they have the tech. Airbus? Same thing, China is jumpstarting their aircraft business.
Big picture is that this KILLS true Western style innovation as there is no reward for being first. If you're a founder you should be scared of the copy machines in East-Asia. For now they only focus on their own markets, but once big enough they will come after you.
Look at what 800App is doing with salesforce.com - they copy the shit out of it, pixel by pixel, essentially destroying the Chinese market for SFDC. SFDC chose an interesting tactic, they invested in 800App: http://salesforcerumors.com/2011/09/25/salesforce-com-invest...
Google can't come after Baidu. Facebook couldn't do much against vKontakte, their Russian 1:1 clone (the chuzpe is breathtaking).