Last month, Attorney General Eric Holder announced that the United States was charging members of the Chinese military with economic espionage. Stealing trade secrets from American companies, he said, enabled China to “illegally sabotage” foreign competitors and propel its own companies to “success in the international marketplace.” The United States certainly understands China’s behavior, because that’s pretty much how we got our start as a manufacturing power, too.

For example, throughout the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, American industrial spies searched the British Isles, looking not only for new machines but also for skilled workers who could run and maintain those machines. One of these workers was Samuel Slater, often called “the father of the American industrial revolution.” He emigrated to the U.S. in 1789, bringing with him an intimate knowledge of the Arkwright spinning frames that had transformed textile production in England, and he set up the first water-powered textile mill in the U.S. Two decades later, the American businessman Francis Cabot Lowell talked his way into a number of British mills, and memorized the plans to the Cartwright power loom. When he returned home, he built his own improved version of the loom. Then, by making it part of the first integrated textile factory in America, he became the most successful industrialist of his time.

The American government often encouraged such piracy. Alexander Hamilton, in his 1791 “Report on Manufactures,” called on the country to reward those who brought us “improvements and secrets of extraordinary value” from elsewhere. State governments financed the importation of smuggled machines. And although federal patents were supposed to be granted only to people who came up with original inventions, in practice, Americans were receiving patents for technology pirated from abroad.

Piracy was a big deal even in those days. Great Britain had strict laws against the export of machines, and banned skilled workers from emigrating. Workers who violated the ban could lose their property and be convicted of treason. The efforts of Thomas Digges, America’s most effective industrial spy, got him repeatedly jailed by the Brits—and praised by George Washington for his “activity and zeal.”

These days, of course, things have changed. The United States is the world’s biggest advocate for enforcing strong intellectual-property rules, which it insists are necessary for economic growth. Yet, as our own history suggests, the economic impact of technology piracy isn’t straightforward. On the one hand, patents and trade secrets can provide an incentive for people to innovate. If you realized that a new invention was going to be stolen by China, you might not invest the time and money needed to come up with it in the first place. On the other hand, patents and trade secrets limit the diffusion of new technology—and sometimes slow down technological progress—while copying accelerates it. Samsung, for instance, is known for being a “fast follower” in its consumer business, which really means that it’s adept at copying other companies’ good ideas. That’s not the same as theft, but evidence from its recent patent trials with Apple shows that Samsung’s response to the iPhone was, in large part, simply to do it “like the iPhone.” This was bad for Apple’s profits, but it meant that many more people ended up enjoying the benefits of Apple’s concepts.

(This question tests your understanding of the text, as well as your ability to identify and paraphrase the relevant pieces of information. You should write approximately 120 words.)

The article begins by mentioning a recent U.S.-China economic-espionage incident. In your own words, tell what happened and how the U.S. government reacted. What does the author think about the U.S. government’s attitude in this specific case and what examples does he give in the article to support his point of view? Regarding this U.S.-China matter, in your opinion, is the author’s position sensible and well formulated or equivocal and unconvincing? In answering, you may take into account legal, ethical, and practical considerations.