> being open is not compatible with the Chinese culture.
Hardly, it's one of the least IP-law burdened places in the world. Ready access to media, yes, but also scientific papers, books, etc. No real restrictions on duping products, so execution often becomes the winning ticket. That's all pretty open and good for consumers.
You could argue they won't allow SOTA models to be exported but it doesn't really have anything to do with Chinese culture not being compatible with openness.
> Hardly, it's one of the least IP-law burdened places in the world.
that is one of the major reasons why companies there won't be open - they know full well that anything made publicly available would be cloned/copied within days.
it is not only a part of the competition common in all countries, there are unique reasons in China - millions of graduate engineers join workforce every single year, there are not that many projects they can work on. starting copying & cloning some existing stuff even at someone's own cost is a pretty effective way to get into the game.
> Ready access to media, yes, but also scientific papers, books, etc.
There is this old Chinese saying "Teach your apprentice and your own ruin follows" (教会徒弟饿死师傅), that has been telling a completely different story for thousands of years. When they don't even want to hand over tech know-hows to their own apprentice, why would anyone be expecting them to have the desire to share it publicly?
You can find Chinese sayings for almost any position. It's orientalism to reduce modern Chinese society/culture/economy to proverbs and sayings.
You say that you're Chinese so there's no such stereotyping involved, but actually Chinese people commit this sin against themselves all the time.
己欲立而立人，己欲达而达人
"wishing to stand, one helps others stand; wishing to succeed, one helps others succeed"
> that is one of the major reasons why companies there won't be open
But the AI labs _are_ often being open. And cloning stuff more generally doesn't really require OSS anyway. Product features are easily cloned in most cases, without any secret knowledge.