Although the Beijing Winter Olympics are over, the monopoly surrounding the Winter Olympics is not over.
Monopoly has always been a cloud hanging over China's head.
Not only do chips need to be imported in China, but also the ice knives used in the Olympic Games, as well as snow cars, ice shovels, and even curling in curling competitions.
It seems that foreign monopolies are everywhere.
If the monopoly of chips is because there is no lithography machine, then how is the stone used in curling monopolized, and can't China even make a stone?
01
Curling dates back to the Middle Ages. This is a 1565 painting depicting some peasants playing curling on ice, and if you look closely, you can see two children playing spinning tops.
We have only seen the masters play spinning tops in the square, and we have not heard of or thought that there was such entertainment in medieval Europe.
From the 16th century to the 19th century, curling quickly became popular in Scotland, but there was no standard in the early curling, just like now, everything can curl, today you dare to take an iron pot, tomorrow I dare to take an iron.
Many of the early stones were mostly found at the bottom of rivers or in ponds that drained water, in a variety of shapes and materials.
Until the 19th century, a type of granite was found on a small island near Scotland, which was very finely grained and mica-free, with extremely low water absorption.
To put it bluntly, it is durable, and the hardness is three times that of ordinary granite, and it is the only place in the world.
02
In 1851 William Kai saw an opportunity, founded the curling manufacturing company Keys, and purchased exclusive mining rights from the owner of the island, the Marquis elsa.
The Marquis of Elsa is a Scottish nobleman, and the island is like an heirloom of their family, from the first Marquis elsa to the current ninth marquis.
There was a news report that the Marquis of Elsa planned to sell Craig Island for £1.5 million, but no buyer took over, and later leased the island to the Royal Bird Conservancy until 2050.
Although Case Company has exclusive mining rights, it has not been rock mining on the island, but every 10 years, the last time in 2013.
So the stone is not something you can pick if you want, but with the consent of the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds.
Otherwise, it will affect the birds waiting to be fed, and you must not be sued for harming wild animals?
Therefore, a mining must meet the needs of the next 10 years or so, can not say that this year's curling sold well, not enough to go to the mining point.
Curling stones are absolutely sufficient if they are only available for the Olympic Games.
For example, Case Company produced more than 190 curling pots for the Beijing Winter Olympics, and finally selected 96 of them.
But in addition to the Olympics, there are many ordinary people who also play curling, especially in Canada and North America.
03
In the 18th and 19th centuries, there were unrest in Scotland, which led to a large number of Scots immigrating to Canada and North America, and the Scots also brought curling to the immigration areas.
Curling is more prevalent in Canada than in Scotland itself. At the same time as Case, The Canadian Curling Manufacturing Company discovered Trevor granite in North Wales in texture second only to Craig granite.
Probably due to the same volcano eruption, the performance difference is not too big.
And there is the fact that there does not seem to be any stone in the world that can match or replace it.
The Canadian Curling Company then signed an exclusive concession to mine Trevor granite in North Wales.
Therefore, the restrictions on stone are not only facing monopolies in China, but also other countries around the world, and the United States is no exception.
One might ask, isn't there a Thompson company in the United States that can make curling?
Yes can be made, but it is different.
In a book about Peter Till's startup, it is mentioned how Thomson squeezed into the curling market.
When Thomson entered the curling market in 1998, he didn't look for the same stone as the two big brothers, and obviously couldn't find it.
So Another way to make a fuss about technology curling, through the renovation of old curling, in the original curling under the porcelain pieces, to seize a part of the market, is considered to be the monopoly of innovation.
04
Curling entered Canada in 1807 and became popular in the United States in 1820, with a history of two hundred years, while Chinese curling was only 20 years old.
Since 1999, China set up the first curling team, it took more than a decade to rewrite the history of No medals in China's ice and snow team projects, you know that in 2000, China only had one set of curling, or Canada gave it to Heilongjiang.
Around 2000, Heilongjiang Province carried out the development of domestic curling, and it took only a few months to successfully make samples, leaving aside the performance, the price was only one-tenth of that of foreign countries.
However, according to the Rules of the World Curling Federation, Case Curling is the only curling used in competitions, and as they write on their official website, Case Curling is the standard by which all curling is judged.
Curling entered the Winter Olympics in 1924 and was officially included in the Winter Olympics in 1998, after a long process.
The earliest international curling conference was initiated by several old players, the United Kingdom, Scotland, Canada, the United States, Norway, Switzerland, 6 countries and regions, and was also the rule-maker, and China only joined it in 2002.
05
Because the rules lead to monopoly, monopoly leads to the inability to develop, can not develop there is no right to speak, no way to change the right to speak, no way to change the rules will lead to monopoly ...
So the rules are very important, when China's standard patents in the field of 5G surpass the United States, which means that with the ability to rewrite the rules of the world, the United States began to panic, everywhere began to be difficult.
Helplessly, China's ice knives, to snowmakers in the snow, snow mills, to watering trucks in ice rinks, ice shovels, and then to a curling stone, are almost monopolized by foreign products.
It is not realistic to go beyond it completely.
It is not that China cannot build it, the main reason is that it is controlled by Europe and the United States to control some rules and standards of the game.
We have to believe that as long as it is not done by aliens, China can probably make it.