President Donald Trump’s negotiators are hoping to seal a trade deal with Beijing. One almost feels sorry for them. Getting China to buy more American soybeans and pigs is easy. Getting Beijing to stop stealing intellectual property (IP) is hard – almost akin to compelling Kim Jong Un to give up his nuclear weapons.
“We can raise tariffs, have high-level meetings, sign memoranda of understanding and eternal friendship, but [China] will not change,” a Washington-based US trade lawyer with some 30 years of experience in the field told Asia Times. “Their policies favoring theft of intellectual property on an industrial scale have contributed to the greatest wealth transfer since the Iranian-Arab creation of the OPEC cartel raised the price of energy to the West.”
“We can raise tariffs, have high-level meetings, sign memoranda of understanding and eternal friendship, but [China] will not change,” a Washington-based US trade lawyer with some 30 years of experience in the field told Asia Times. “Their policies favoring theft of intellectual property on an industrial scale have contributed to the greatest wealth transfer since the Iranian-Arab creation of the OPEC cartel raised the price of energy to the West.”
