China voiced regret over the EU’s decision to lodge an intellectual property rights complaint at the WTO, just as Beijing is embroiled in a similar dispute with Washington.
The EU brought the challenge to the WTO on Friday, accusing Beijing of unfairly requiring foreign firms to hand over their technology to Chinese companies to do business in China.
“China expresses regret over the EU launching the complaint and will properly handle it according to the WTO dispute settlement procedures,” the Chinese Ministry of Commerce said in a statement published late on Sunday. “The Chinese government has always attached great importance to the protection of intellectual property rights, and has adopted many powerful measures to protect the legitimate rights and interests of domestic and foreign intellectual property rights holders.”
Foreign companies need to form joint ventures with local companies to do business in the massive Chinese market, which often involves sharing their technology and know-how.
US allegations that China steals company secrets are at the heart of the ongoing trade dispute between the world’s two biggest economies.
Washington on March 23 launched its own WTO challenge over alleged Chinese intellectual property breaches.
The two countries have held a series of negotiations aimed at averting a trade war.
US Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross and Chinese Vice Premier Liu He (劉鶴) held talks over the weekend, which ended with Beijing saying that any deals would be void if Washington follows through on threats to impose massive tariffs on Chinese goods.
Taiwan Transport and Storage Corp (TTS, 台灣通運倉儲) yesterday unveiled its first electric tractor unit — manufactured by Volvo Trucks — in a ceremony in Taipei, and said the unit would soon be used to transport cement produced by Taiwan Cement Corp (TCC, 台灣水泥). Both TTS and TCC belong to TCC International Holdings Ltd (台泥國際集團). With the electric tractor unit, the Taipei-based cement firm would become the first in Taiwan to use electric vehicles to transport construction materials. TTS chairman Koo Kung-yi (辜公怡), Volvo Trucks vice president of sales and marketing Johan Selven, TCC president Roman Cheng (程耀輝) and Taikoo Motors Group
Among the rows of vibrators, rubber torsos and leather harnesses at a Chinese sex toys exhibition in Shanghai this weekend, the beginnings of an artificial intelligence (AI)-driven shift in the industry quietly pulsed. China manufactures about 70 percent of the world’s sex toys, most of it the “hardware” on display at the fair — whether that be technicolor tentacled dildos or hyper-realistic personalized silicone dolls. Yet smart toys have been rising in popularity for some time. Many major European and US brands already offer tech-enhanced products that can enable long-distance love, monitor well-being and even bring people one step closer to
New apartments in Taiwan’s major cities are getting smaller, while old apartments are increasingly occupied by older people, many of whom live alone, government data showed. The phenomenon has to do with sharpening unaffordable property prices and an aging population, property brokers said. Apartments with one bedroom that are two years old or older have gained a noticeable presence in the nation’s six special municipalities as well as Hsinchu county and city in the past five years, Evertrust Rehouse Co (永慶房產集團) found, citing data from the government’s real-price transaction platform. In Taipei, apartments with one bedroom accounted for 19 percent of deals last
RECORD-BREAKING: TSMC’s net profit last quarter beat market expectations by expanding 8.9% and it was the best first-quarter profit in the chipmaker’s history Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電), which counts Nvidia Corp as a key customer, yesterday said that artificial intelligence (AI) server chip revenue is set to more than double this year from last year amid rising demand. The chipmaker expects the growth momentum to continue in the next five years with an annual compound growth rate of 50 percent, TSMC chief executive officer C.C. Wei (魏哲家) told investors yesterday. By 2028, AI chips’ contribution to revenue would climb to about 20 percent from a percentage in the low teens, Wei said. “Almost all the AI innovators are working with TSMC to address the