US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner said on Thursday that China was holding to its decades-old strategy of stealing US intellectual property, in a pointed statement reflecting US officials’ growing impatience with Beijing.
“They [China] have made possible systematic stealing of intellectual property of American companies and [they] have not been very aggressive to put in place the basic protections for property rights that every serious economy needs over time,” Geithner told a forum in Washington.
“We’re seeing China continue to be very, very aggressive in a strategy they started several decades ago, which goes like this: You want to sell to our country, we want you to come produce here ... if you want to come produce here, you need to transfer your technology to us,” Geithner said.
Although unusually direct, Geithner’s comments echo a common refrain from US officials and executives. US Ambassador to China Gary Locke (駱家輝), who has assailed China in the past for its trade practices, has put the defense of US intellectual property among his chief priorities.
China has said it would drop some of its “indigenous innovation” rules that have riled foreign companies who say access to government equipment and technology orders hinge on their transferring patents and other intellectual property.
However, business associations in China argue that enforcement of Beijing’s promises has been spotty, particularly at the local government level, hampering foreign companies’ access to a market estimated to be worth as much as US$1 trillion a year.
In an offshoot of Washington’s dissatisfaction with Beijing’s trade policies, leaders in Washington have long argued that the yuan is undervalued, giving Chinese companies a price advantage that costs US jobs.
However, the foreign business community in China — concerned about what they see as China becoming more closed to foreign investors in recent years — has argued that the emphasis on yuan revaluation distracts from the most serious issues threatening US business interests.
A coalition of 51 US business groups sent a letter dated Wednesday to US senators considering a currency bill, urging them to focus more on China’s inadequate protection of intellectual property and restrictions on market access.
“Unilateral legislation on this issue [yuan reform] would be counterproductive, not only to the goals related to China’s exchange rate that we all share, but also to our nation’s broader objectives of addressing the many and growing challenges that we face in China,” the groups said.
Piracy and counterfeiting of US software and a wide range of other intellectual property in China cost US businesses alone an estimated US$48 billion and 2.1 million jobs in 2009, the US International Trade Commission has said.
The US’ trade deficit with China hit a record US$273 billion last year and could top that this year.
In May, China was listed for the seventh year by the US Trade Representative’s office as a country with one of the worst records for preventing copyright theft.
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