Washington has signaled that Beijing is not doing enough to improve protection for American firms’ intellectual property rights, which was one of China’s commitments under the ‘phase one’ trade deal with the US.
The office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) has kept China on its “priority watch list” for intellectual property (IP) rights enforcement problems, according to the agency’s report published on Friday. While the list included eight more countries – Argentina, Chile, India, Indonesia, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Ukraine, and Venezuela – that the US is to monitor more closely, China’s section is the longest, covering 10 pages.
Under the trade agreement signed by the two parties at the beginning of 2020, which marked a truce in the longstanding US-China trade war, Beijing pledged to address US industries’ concerns on trade secrets, patents, trademarks, and copyrights, among other issues. The trade office said that it has been closely monitoring implementation of those commitments.
