Beg, Borrow or Steal: How Trump Says China Takes Technology
Beg, Borrow or Steal: How Trump Says China Takes Technology Arranged marriages. Whispered warnings. Outright theft.
For years, American companies have complained that the Chinese government finds ways to get them to hand over their most valuable trade secrets. Those companies — which usually complain anonymously, fearing Chinese retribution — have found a sympathetic ear in the Trump administration.
American trade officials on Thursday cited those practices as a major motivation for their plans to levy tariffs and penalties on $60 billion in Chinese imports and to take a tougher stance on the vast and lucrative trade relationship between the two countries. The report outlines in blunt terms how intellectual property — everything from product designs and sensitive data to general know-how — has become a point of contention in global trade relations, joining longstanding areas of dispute like steel.
The landscape is more complex than the Trump administration’s complaint suggests. America..