China’s theft of U.S. trade secrets under scrutiny
"When it comes to intellectual property (IP) theft, there’s the rest of the world, and then there’s China, a new report says. In 2015, mainland China and Hong Kong accounted for 87% of counterfeit goods seized by the U.S. Customs and Border Patrol. China’s share of trade secrets theft, though harder to track, is not far behind, claims the Commission on the Theft of American Intellectual Property in Washington, D.C., a bipartisan nongovernmental group co-chaired by former Utah Governor Jon Huntsman Jr., who served as U.S. ambassador to China from 2009 to 2011.
Stolen trade secrets, pirated software, and counterfeiting cost the United States between $225 billion and $600 billion per year, the commission estimates...
Scholars often take issue with efforts to put a price tag on IP theft...
Also up for debate is how best to address IP theft. The Obama administration pursued a strategy heavy on prosecutions of Chinese-born U.S. scientists (see here, here, and here), along with symbolic moves against overseas offenders, such as the 2014 indictment of five members of a People’s Liberation Army hacking unit. Policy tools improved under Obama went “largely unused,” the report said. For instance, a 2015 law enabling the president to sanction foreign countries, companies, and individuals for IP theft has not yet been invoked."
