Interest Groups and Sino-US Conflicts over Intellectual Property Protection

Abstract

Interest groups have played an important role in Sino-US conflicts over Intellectual Property(IP) protection such as “Special 301”, “337” investigations and dispute under TRIPS. This paper reviewed the evolvement of these conflicts and then analyzed the role of U.S. interest groups and U.S. government and Chinese government. An adjusted two-level game was put forward to illustrate the essential of Sino-US IP protection conflicts which is the U.S. government, standing for IP interest groups, demanded higher protection while Chinese government, trading off the interests of different groups, partly resisted and partly given up. The IP protection in China thus has been increasing by and by but the conflicts will not cease as long as there’s still IP protection gap. Finally it concludes that IP conflicts have not materially hampered the trade relations between U.S. and China and the IP protection pressure is also a motive for China to promote indigenous innovation.