The US-China Trade War and Debunking Myths about China’s Intellectual Property Regime

Complaints about China’s intellectual property (IP) regime have contributed to one of the largest trade wars in modern history: the US-China trade war starting in 2018. How did we get here? I offer a somewhat counter-intuitive explanation for this state of affairs. I argue that a notable portion, albeit certainly not all, of the recent US-China trade war is attributable to major conflicting myths about China’s IP regime borne in scholarly, government, and business circles.