The Political Economy of
Intellectual Property Rights
Protection in the People's
Republic of China
Mark A. Groombridge
The People's Republic of China has made considerable progress in developing a strong intellectual property rights regime since the early 1970s. Under the newly consolidated rule of Deng Xiaoping and the commencement of the "Four Modernizations" program in December 1978, 1 and with greater intensity as the reform period has progressed, the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party has publicly acknowledged the need to develop a "knowledge economy" based on a strong system of intellectual property rights (IPR). Despite the progress, particularly since 1982, significant barriers remain. China must foster a consciousness among the populace that IPR is important, and it must develop the necessary institutions to hold accountable those who infringe such rights. The barriers arise from China's cultural attitudes and from certain contradictory forces at work in the present-day People's Republic of China.
From a cultural perspective, the operant word to describe the
-11-
