China regards intellectual property as just another factor of production and wants to lower its price to a minimum. By contrast, high-tech American firms often derive their profits by obtaining higher and higher prices for intellectual property.

US diplomatic cables leaked to Wikileaks in 2010 reveal the high priority American diplomats give to the surveillance and defence of intellectual property regimes around the world. Thousands of cables and millions of words are devoted to this subject.

Australia, as a net importer of intellectual property, has good reasons to side with the developing world, which has been calling for a “development agenda” that facilitates technology transfer as a key enabler of development. Instead, Australia sides with the “patent agenda” of the US, the EU and Japan even though it comes with a high price.

via Australia backs wrong horse as IP rights loom large in US-China trade war – Michael West