Question

In the US context, discuss the use of tariffs against China as a strategic weapon to curb their intellectual property theft.

Answer 1

Answer: Recently president Trump announced a rise in tariff on the imported Chinese goods in certain sectors. This as per the president is a step that U.S has taken for preventing intellectual property theft from U.S by the Chinese companies. The U.S has been blaming China for employing several tactics to gain access to the technologies from the country. It is a long required condition that any U.S company that enters China for its manufacturing has to share and transfer business information to a local Chinese company. If they do not partner with a Chinese company and share their business knowledge and information, then they have to pay steep tariffs for importing their products into China. Similarly the U.S companies have to store their sensitive data in the Chinese Mainland in order to comply with the localization requirements set by the Chinese government. All these factors have promoted the theft of important and valuable business information from the U.S. In order to take care of this scenario, President Trump have announced imposing tariffs on the imports of goods from China mainly in those segments that are benefiting more from such theft. These tariffs are also planned for persuading the Chinese government to reduce employing tactics that support the theft of intellectual property from U.S.