The lucky author

Rivalry Between the Powers became popular as soon as it came out. Interestingly, it was classified by all the lists into “literature”, instead of “social science”, and stayed with those pure literary works. Actually, the book seemed to be more of a novel than a record, where the China-U.S. IP negotiation was portrayed detailedly and vividly by sufficient first-hand materials. Negotiation representatives were no longer “cold” officials, but ordinary and passionate people shouldered with great responsibilities. Written so realistically, the book even made readers doubt about the authenticity of the scenes described. Some Netizens commented that, “how can the negotiators act like this? It must be made up.”

“Only when you were there do you would know that the quarreling, striking the table or abusing each other did happen. When I said in my book that Dong Baolin pounded the table angrily and cried ‘down with U.S. imperialism,’ I was describing a real occurrence that I witnessed with my own eyes,” said Wu Haimin.

Wu Haimin is so lucky to have these experiences, but he said that such luck would probably never come again. He explained to this journalist: “I attended the negotiations not as a journalist, but was invited to interview and report under that special historical environment. I don’t think in the future, any ‘outsiders’ will have the chance to attend such negotiations, let alone to record and publish them.” In Wu’s words, this book is unique and inimitable.

12 years late though, the good book finally sees the light of day. But is the book outdated from the present perspectives? Has the lucky author any new ideas about IP development in China and the Sino-U.S. relationship?

China IP: The publication of your book was put off for 12 years. Do you feel that now the book has lost its realistic significance and is simply a resource book for IP researchers or something that satisfies the curiosities of common readers?

Wu: No, it isn’t. It is true that this book partially serves as resource materials since it records the things happened 12 years ago, but it still has realistic significance and the warning significance for our future work. There are two central themes in the book: Sino-U.S. IP Negotiations and the Sino-U.S. relationship. These two themes have existed over the past 12 years and some problems have even become more conspicuous currently. Trade frictions between China and the U.S., such as the conflict over steel pipes, tires and art paper, have surface. IP frictions between the two countries are still on-going and new issues like “sue to the WTO” have emerged.

In addition, some problems mentioned in this book are actually more outstanding in today’s environment. 12 years ago our earlier Chinese people were only concerned about the negotiation itself and didn’t realize the importance of IP negotiations or the significance of intellectual property upon national interests and social development. “Intellectual property” was a new word to them. But with the development of the Chinese economy, it has made more and more contributions to the economy, and its importance has been gradually recognized by people. At this moment, people can find reasons from this book as to why the two countries could spend so much time in IP negotiations and will have a better understanding of its importance and to a certain degree push IP development in China. Therefore, I think this book is of great realistic significance.

I’m sure these two problems will continue to exist for a long time; especially with the growing economic strength of China, frictions between China and the United States are becoming aggravated. That’s why I say that this book is of warning significance. For example, it tells us we should never slacken the efforts in constituting and improving the IP legal system in China.

China IP: From your experience we can see that GATT resumption negotiations, market access negotiations and IP negotiations were held simultaneously? Is there any internal logic to these three negotiations?

Wu: My book recorded three negotiations: GATT resumption negotiations, market access negotiations and IP negotiations, and the focus was finally put on IP negotiations. In fact, there was no interrelation among these three negotiations; they were mixed together under that special historical environment. IP negotiations between the two countries actually started during the early reform and opening up and relevant provisions were stipulated to in the Sino-U.S. High Energy Physics Agreement signed at that time. For a period after that, the negotiations were focused on the cooperation of specific projects without relevance to trade. Then came the revision of the Special 301 Provisions, which attached IP to trade, and became the “legal” argument of the United States began to interfere in China’s internal affairs, such as requiring China to speed up national legislation. In this way, IP negotiations penetrated into market access negotiations. When GATT assumption negotiations were held, due to the existence of the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), the Chinese side requested to rejoin the GATT, but the U.S. urged us to clean up market access issues first. Then it turned back again to IP negotiations. Therefore, it was the United States’ Special 301 Provisions that interlaced the three negotiations.

An interesting thing is that these three negotiations were held at the same time and by the same people.

China IP: Is it a coincidence?

Wu: It was not a coincidence, but a necessity. Actually there were two necessities here. On one hand, it was a natural result of the U.S. economic structural adjustment. Technology and culture enjoy a large proportion in the economy, but technological and cultural achievements are easy to copy or steal, which sometimes causes devastating economic losses. Therefore, the U.S. naturally requires its trade partners to offer special protection over its intellectual property. On the other hand, to fit into the world market and to enter into the WTO, China had to introduce other countries’ high technological and cultural products and give them good protection. And to transform from “Made in China” to “Created in China”, we shall not simply imitate foreign brands or products, but try to make more creations and pay special attention to IP protection. Lincoln ever said that, “the Patent System adds the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.” Intellectual property is truly related to the creativity of a nation.