Excerpts from this book address intellectual property rights and their protection, compliance, and enforcement in China. After China's entry into the World Trade Organization, which subsequently extended the TRIPs agreement to its borders, China has seen mixed results on its attempts to enforce the standards and statutes outlined in the TRIPs agreement. According to the authors, China's IP law currently offers protection consistent with the minimum requirement of TRIPs. However, the authors suggest that in order to elimanate some of the shortcomings of the TRIPs framework, Article 7 of TRIPS and its role must be enhanced in order to restore balance: "the protection and enforcement of intellectual property rights should contribute to the promotion of technological innovation and to the transfer and dissemination of technology, to the mutual advantage of producers and users of technological knowledge and in a manner conducive to social and economic welfare, and to a balance of rights and obligations. However, the landscape of international intellectual property is changing, and the authors point out the diverging trend of multilateral institutions leaning towards securing the access of developing countries to protected content and material on reasonable terms while bilateral trade agreements continue to enforce strict copyright rules in favor of the developed nation. However, we must take TRIPs on facevalue and should be viewed as part of the broader strategy of priority setting, education, and institutional capacity building, regulaory adaptation, FDI marketing, and patent mining. Nevertheless, piracy and counterfeiting are still significant threats to right holders. The Chinese policy of administrative enforcement of copyright law often impedes its very goal due to longstanding local protectionism and cronyism as well as the internal bureaucratic rivalries that prevent the creation of a comprehesive IP strategy.  However, the Chinese have instituted judicial review of these administrative decisions, increases in the maximum fines available for IP infringements, and lower thresholds for criminal liability. Although change has come at a sluggish pace and Chinese IP enforcement will never rival that of many Western nations, China has made considerable steps in order to comply with TRIPs legislation.

The general opinion seems to agree that China has come a long way in IPR enforcement, but it still has a long way to go. As the broader themes of this paper come together, this article will serve to point on many of the drawbacks of the Chinese system and what can  be done to change this as well as the steps taken by China to meet the minimum requirements of the TRIPs agreement. While enforcement is still an issue, this authors make clear that we must be patient due to the extenuating circumstances of China's robust economy coupled with a lagging administrative stucture and status as a developig nation.