> At first they didn't prosecute them, then they did but only for foreign companies

Funny how that works.

> Basically they had to play along to western rules that were baked into global institutions

Like making it mandatory to have a Chinese co-owner own 50% for all businesses created in China? I don't remember seeing that in the WTO rules.

> Some further reading [0] could be a book like To Steal Is An Elegant Offense from William P. Alford for a longer history of the relationship to IP within Chinese society.

Thanks for the book recommendation!