China values IPR, opposes unilateral action: MOFCOM

China places a high value on protection of intellectual property rights (IPR), and hopes that the US will seek cautious action to avoid hindering the sound growth of bilateral economic and trade relations between the two countries, a trade official said Thursday.

The comment came after US representatives gave testimonies on Tuesday, alleging that China has committed “intellectual property theft.”

At an International Trade Commission hearing on Tuesday, some groups alleged that Chinese firms stole ideas and software or forced firms to turn over intellectual property as part of the price of doing business with them, Reuters reported.

The report said that the IPR theft has allegedly cost the US billions of dollars and millions of jobs.

“We have noticed media reports about the hearing. The China Chamber of International Commerce represented China’s industrial and commercial industries by providing more than 700 pages of comments and relevant evidence to the Office of the US Trade Representative before the hearing,” Gao Feng, spokesman for China’s Ministry of Commerce (MOFCOM), told the Global Times at a regular press conference Thursday.

In fact, there was only a small number of enterprises that questioned China’s IPR protection at the hearing, while some companies and industrial associations have appealed to the US government for cautious action in order to avoid harming the sound and stable growth of Sino-US economic and trade ties, noted Gao.

China has been attaching great importance to IPR protection, and opposes any forms of unilateralism and protectionism, Gao said.

The US is expected to take the whole picture of Sino-US economic and trade relations as a starting point and comprehensively consider suggestions from all parties whose interests are involved, he said, noting that China hopes that the US will act cautiously and respect the facts as well as multilateral trade rules.

“The Chinese government will closely watch the development of the investigation and will adopt corresponding measures at a proper time to safeguard the legal rights and interests of the country,” said Gao.