Paper Titles & Abstracts

Protection of intellectual property rights has been one of the irritants in EU-China relations and also among the barriers to the negotiations between the two sides on their Partnership and Cooperation Agreement. However, academic discussions on this topic are still underdeveloped compared to other sensitive issues in EU-China relations, such as human rights and China's Market Economy Status. The prevalent infringement of IPR in China is estimated to cause enormous economic losses to the EU due to deepened trade interdependence between the two. Since 2004 EU-China IP Dialogue takes place annually, complemented by regular meetings of the EU-China IP Working Group and joint cooperation projects. IPR is also a major topic of the EU-China High-Level Economic and Trade Dialogue. While acknowledging China's cooperative attitude and efforts to address the EU's IP concerns, the EU has expressed impatience with China's slow progress in IPR enforcement. In the meantime, strengthened IPR protection has become vital to China's domestic interests as the country aims to turn itself from a labour-intensive economy into a knowledge-based economy and achieve sustainable development. Against this background, it would be worthwhile to explore the domestic factors affecting China's behaivour on the IP issues of the EU's concern.