중국 지방차원의 지재권 보호 딜레마－정책순응과 침해묵인 사이의 선택에 관한 탐색적 연구－

Abstract

This paper is an exploratory study of the Chinese local government’s dilemma over the protection of intellectual property rights (IPRs). To provide the rationale and local-level sources of the recurring IPRs infringement phenomena in China, this study adopts game theoretic framework to explain conceptually the choice between policy compliance and infringement connivance motives of local governments. Realistically assuming information asymmetry between central and provincial governments on the one hand, and between lower-level local governments and local enterprises under their jurisdiction on the other, this study finds that one of the most important factors that affect the IPRs infringement at local level is ‘localism cum local protectionism,’ in which local governments put priority on their local economic interest often sacrificing the objective of central government to catch up with the global technological level and to comply with the TRIPs requirement of the WTO agreement. Under the multi-layered decentralized setting, local governments have strong incentive not to strictly execute the IPR laws and regulations,deliberately overlooking the deviant behaviors of local enterprises. In the process, the interests of the central government are sacrificed, but the central government with inferior information, has no effective means to control and penalize local governments. Only when domestic and international environment convinces local party cadres of the ‘tough guy’stance of the central government, they try to observe the IPR laws and regulations. Yet whenever central control is loosened, local leaders choose not to comply with the central directions and laws. Their motivations are diverse:to win the growth (rate) race with the neighboring and/or peer local governments, to expand local employment & revenues, to improve export performance, etc. Local power elites’ moral hazards, rent-seeking corruption practices using personal connection (guanxi) with infiltrators, coupled with insufficient crackdown cooperation among local governments, make the IPR protection situation at local level even worse. This paper has shortcomings. To provide conclusive evidence to support the conceptual framework presented in this paper, multiple regression analysis should be carried out in the future, using regional panel data on independent and/or control variables that affect both central monitoring decisions and localism practices.