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Intellectual property ("IP") represents one of the main controversies of U.S.– China trade relations in the past three decades and remains one of the core issues behind the two countries' recent trade frictions. This Article provides an overview of the current IP debates between the two largest economies in the world. It illustrates the transformation of the Chinese government's role from inactive IP law enforcer to active facilitator of access to and acquisition of foreign technologies. This study further explains how China's approach to learning western technologies has transformed from low-end imitation to gaining a controlling stake in foreign companies via joint ventures or outbound investments. More importantly, this Article discusses the legal and policy implications of the IP issues in this trade war. I argue that the recent IP trade war represents the struggle for global technological leadership as well as a new institutional competition in the post-Cold War era. Moreover, China's "economic aggression," as the United States understands it, has caused a number of unsolved issues for the international IP regime, which include the justification of China's controversial IP policies for the purpose of industrial catch-up as well as the evidentiary and legal bases for holding China liable for its economic aggression in relation to IP.

The modern world relies on technical standards, most of which involve standard-essential patents (SEPs). To balance SEP holders'fair compensation with standard implementers' access to standardized technologies, standard-setting organizations (SSOs) generally require that their members commit to license their SEPs on a fair, reasonable,and non-discriminatory (FRAND) basis. In recent years, the communications industry has seen a growing amount of litigation concerning SEPs and FRAND in many jurisdictions. As China has grown into a major player and market in the worldwide communications business, its public policy, court decisions, and private business strategies concerning SEPs and FRAND are likely to have a huge global impact in the high-technology sector. The high-profile Huawei v. IDC is the first Chinese court decision ruling on FRAND-encumbered SEPs issues. This is also the first Asian case in which the court determined a FRAND royalty rate to calculate the fee paid by the standard implementer to the SEP holder. Based on the Chinese government's policy toward technical standards and the case of Huawei, this Article identifies two distinguishing features in China's encounter with standard-related issues. The first is the active role played by the government in domestic standard-setting activities, while the second is Chinese courts' civil law approach, associated with good faith, to the enforcement of FRAND commitments. Based on a comparative and critical viewpoint, this Article uses Huawei as an example to illustrate the challenges and perplexities for the judicial determination of a FRAND rate. The reasoning in Huawei is far from sufficient and satisfactory, and it is unclear whether the Chinese courts are tasked to implement the government's industrial policy. Nonetheless, Huawei did identify some crucial factors concerning FRAND and SEPs, and it has had a significant impact on Chinese related standard-setting activities.