Assessing the Compliance and Competitive Prospects of China's Manufacturing Industry's Digital Transformation under the WTO Agreement on Trade-related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights

Abstract

Digital transformation in Chinese manufacturing industries is a new phenomenon that is rapidly transforming China’s industrial structures, which provides premised competitive edges in international markets while it has sparked controversy over WTO non-compliance. This paper aims to assess China’s manufacturing industry’s digital transformation regarding the WTO TRIPS Agreement. Regarding China’s position to safeguard IP in the high-tech industries, traditional manufacturing industry, and SMEs, it looks at the legal and regulatory aspects. Through the evaluation of TRIPS commitments of China, this particular paper evaluates the compliance and competitiveness as reinforced through the protection of its IP rights including boosted innovations, foreign direct investment, and entry to the market. While noting that there has been much accomplished in overhauling China’s IP Protection, the findings reveal that the major difficulties persist in the enforcement and in aligning laws with information communication technologies. The study thus establishes the need to adhere to IP protection and provides pointers of Porter’s Grocery Model on China averts in order to embrace the global market. In this regard, the analysis aims to shed light on the challenging and promising aspects of harmonizing national digital transformation processes with the international framework of IP protection.