Summit offers frank talk on trade, innovation

Andy Icken, deputy director of Houston Planning & Development, and Cai Jianfeng, deputy director of Suzhou Municipal Commission on Economy and Information, sign cooperative agreement for further cooperation between the two cities at the summit on Tuesday. MAY ZHOU / CHINA DAILY

China is highly interested in protecting intellectual property for its own benefit, a Chinese envoy told a large business innovation gathering in Houston.

Friction over trade and technology has risen lately between China and the US, but Consul General Li Qiangmin in Houston assured the audience that China supports IP protection.

"Without IP, it's hard to realize the innovative development goal China set for itself. China has stepped up the effort for IP protection, which conforms to China's own interests," he said.

Li spoke at the third US China Innovation and Investment Summit (UCIS) in Houston, which took place on Monday and Tuesday.

Chinese government delegations from Jiangsu, Guizhou, Hubei, Jilin, Heilongjiang and Shaanxi, as well as representatives from research centers and industries traveled to Texas to meet representatives from more than 120 US technology companies.

And more than 700 US companies applied to be in the summit's core program, the InnoSTARS Competition, which also takes place in Chicago, Denver, Atlanta, San Francisco, Boston, Seattle and Miami.

More than 30 US companies won preliminary awards in the first round. Five already have been invited by the city of Suzhou for talks on cooperation.

Suzhou, as the highlight city of this year's summit, signed a cooperation agreement with Houston, committing to establish the China-US Bio-Tech Innovation Center (CUBIC) in Houston this year with the Jiangsu Industrial Technology Research Institute.

Initiated by the Ministry of Science and Technology of China and the Chinese consulate in Houston, the summit was organized by the US China Innovation Alliance and China Science and Technology Exchange Center.

In its first two years, UCIS brought together more than 60 Chinese and American innovation organizations, held more than 1,000 B2B match meetings, helped to sign more than 100 agreements, and brought to fruition several major projects, Consul General Li pointed out.

"This has become such an important platform for technology collaboration between China and the US that it was included in the 2017 US-China Social and Cultural Dialogue. Its influence is becoming bigger," Li said.

Referring to IP, LI said that "in 2017, there were over 1.38 million patent applications in China, and China paid $28.6 billion in IP fees. These data fully demonstrate that China is a firm advocate and participant for international rules and IP."

Li believes that in the bilateral relationship, cooperation, not friction, is the mainstream objective.