The Impact Of Intellectual Property Protection On China's Import

In recent years, China's foreign trade volume has increased rapidly, but the extent to which import and export increase are different. In particular, since its accession to the WTO in 2001, China's trade surplus jumped from＄22.5 billion in 2001 to＄295.5 billion in 2008, which also brought the rapid expansion of foreign exchange reserves, leading to many problems for China's macroeconomic development. The reason, on the one hand, is that there were a large number of China's cheap goods entering into developed countries since China's accession to the WTO, leding to an increase of China's export. On the other hand, it is the reason that China's import from developed countries was not sufficient, and one of the reason involved in the problem of intellectual property rights(IPR). Meanwhile, there were more and more intellectual property disputes between China and other countries, some developed countries has been asking China to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights. Under such circumstances., whether should we strengthen the protection of intellectual property? Is it possible to increase China's import to balance China's foreign trade by strengthening IPR protection, and easing the pressure we face from developed countries at the same time?This question needs to be answered theoretically and examined empirically.In this paper, using the data of China's import from its 32 major trading partners, and with gravity model, we examine the impact of China's IP protection on its imports by quantifying the level of IPR protection in China. Empirical analysis indicates that the improvement of China's IPR protection are condusive to China's import from developed countries while not significant from developing countries. Finally, we draw our conclusion and the corresponding suggestions.