GENEVA — An American-backed candidate on Wednesday beat out China’s nominee to lead the United Nations organization charged with protecting intellectual property, a vote that followed weeks of vicious diplomatic sniping between Washington and Beijing.
Daren Tang of Singapore easily won the nomination to take over as the director general of the Geneva-based World Intellectual Property Organization, collecting 55 of the votes cast by 83 member states to 28 for China’s candidate, Wang Binying.
The result will need to be confirmed by the organization’s general assembly in May but Mr. Tang, who now heads Singapore’s intellectual property office, is set to inherit an organization that has experienced significant growth in recent years.
The organization received more than a quarter of a million new patent applications in 2018, when the Chinese telecommunications company Huawei topped the list of applicants.
“We are very pleased with the election outcome,” America’s ambassador in Geneva, Andrew Bremberg, told reporters. The decision is “a clear demonstration of the importance of protecting intellectual property and the entire independence of WIPO,” Mr. Bremberg said, using the organization’s acronym.
France’s ambassador in Geneva, François Rivasseau, hailed the result as “an important vote for the rule of law.”
For the United States, the vote was nothing less than a battle for the integrity of global intellectual property at a critical moment, as countries race to develop advanced technologies like robotics, artificial technology and 5G wireless networks. The potential for China to oversee a body responsible for protecting intellectual property key to the development of next-generation products prompted a fierce lobbying campaign by the White House and the State Department, aimed at persuading other nations to back Mr. Tang.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo said last month that Washington was watching the election “very, very closely” and that the United States would “make sure that whoever runs that organization understands the importance of enforcing intellectual property rights across nations and across boundaries.”
On Wednesday, Mr. Pompeo praised the election of Mr. Tang in a statement, calling him “an effective advocate for protecting intellectual property, a vocal proponent of transparency and institutional integrity.”
A Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Zhao Lijian, criticized Washington’s effort, saying it was “doing all it can to pressure other countries to give up their support for the Chinese candidate.” China’s ambassador in Geneva, Chen Xu, told reporters last week that the United States had threatened smaller countries with loss of World Bank and International Monetary Fund loans.
Ms. Wang, who holds a law degree from the University of California at Berkeley and a law diploma from Columbia Law School, was the most qualified candidate, he said, citing her nearly 30 years of service at the United Nations intellectual property office where she is a deputy to the departing director, Francis Gurry of Australia. America’s opposition to her candidacy was “totally irrational,” he added.
But campaigning for the United Nations post touched a nerve in the White House. The Trump administration has accused China of outright theft of American technology and trade secrets and invoked those charges as justification for the trade war with China. The Justice Department recently unveiled charges of racketeering and conspiracy to steal trade secrets against Huawei, one of China’s biggest telecom equipment makers, accusing it of trying to steal source code and other trade secrets from six American companies.
While a trade agreement reached between America and China early this year included pledges by Beijing to halt some of the practices that Washington has objected to, it did not allay the administration’s deep misgivings at the prospect of China’s candidate taking the top job at the intellectual property organization.
Peter Navarro, Mr. Trump’s trade adviser, has been critical of electing a Chinese official to run the intellectual property office. After the U.S.-China trade deal, Mr. Navarro has been focused on ensuring that the Chinese government keeps its promises to protect intellectual property. As part of that, he has been spearheading proposals to curb the flow of counterfeit products from China that are sold on American e-commerce platforms.
“We’re talking about over 100,000 packages a day coming into the U.S. from China that can defraud, harm or even kill Americans,” Mr. Navarro said in January.
He also raised the specter of growing Chinese influence across the United Nations organization. Control of its intellectual property office would have given China power over five of the U.N.’s 15 specialized agencies, Mr. Navarro noted.
The four already led by China include the Food and Agriculture Organization, the International Civil Aviation Organization, the Industrial Development Organization and the International Telecommunications Union. No other country was in charge of more than one, he said.
Alan Rappeport and Lara Jakes contributed reporting from Washington.
Source: Economy - nytimes.com
