Future President China Mentions IPR First As Sino-U.S. Challenge

Xi Jinping, Vice President of PRC
probably the next President of China in 2012

Xí Jìnpíng 习近平, China's vice president, and probably the successor of Hu Jintao as president in 2012, wrote to the Washington Post in response to some specific questions an overview of Sino-U.S. relations over the last 40 years, plus a look into the future.

It is telling that Mr Xi started with IPR when he wrote about the challenges the U.S and China have:
"We have taken active steps to meet legitimate U.S. concerns over IPR [intellectual-property rights] protection and trade imbalance, and we will continue to do so. We will continue to press ahead with the reform of the RMB [renminbi] exchange rate formation mechanism and offer foreign investors a fair, rule-based and transparent investment environment. At the same time, we hope the United States will take substantive steps as soon as possible to ease restrictions on high-tech exports to China and provide a level playing field for Chinese enterprises to invest in the United States."

Read Xi Jinping's text in the Washington Post here (quote about IPR on page 2, see here).