China gets away with IP infringement by either 1) mostly keeping it internal or 2) by coping using fly-by-the-night companies creating knock offs. 1) Is hard to

China gets away with IP infringement by either 1) mostly keeping it internal or 2) by coping using fly-by-the-night companies creating knock offs. 1) Is hard to police no matter what. 2) Is hard to police because there aren't any deep pockets to sue. They import in small batches etc. If China tried to knock off major chip designs Intel or AMD, they could be instantly found out and banned from import to major economies. And that would include any products that used those chips. So no major manufacturer would be interested in it. China would almost definitely use some industrial espionage and trade secret misappropriation. But they couldn't just do a knock off version. But its not like other competitors in this space haven't been doing the same thing. Plus, you can't fully reverse engineer semiconductor devices. A lot of steps in the fabrication process don't leave any clues. Finally, China is starting to develop a robust IP system in their country. The number of Chinese patents is skyrocketing. As they try to transition from dumb factory of the world to a leading innovation center, they'll want IP protection.