This paper examines how China represents the largest consumer market in the world. It explores how business interests in
this market and the opening of China in the 1970s have led to China's membership in the World Trade Organization, as well as increased cooperation and interaction between the Chinese government, Chinese businesses, and the international political and
business community. In particular, it looks at how this engagement has focused attention on China's
intellectual property rights and how it has spawned increasing pressure for China to conform its laws and regulations to global standards and to actively enforce them. It discusses how the motivation has been the flagrant Chinese piracy of intellectual property that has produced vast losses in potential revenue to many firms throughout the world, particularly the United States.