IP is a much bigger part of the economy now, but for the time, U.S. infringement of foreign IP was rampant, and explicitly legal. See the links I posted in another comment here.

I wasn't intending to use that comparison as a real justification of China's infringement; your point is a much better one as far as that goes. I brought up U.S. history in response to the characterization of China's culture as particularly disrespectful of "the rules and customs of other cultures."