Almost everyone in China pirated Windows and Office. Microsoft were unable to do anything about it, and gave up trying.

Western companies have virtually no IP in China. It gets stolen and IP rights are not enforcible - western companies basically cannot sue Chinese companies. Chinese companies can enforce their IP against western companies, who have to surrender theirs to access the Chinese market. The system is completely rigged in China's favour.

The only way to level that playing field is for western nations to do the same: Let their domestic companies freely steal Chinese IP and selectively enforce IP rights, as China does.

Like in other places, Apple does very well in China, and everyone "pirates" MacOS wait...no they don't. Microsoft made/makes money in China, the piracy came from an outdated software model that eventually went away, and WinDev was going down in flames on revenue worldwide even before that.

> The only way to level that playing field is for western nations to do the same: Let their domestic companies freely steal Chinese IP and selectively enforce IP rights, as China does.

China literally just gives it away for free. They are the top supplier of open source LLMs.