A showdown between courts in Texas and Wuhan over an intellectual property dispute demonstrates how China is working hard to present itself as a champion of intellectual property (IP) protection.

Why it matters: As China's global influence continues to grow, its domestic regulatory and legal regimes are gaining more international sway as well.

Driving the news: After a months-long standoff, Ericsson and Samsung agreed to a cross-licensing deal on May 7, ending a dispute over patents relating to 4G and 5G wireless standards.

• On Dec. 7 of last year, Samsung filed suit against Ericsson in the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court of China, while Ericsson filed its own suit against Samsung in the Eastern District of Texas on Dec. 11.
• On Dec. 25, the court in Wuhan issued what is known as an "anti-suit injunction," which bars courts anywhere else in the world from taking on the case.
• In response, Ericsson filed an "anti-anti-suit injunction" in the Texas court, seeking to block the Wuhan court's injunction, and the presiding Texas judge granted a temporary injunction.

Flashback: This isn't the first time the Wuhan Intermediate People's Court has claimed sole jurisdiction in an international patent case.

• Amid a dispute in India between Chinese cellphone maker Xiaomi and U.S. patent licensing company InterDigital, in September 2020 the court in Wuhan issued an anti-suit injunction against InterDigital, which had applied for the case to be heard in an Indian court.

The case for China's courts: Randall Rader, former chief judge of the U.S. Federal Circuit Court of Appeals, submitted a declaration on Jan. 1 in support of Samsung's request to have the Chinese court decide the case.

• Rader has taught law in China and has experience interacting with China's legal institutions. In 2016, Tsinghua University in Beijing awarded Rader an honorary professorship.
• "In my view, there is no reason to give the Chinese court handling this global FRAND dispute any less deference than similar courts in the United States," Rader wrote in his declaration. (FRAND refers to fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory).
• "China is an appropriate and fair venue to decide an international contract and patent dispute like this one between Korean and Swedish companies. ... China also seeks the role of world leadership in complex global IP disputes."

Peter Yu, director of Texas A&M's Center for Law and Intellectual Property, told Axios he agrees with Rader's perspective.

• "Chinese courts are sufficiently independent to make judgments in high-profile intellectual property cases, including those involving foreign litigants," Yu said in an interview.

The case against China's courts: The Chinese Communist Party and leading figures in its court system have openly denounced the concept of judicial independence.

• “We should resolutely resist erroneous influence from the West: ‘constitutional democracy,’ ‘separation of powers’ and ‘independence of the judiciary,’” Chief Justice Zhou, the president of the Supreme People’s Court of China, said in a 2017 speech.
• "No courts in China are truly independent," Donald Clarke, a professor of Chinese law at George Washington University, told Axios. "One can say that Chinese IP courts are staffed by capable people. But they are capable people who must follow an order if one is given."

The big picture: Weak intellectual property protections and even rampant theft have long frustrated foreign governments and companies with operations in China.

• Under the phase one trade deal with the U.S., China has made specific commitments to improve its intellectual property protections — a trend the Chinese government has sought to emphasize in recent years as its economy is driven increasingly by high-tech innovation rather than low-tech exports.

What to watch ... The Intellectual Property Tribunal of China's Supreme Court, to see how China's legal practice develops as courts there handle more patent-related disputes.

South American governments need to do more to protect their sovereign waters from illegal fishing, Pablo Ferrara, an arbitrator at the Permanent Court of Arbitration for the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) and a professor at the Universidad del Salvador in Argentina, tells Axios.

Why it matters: A surge in illegal fishing around the world is depleting fisheries and threatening ecosystems and the livelihoods of local fishers. Chinese fishing fleets, benefitting from government fuel subsidies that allow them to traverse distant oceans, are now a primary culprit.

What's happening: Chinese-flagged ships sail in fleets of up to hundreds of "factory vessels" that fish, process and freeze in industrial quantities, Ferrara explained. "It's unbearable. It has no comparison."

• Chinese fleets often follow a route that takes them near the exclusive economic zones of South American nations, said Ferrara, and sometimes the boats will turn off their tracking devices so they can fish unobserved in waters where they aren't permitted to be.
• South American governments have done little to stop the illegal activities, in part because they lack sufficient naval resources.

Details: Ferrara is helping spearhead a new civil society effort to pressure governments to enforce fishing laws and to call out countries implicated in bad practices, including overfishing, shark finning, illegal fishing, bottom trawling, incursions into protected waters, and human rights abuses.

• The organizers have submitted a legal injunction in Argentina, accusing the government there of failing to comply with its constitutional obligations to protect the environment. They plan to submit similar injunctions in Ecuador and several other countries.

What he's saying: "Our goal is to raise public awareness and support. The strategy is also legally aggressive," said Ferrara. "It is my right to have a balanced environment."

Of note: Before his appointment to serve on the UNCLOS court of arbitration upon Madagascar's recommendation, Ferrara served as a professor at Xiamen University's South China Sea Institute.

• He criticized the Hague arbitral tribunal's 2016 ruling determining that much of China's territorial claims in the South China Sea had no basis in international law, calling it oversimplified.

Go deeper: U.S. urged to join South America in fighting China fishing

1. The World Health Organization authorized China’s Sinopharm’s COVID-19 vaccine for emergency use. Go deeper.

2. China's carbon emissions surpassed all developed nations combined. Go deeper.

3. Tencent is in talks with the U.S. to keep ownership of video game developers, Reuters reports.

4. China's telecom giants lost their appeal of a forthcoming New York Stock Exchange delisting, Caixin Global reports.

5. China's new census data shows slowest population growth in decades, the BBC reports.

China's foreign agent spending has skyrocketed from just over $10 million in 2016 to nearly $64 million last year as its U.S.-based state-run media outlets have finally registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), Axios' Lachlan Markay writes.

Why it matters: China is now the top spender on propaganda and lobbying activities tracked by FARA, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

What's happening: State-run Chinese news service Xinhua is the latest to reveal some of the inner workings of its U.S. operations.

• Xinhua's U.S. arm officially registered as a foreign agent last week, three years after the Justice Department notified the company it was required to do so, as first reported by Foreign Lobby Watch.
• Its initial filing under FARA is largely generic, describing Xinhua as "an independent legal entity" that's simply "subject to government oversight."
• In fact, the media organ is owned by the Chinese government, run by senior Communist Party officials and widely seen as a Beijing mouthpiece.
• Its new FARA filing disclosed $8.6 million in payments since March 2020 from Xinhua's Chinese parent to its U.S. arm, including payments directly to bureaus in Washington, Los Angeles, Houston, San Francisco and Chicago.

The big picture: Xinhua is just the latest state-run Chinese media organ to register.

• CRP data show Chinese entities spent more on registered foreign agent activities in 2020 than those of any other nation.
• That was largely driven by FARA registrations by state-run media outlets such as China Daily and CGTN.
• Together they accounted for more than two-thirds of Chinese FARA spending in 2019 and more than four-fifths in 2020, eclipsing big names such as telecom giant Huawei and surveillance tech firm Hikvision.

Between the lines: Like those of other nations, Chinese state-run media companies have resisted U.S. Justice Department demands to register under FARA.

Land grab: China is building entire villages in another country’s territory (Foreign Policy)

• Blockbuster investigation from FP on how the Chinese government has built villages and military infrastructure on Bhutanese territory, claimed for Beijing, without anybody noticing.
• "The settlement of an entire area within another country goes far beyond the forward patrolling and occasional road-building that led to war with India in 1962, military clashes in 1967 and 1987, and the deaths of 24 Chinese and Indian soldiers in 2020. In addition, it openly violates the terms of China’s founding treaty with Bhutan."

China in Africa: Partnering for Africa’s digital future: Opportunities for the United States, South Korea, and India (Atlantic Council)

• "For Washington, cooperation with these emerging powers could keep the door open to US influence in Africa, and could help ensure that Beijing’s strategic foothold in the continent does not deepen."

China's box office set new records this month, as ticket sales brought in $258 million over the five-day May Day holiday.

• The holiday box office was dominated by domestic films, as China's film industry, and its movie-going market, continues to flourish despite sometimes intrusive censorship and propaganda.

The big picture: China has become a can't-miss market for Hollywood, and a growing number of U.S. films are made with Chinese film studio partnerships, and their audience, in mind.