... He did? Since when has an emerging economy that relied on manufacturing according to foreign tech/demand *ever* paid more than lip service until its own industry was firmly established and had IP worth infringing of its own? Heck, the USA and European industries were all founded on precisely such practices including some genuine industrial espionage ... ?

Patents are overrated, apart from the fact that for much of the modern technology patents are also a hindrance to genuine innovation. They're from an age where you could actually count them inside your head, and the R&D investment and turnover times actually had any correspondence with the patent grant. Today, patents are dysfunctional at best and insidious at worst. Patents haven't worked properly since Germany figured out how to game the system in the 19th century.

Patents only work if everyone plays by the same rules *and* the various patent offices are actually competent. Right now, we have neither and there is no reason to assume we ever will have both.