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TRIPs and Industrial Technology Development in East and South Asia

The introduction of the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPs) under the World Trade Organisation (WTO) has opened again the debate on the importance of regulation for economic efficiency and welfare across a diverse spectrum of economies. Using the free trade-state intervention debate as the theoretical anchor, this article examines the impact of the agreement on technology capability building in East and South Asian economies. Given that both free trade and interventionist privately governed intellectual property rights face a range of problems and that the selective application of theoretical strengths to policy is difficult, it is difficult to extract clear-cut conclusions. The article makes the point that Japan and, to a less extent, the Asian NIEs are well positioned to enforce compliance and sustain technological development. China among the second-tier NIEs enjoys the best high tech and IPR infrastructure to make the transition to NIE status. The remaining second-tier NIEs lack the high tech infrastructure to sustain strong technological development activities, though their IPR infrastructure is sufficiently developed to enforce compliance. India, Pakistan, Vietnam and Sri Lanka demonstrate selected technological capabilities, but their overall infrastructure is too weak to engender broad-based technology development, and ensure compliance. Brunei and Macao can comply with the TRIPs obligations. The remaining economies neither have sufficient capabilities to participate strongly in technology development nor the IPR infrastructure to enforce compliance. While the TRIPs process might offer room for consensus building, it is unlikely that the poorer economies will enjoy a fair representation given the power asymmetry between members.