The issue is of huge concern to the technology and creative arts industries. | REUTERS Campaigns to focus on China IP theft

Intellectual property theft by Chinese companies, a huge concern for the technology and creative arts industries, will be a major campaign focus this week with GOP presidential hopeful Mitt Romney planning to hit the Obama administration even harder on its record on the issue.

Romney adviser Ed Gillespie, on a 15-minute press call on Monday, returned repeatedly to the topic of China even when asked about other matters. He insisted that between intellectual property violations and unfair subsidies for Chinese auto and tech companies, the problem has cost 2 million American jobs.


“We have a plan to address China cheating in the international marketplace,” Gillespie said. “The president’s failed policies have been to not stand up to China. … Temporary tariffs are not a solution. We need a more comprehensive plan on China.”

Gillespie didn’t offer specifics.

Whether the issue matters to voters is an open question. Romney has been running ads in battleground states, lambasting China all summer with little evidence of traction. Gillespie, however, asserted otherwise, insisting, “This is very resonant in Ohio and other states, as well.”

His proof: President Barack Obama’s campaign has responded with ads of its own, and said last week the United States has filed a trade enforcement case regarding Chinese government subsidies for domestic car makers with the World Trade Organization.

“I think it’s clear that the message on China has resonated not only in the polls but the Obama campaign,” Gillespie said. “They went up with a commercial. The administration even filed a case. As Gov. Romney said, if all it took to get the administration to take action was to run an ad, we would’ve run one years ago.”

Indeed, Obama has already hit back, most recently by pointing to investments revealed in Romney’s newly released 2011 federal tax returns, which included the sale of $75,000 in stock in China National Offshore Oil Corp., the country’s state-owned oil company.

“Romney harshly criticizes the Chinese for intellectual property theft, but his 2011 tax return revealed that he invested in a Chinese version of YouTube, which ‘quickly became a haven for downloading illegal American content,’” Obama spokesman Ben LaBolt wrote in a five-page memo released Monday. “Romney holds a partnership interest in Bain Capital funds that are invested in GOME, a Chinese electronics company that is being sued by Microsoft for piracy, as well as in Uniview Technologies, which supplies the Chinese government with video surveillance systems.”