China's legal practices, combined with the growing pains of its fledgling legal institutions and evolving political norms, create problems for MNEs. A flashpoint is the theft of intellectual property-the product of someone's intellect that has commercial value such as patents, trademarks, or copyrights. MNEs complain that tha relentless, widespread, and sophisticated theft fo their intellectual property fuels China’s economic surge.Aggressive estimates attribute-nearly a third of the Chinese economy to piracy. Ln the united states, the FBL estimates that American companies lose up to $250 billion annually to counterfeiting, half fo it