Prejudice, not patriotism, gets pride of place

Editor's note: According to a recent Reuters report, US Senator Marco Rubio proposed a bill on Monday calling for amending the US National Defense Authorization Act to ban Chinese telecommunications equipment supplier Huawei seeking royalties and damages from US companies through US courts. A CRI.cn article comments:

As a senator of the United States which has long claimed to be a great power in protecting intellectual property rights, Rubio even declared that he would change the US law to prohibit foreign companies from protecting their rights according to US laws. This is tantamount to blatant looting of other countries' intellectual property and patent achievements. Asking foreign companies to pay for US patents but not allowing them to claim royalties from the US is arbitrary and unprincipled.

Rubio, as one of the most anti-China figures in the Republican Party, often accuses China of "stealing" US intellectual properties and has done whatever he can to overstate Huawei's threat to US national security. When Huawei demanded that the US' mobile network operator Verizon Wireless pay it more than $1 billion of licensing fees for 230 patents, Rubio immediately proposed to revise the existing US law to prohibit Huawei from claiming its deserved royalties. Such an ethical flip-flop reflects the typical double standard of US politicians on intellectual property issues.

For some in the US, intellectual property protection is only a tool in their hands, and it is up to them to decide when and how to use it. His latest proposed bill once again shows the US has a double standard on IPR protection.

Rubio's verbal attacks on China are not limited to intellectual property issues. Since being elected to the Senate in 2011, Rubio has put on him the clearest political label through a series of activities, from pushing through the "Taiwan Travel Act" in the US House of Representatives to proposing a ban on US government agencies buying equipment from Chinese companies, to threatening to drive China's Confucius Institutes out of US campuses, and lashing out at China's human rights without evidence. Even The Washington Post has described Rubio as "one of the loudest China critics".

However, Rubio's crude practices, although done under the pretext of patriotism, undermine the image of the US. The ambition of those with extreme thoughts, behaviors and words like Rubio will be known by more and more people.