Editor’s Note: Every Wednesday, WPR Newsletter and Engagement Editor Benjamin Wilhelm curates the week’s top news and expert analysis on China.
In a setback for Beijing’s efforts to raise its profile at the United Nations and other multilateral organizations, a Chinese candidate failed to win a leadership contest for the U.N.’s intellectual property agency on Wednesday. Wang Binyang’s bid to head the World Intellectual Property Organization, or WIPO, had been opposed by the United States due to concerns about China’s respect for intellectual property rights.
Fifty-five out of 83 countries on WIPO’s steering committee voted in favor of Daren Tang, the CEO of Singapore’s intellectual property office, to become the next director-general of the organization, which is tasked with promoting the protection of intellectual property around the world. A victory for Wang, who currently serves as WIPO’s deputy director, would have given Beijing what critics feared would be an “unprecedented level of influence” over a patents system in which China and Chinese firms have a growing stake.