The Chinese government hit back at U.S. plans to investigate intellectual property violations by China, as it urged to protect China’s bullet train technology from theft. Developing countries had “spied on and stolen” China’s fast-train technology to get the competitive edge at the expense of Chinese companies, a commentary in the Procuratorial Daily noted, without naming the countries. It added that China had developed its own technology to build an extensive high-speed railway network, but had failed to adequately protect its know-how. China should follow the lead of Western countries by securing patents when it developed new technology, it said. Starting in 2004, China got its fast-rail know-how off the ground by setting up joint ventures with market leaders from Germany, France and Japan. The foreign partners signed technology transfer contracts with the Chinese government, giving them access to the vast Chinese market. But years later, after helping to train the Chinese engineers and develop a local supply chain, the foreign companies said they had lost out – and their former partners were now rivals. They accused the Chinese companies of breaching contracts that had limited the use of their technology to China – with those firms now trying to sell Chinese technology abroad – and said that they had replicated rather than innovated. Lu Xiang, Researcher with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS), said China had improved in the area of intellectual property protection and it would be willing to negotiate with the U.S. if it provided evidence of forced technology transfers, the South China Morning Post reports.