"Russia sells advanced weapons systems and at least so far, China buys advanced weapons systems although I have complete confidence that they’re doing to the Russians the same thing they do to many American products and businesses – they’re stealing their intellectual property, they’re copying it, they’re duplicating it and pretty soon they’ll sell the same weapons systems at prices lower than the Russians sell them," US National Security Advisor John Bolton said at an Alexander Hamilton Society event.
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Intellectual property is one of the key points of conflict which has caused the current trade war between the United States and China. In April, the US Trade Representative put China on its Priority Watch List in 2018 due to intellectual property concerns, including theft of trade secrets, online piracy and counterfeiting.
On Putin-Trump Meeting
Bolton also said that US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin have many issues to discuss, including the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) treaty and the Middle East.
"It's important to have sustained diplomatic engagement with them. That's the reason he went to Helsinki, that's the reason we're still talking about it and there are a lot of issues to discuss — the INF treaty is certainly one of them, we have other arms control issues, but we've got their behavior in the Middle East, in a whole range of other areas that it's important that we continue conversations on," Bolton said in Washington.
However, Trump feels that despite the political rhetoric in the United States about alleged collusion during the 2016 election between Moscow and his campaign, it is important to have "sustained diplomatic engagement."
Russia and Trump have repeatedly denied allegations of collusion, and Moscow has called the accusations of interference in the election "absurd."
