Change tag for the aff—The propping up of property logics positions Russia as an equal competitor under whiteness while reducing china to a weak and feminized racial other. That triggers hyperagression and serial policy failure.

Despite its chosen and bestowed whiteness, Russia has retained its long-standing identity as a political foil and imperial actor that requires containment. This is evident in multiple areas of friction with the United States, including discussions over NATO expansion. Conflict over intellectual property and economic espionage extends at least as far back to the Soviet Era when, as Debora Halbert observes, national intellectual, political, and economic investments functioned as tools for proving cultural and artistic superiority.86 Yet the contemporary American refusal to hold Russia accountable for its misdeeds suggests that the ideological dispute is embedded within a larger context. I propose that, while Russians continue to operate as “bad whites”87 against whom Americans can demonstrate their global moral authority via soft power, it is also beneficial for the United States to engage in performative admonishments instead of meaningful consequences. Three racial outcomes flow from the toothless US response to Russia: (1) it normalizes the US position as the heroic “good white”88 who appears to seek justice in the global arena; (2) it allows the United States to chastise Russia while also simultaneously colluding with Putin; and (3) it positions China below Russia in a divide-andconquer style intellectual property and economic espionage racial order. US intellectual property rights talk with Russia thus supports larger architectures of white supremacy by letting the former off the hook while simultaneously deriding China for its illegal and illicit acts. It also exemplifies how realpolitik itself is constituted relationally, through categories of race and gender.

Returning to EEA data with this context around Russia illustrates how the United States uses intellectual property rights talk to reinforce Sinophobic racial hierarchies through relational racialization. The Stanford Center on China’s Economy and Institutions notes that “Chinese-named defendants were 13.2% more likely to have their [EEA] cases dismissed or acquitted compared to other defendants, and 13.5% less likely to be found guilty of EEA-related charges than defendants with nonChinese names.”89 In terms of sentencing, “Chinese-named defendants on average received 12.5 months longer jail terms compared to all other defendants and 12.4 months longer jail terms compared to defendants with Western names.90 The targeting of Chinese defendants relative to other defendants is even more stark when considered over time. The number of Western defendants has declined from 59 percent of the total of all defendants in 1996–2008 to 28 percent of the total defendants in 2016–2020.91 In comparison, approximately 50 percent of the total defendants prosecuted since 2009 have been Chinese.92 These numbers are particularly notable given that Russian actors are growing increasingly bold. “US intelligence officials do not . . . rate China as the biggest threat to the US in cyberspace. The Russians are definitely better, almost as good as we are,’ said one,” Richard Clarke and Robert Knake reported in 2010.93

The Obama Administration and Biden Administration both imposed sanctions against Russia for engaging in economic espionage via cybercrime.94 However, those sanctions were narrow and limited, especially compared to those imposed upon China.95 The racialized rhetorics that American policymakers use to talk about Russia provide some insight about why the US shows this geopolitical rival such deference. A 2009 report released by the Rand Corporation describes Russia as a literal host and harbor for cybercrime, emphasizing that infringers use Russian websites to sell pirated and counterfeited goods because they operate as “protected spaces for crime to arise.”96 Instead of being intertwined with narratives of threatening criminality like Black mafia rhetorics,97 or narratives of devious yellow perils like Asian mafia rhetorics,98 Russian mafia rhetorics suggest a worthy, masculine, strongman foe. Russian hackers are managers of the infringement world, whose ingenuity and infrastructure helps exceptional fakes to circulate. In 2008, Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey declared: “A Russian mobster selling fake handbags through a middleman in New York may also be selling pirated DVDs in London, counterfeit AIDS medication in Africa, and child pornography over the internet.”99 The “Russian mobster” is the protagonist of the story, here because he manages the sale of multiple goods. In 2006, the Los Angeles Times proclaimed, in an article entitled “Russians Able to Fake It Like No One Else,” that “if there is a world capital of audacious fabrication, it must be Moscow, where fake is never a four-letter word.”100 It went on to describe Russian copies through “the French notion of faire montrer [sic],” noting “it’s better to look like something than to be something. It’s a very Eastern way of thinking.”101 Fakes may be Eastern, but Russian fakes are exceptional, certainly better than those Made in China. This racialized rhetoric of expertise positions Russia as strong and China as weak. Invoking France moves Russia closer to Europe—and whiteness.102