The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR Office) held a 2020 Special 301 public hearing on February 26, 2020 (UTC-5) in Washington, D.C., where the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC) sent representatives to speak on behalf of the Chinese business community and actively defend the rights and interests of Chinese enterprises. The hearing lasted a day and was attended by government representatives from six countries, including South Korea, Indonesia and Ukraine, as well as 20 non-governmental organizations.

The representatives noted that, in 2019, China made outstanding progress in intellectual property rights, while continuously improving intellectual property legislation, increasing the level of administrative law enforcement, strengthening judicial protection as well as widening and relaxing market access for foreign investment. Great achievements have been made to protect the IP rights held by domestic and international right holders, including those of American right holders. The representatives called on the U.S. side to more accurately and comprehensively understand China's significant achievements in promoting intellectual property protection, easing market access and other efforts so as to make an objective and impartial assessment. The representatives also called on the USTR office to remove China from the Priority Watch List.

This marks the third consecutive year for CCOIC to attend the Special 301 public hearing in the United States. CCOIC submitted the written comments before the hearing, which were over 600 pages long and detailed the new developments in China's intellectual property rights in 2019. The comments demonstrated the great progress made in improving the business environment and protecting intellectual property rights and comprehensively responded to the China related issues involved in the Special 301 report released by the U.S. last year.