I find it very strange that you are effectively calling culture “brainwashing”. Would you prefer we have no cultural values at all? How do you think that would even play out? Without a shared value system, you cannot have civilization.

That said, your overall point is correct: Sometimes cultural value systems differ in incompatible ways, unless reconciled somehow. Often, this means being faced with the cold, hard reality of weighing the cost vs benefit of “acting out” against a law or moral code expected of you by the other party (whether or not your culture agrees with those laws or morals is irrelevant, when we’re purely talking about tangible consequences).

If there are no consequences from us, I don’t think it’s fair we “play the victim”. If we (the US) don’t want this behavior to continue, we must specify and enforce a policy of tangible consequences that will occur in retaliation for every single instance of IP theft that occurs.