It is not just 'cheating', it is also a matter of significantly different values.
Arguably IP laws in the west have gone too far.
India was pushing for opening up IP on covid vaccines - the taxpayer paid for their development and deployment, but the profits and IP is private. US has voted against.
Oh, I assure you Chinese companies very much believe in IP, at least their own - use some of theirs without permission and watch how their “don't believe” attitude sticks around. There are IP violation cases between Chinese companies, it just isn't practical for most non-Chinese concerns to try enforce anything from the outside.
What we see in China these days is very similar to the US back in Dickens' time, when copying literature like his works was rampant in the US and there was very little people from outside the US could do about it. The US only started to care about international IP regulation once they had enough to defend for it to be worth playing ball. Currently, China's companies and government have more to gain from not caring than they do from playing nice.
I'm no fan of the IP insanity, but in this situation, I can only see hypocrisy.
That's definitely true, but it's not really in a "let's take it more a lenient way" kind, because otherwise Xiaomi would have published those kernel sources
I'd phrase this as "In most cultures, you have no real, legal way of getting back at others taking your intellectual property". They absolutely do recognize, value, and try to protect their own intellectual property. Not believing in it would mean that things are public domain mostly, which is absolutely not the case.
Meanwhile yes, western IP laws have a lot of bullshit going on.
In many cases it is true, Software patents don't exist in EU
That could use some elaboration on what you mean by "believe".
There are over 180 countries that are members of the Berne Convention and nearly as many in TRIPS, which suggests some level of belief in Western style IP in a majority of the world.
it's a hard-nosed bargain, not an earnest belief.