“The thing is, ZTE - like many Chinese companies - has to start recognizing international property law which is why they got banned in the first place.”
ZTE’s not an IP offender that I know of. The big IP offender is Huawei. ZTE buys significant amounts of parts from American vendors, vs Huawei, which tries to build in-house. ZTE traded with Iran and NK, was fined ~$1b and required to punish the personnel who did the deals. ZTE not only did not punish these people - it rewarded them with cash bonuses.