In cross-border intellectual-property litigation, how you serve a Chinese defendant and how fast you move for ex parte relief usually decide the case long before the merits do. This guide maps the IP litigator's distinctive toolkit against sellers, manufacturers, and counterfeiters based in China: the mandatory Hague Service Convention framework and its three narrow exits, the deep judicial split over court-ordered email service under Rule 4(f)(3), and the "Schedule A" model that lets a brand freeze anonymous counterfeiters' money before anyone is served. It works through the Rule 65 machinery behind ex parte TROs and asset freezes (including the Grupo Mexicano limits that make the equitable-accounting theory load-bearing), the post-eBay patent preliminary injunction, the anti-suit and anti-anti-suit injunctions that dominate SEP wars, and the Defend Trade Secrets Act's extraordinary civil seizure. It closes on the enforcement endgame under China's 2024 Civil Procedure Law and the proactive drafting—Rockefeller-style service waivers and Hong Kong arbitration—that can defuse the whole problem before a dispute begins. The organizing question throughout is where the collectable assets sit, because that single fact determines whether shortcuts are safe or fatal.