Made in China: Why knockoffs disappeared from Beijing markets

For nearly 20 years foreign governments and corporations have been chastising the Chinese authorities for turning a blind eye to the counterfeiters who rip off foreign trademarks, from Gucci to Ugg.

For the most part, Beijing shrugged off those complaints like water from a duck’s back.

Then, all of a sudden in the middle of last month, the pirated DVDs, the fake Polo shirts, the knock-off Patek Philippe watches and all the other counterfeit brands that draw shoppers from around the world disappeared at a stroke from Beijing store shelves.

The Chinese government, it seemed, had undergone an overnight conversion, and was finally matching its pious pronouncements on the sanctity of intellectual property rights with some real enforcement.

“This is great news,” said Joe Simone, a trademark lawyer with Baker & Mckenzie in Hong Kong who has represented a group of Western brands fighting to protect their trademarks in China for nearly a decade. His lengthy experience, however, made him cautious. “It’s possible they’ve decided to go clean,” he added. “But I doubt it.”

Mr. Simone’s skepticism, it turned out, was justified. By Monday of this week, in markets across the city, the full panoply of illegal counterfeits was back on sale, as ever at very reasonable prices.

What had prompted the Chinese police to actually enforce the law for a little over two weeks? A meeting in Beijing of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), attended by more than 700 delegates from 154 nations, who were drafting an international treaty to protect audiovisual performances.

“There was a big meeting. Important people came from abroad,” explained one salesgirl at the fabled Silk Street Market in downtown Beijing who said she had been ordered by market managers to hide all her counterfeit jeans for two weeks. “Policemen came every day,” she said on Monday. “Now we’ve been told they won’t come back.”

Once again her racks hung thickly with fake Levis, Diesel, Dolce and Gabbana, and Armani jeans, on sale for about $15.00 a pair to a hard bargainer.

Another famous center for counterfeit goods, the Yashou Market was also doing business as normal Monday, after two weeks during which its stalls were thinly stocked with Chinese labeled goods. And a well known DVD store in the market, which had almost emptied its shelves during the WIPO conference on orders from the police, brought its pirated goods out of the back room to which customers had been directed during the clampdown.

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