They really brought out the big guns for this one: Giant balloons reached toward the clouds. Hundreds of customs agents stood in rows, listening to marching music that included a chunk of "It's a Small World After All." FM 95.1 went live.
And amid it all, outside the Ping Pong Pavilion of the Zhuhai Athletic Center stadium, 15 industrial-strength wood chippers all in a row did just what they were trotted out for Tuesday afternoon -- made minced plastic out of 16 million counterfeit CDs, DVDs and CD-ROMS.
``This is one of the most important issues facing us today,'' said Shi Zongyuan, the official in charge of anti-piracy efforts in southern China. ``Getting rid of pirated CDs will give us a much-needed economic boost.''
China mounts such a spectacle every few months -- though usually on a smaller scale than Tuesday -- to show that it is serious about stopping rampant product piracy.
The events get lavish coverage in state media, but the real target audience is abroad -- China's angry trading partners. Foreign producers of music, film and software say Chinese pirates are ruining their businesses.
The publicity usually recedes, only to resurface several months later. But as China's virtually certain membership into the World Trade Organization approaches in November, such crackdowns are being spotlighted -- and, China says, being carried out -- even more than usual. Conferences have been convened, harsh statements released. In March, Premier Zhu Rongji went so far as to say that counterfeiting was making him lose sleep.
Last month, China announced investigations of Rolex and Seiko watches, Kodak and Fuji film boxes and medicine bearing well-known British trademarks.
The list goes on. Fake cigarettes, fake name-brand rice, even fake Pearl River Bridge soy sauce have been seized in recent weeks -- and duly reported by Chinese media.
But the event Tuesday in Zhuhai, infused with the spirit of a communist rally, was extraordinary in both scale and organization.
This was press release as public spectacle. Who -- especially photographers and TV reporters -- doesn't like to see something crushed by big machines that make a lot of noise? It made for great visuals, as organizers well knew.
Zhuhai sits on the southern Chinese coast beside the former Portuguese colony of Macau. The region is both a major export-manufacturing base and the heart of China's piracy industry.
BYPASSING CHINA TARIFFS: In the first five months of this year, Foxconn sent US$4.4bn of iPhones to the US from India, compared with US$3.7bn in the whole of last year Nearly all the iPhones exported by Foxconn Technology Group (富士康科技集團) from India went to the US between March and last month, customs data showed, far above last year’s average of 50 percent and a clear sign of Apple Inc’s efforts to bypass high US tariffs imposed on China. The numbers, being reported by Reuters for the first time, show that Apple has realigned its India exports to almost exclusively serve the US market, when previously the devices were more widely distributed to nations including the Netherlands and the Czech Republic. During March to last month, Foxconn, known as Hon Hai Precision Industry
Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC, 台積電) and the University of Tokyo (UTokyo) yesterday announced the launch of the TSMC-UTokyo Lab to promote advanced semiconductor research, education and talent development. The lab is TSMC’s first laboratory collaboration with a university outside Taiwan, the company said in a statement. The lab would leverage “the extensive knowledge, experience, and creativity” of both institutions, the company said. It is located in the Asano Section of UTokyo’s Hongo, Tokyo, campus and would be managed by UTokyo faculty, guided by directors from UTokyo and TSMC, the company said. TSMC began working with UTokyo in 2019, resulting in 21 research projects,
Ashton Hall’s morning routine involves dunking his head in iced Saratoga Spring Water. For the company that sells the bottled water — Hall’s brand of choice for drinking, brushing his teeth and submerging himself — that is fantastic news. “We’re so thankful to this incredible fitness influencer called Ashton Hall,” Saratoga owner Primo Brands Corp’s CEO Robbert Rietbroek said on an earnings call after Hall’s morning routine video went viral. “He really helped put our brand on the map.” Primo Brands, which was not affiliated with Hall when he made his video, is among the increasing number of companies benefiting from influencer
Taiwan’s property market is entering a freeze, with mortgage activity across the nation’s six largest cities plummeting in the first quarter, H&B Realty Co (住商不動產) said yesterday, citing mounting pressure on housing demand amid tighter lending rules and regulatory curbs. Mortgage applications in Taipei, New Taipei City, Taoyuan, Taichung, Tainan and Kaohsiung totaled 28,078 from January to March, a sharp 36.3 percent decline from 44,082 in the same period last year, the nation’s largest real-estate brokerage by franchise said, citing data from the Joint Credit Information Center (JCIC, 聯徵中心). “The simultaneous decline across all six cities reflects just how drastically the market
RSS