The US has added Chinese messaging platform WeChat and online marketplace AliExpress to its list of notorious markets for counterfeiting and piracy, an annual compilation of the worst intellectual-property abusers and counterfeiters.
Alibaba Group Holding Ltd (阿里巴巴)-owned AliExpress (全球速賣通) and Tencent Holdings Ltd’s (騰訊) WeChat are “two significant China-based online markets that reportedly facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting,” the Office of the US Trade Representative (USTR) said in a statement accompanying the release of the 2021 review on Thursday.
The USTR first started publishing the annual standalone list in 2011 to increase public awareness and help market operators and governments prioritize intellectual-property enforcement efforts.
Photo: Reuters
The 2021 review identifies 42 online and 35 physical markets that are reported to engage in or facilitate substantial trademark counterfeiting or copyright piracy.
The list has proven a useful for getting companies, particularly larger ones, to do more to fight piracy and counterfeiting, said Robert Holleyman, who helped oversee the list as deputy US trade representative under former US president Barack Obama.
“It leads to sharing of best practices around how companies can deal with what’s going to be an ever-increasing challenge, which is the counterfeiters, the bad actors who are using these platforms,” Holleyman, president and CEO of law firm Crowell and Moring LLP, said in an interview.
For counterfeiters, “the tools to evade monitoring and scrutiny continue to grow every year,” he added.
Pinduoduo Inc (拼多多), one of the largest online retailers in China, continues to be listed after first being included in 2019. Alibaba’s Taobao, together with Baidu Inc (百度) cloud-storage service Baidu Wangpan and e-commerce service provider DHgate.com Inc, are also still on the list.
Nine physical markets located within China that are known for the manufacture, distribution and sale of counterfeit goods are included.
The world’s two largest economies share the biggest bilateral trade relationship, but it has been fractious since 2018, with the administration of former US president Donald Trump imposing tariffs on more than US$300 billion in imports from China, ranging from footwear and clothing to electronics and bicycles and even pet food under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974.
The report listed China as the top country of origin for counterfeit goods seized by US Customs and Border protection, as well as the country with the greatest number of products made with forced labor.
WeChat and Weixin — its China-facing version — are viewed to be among the largest platforms for counterfeit goods in China, with more than 1.2 billion active users around the world last year, the USTR said.
The e-commerce system that works within WeChat is of particular concern, with rights holders identifying weakness in WeChat’s seller vetting as a significant problem, the agency said.
The USTR’s notorious markets list is a spinoff from its so-called Special 301 report, an annual review of the global state of intellectual property rights protection and enforcement.
The USTR highlights the markets, because they exemplify global counterfeiting and piracy concerns and because the scale of the violations in those markets can cause significant harm to US intellectual property owners, workers, consumers and the economy.
‘SWASTICAR’: Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s close association with Donald Trump has prompted opponents to brand him a ‘Nazi’ and resulted in a dramatic drop in sales Demonstrators descended on Tesla Inc dealerships across the US, and in Europe and Canada on Saturday to protest company chief Elon Musk, who has amassed extraordinary power as a top adviser to US President Donald Trump. Waving signs with messages such as “Musk is stealing our money” and “Reclaim our country,” the protests largely took place peacefully following fiery episodes of vandalism on Tesla vehicles, dealerships and other facilities in recent weeks that US officials have denounced as terrorism. Hundreds rallied on Saturday outside the Tesla dealership in Manhattan. Some blasted Musk, the world’s richest man, while others demanded the shuttering of his
ADVERSARIES: The new list includes 11 entities in China and one in Taiwan, which is a local branch of Chinese cloud computing firm Inspur Group The US added dozens of entities to a trade blacklist on Tuesday, the US Department of Commerce said, in part to disrupt Beijing’s artificial intelligence (AI) and advanced computing capabilities. The action affects 80 entities from countries including China, the United Arab Emirates and Iran, with the commerce department citing their “activities contrary to US national security and foreign policy.” Those added to the “entity list” are restricted from obtaining US items and technologies without government authorization. “We will not allow adversaries to exploit American technology to bolster their own militaries and threaten American lives,” US Secretary of Commerce Howard Lutnick said. The entities
Taiwan’s official purchasing managers’ index (PMI) last month rose 0.2 percentage points to 54.2, in a second consecutive month of expansion, thanks to front-loading demand intended to avoid potential US tariff hikes, the Chung-Hua Institution for Economic Research (CIER, 中華經濟研究院) said yesterday. While short-term demand appeared robust, uncertainties rose due to US President Donald Trump’s unpredictable trade policy, CIER president Lien Hsien-ming (連賢明) told a news conference in Taipei. Taiwan’s economy this year would be characterized by high-level fluctuations and the volatility would be wilder than most expect, Lien said Demand for electronics, particularly semiconductors, continues to benefit from US technology giants’ effort
Minister of Finance Chuang Tsui-yun (莊翠雲) yesterday told lawmakers that she “would not speculate,” but a “response plan” has been prepared in case Taiwan is targeted by US President Donald Trump’s reciprocal tariffs, which are to be announced on Wednesday next week. The Trump administration, including US Secretary of the Treasury Scott Bessent, has said that much of the proposed reciprocal tariffs would focus on the 15 countries that have the highest trade surpluses with the US. Bessent has referred to those countries as the “dirty 15,” but has not named them. Last year, Taiwan’s US$73.9 billion trade surplus with the US
RSS