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.
MULTIFACETED: A task force has analyzed possible scenarios and created responses to assist domestic industries in dealing with US tariffs, the economics minister said The Executive Yuan is tomorrow to announce countermeasures to US President Donald Trump’s planned reciprocal tariffs, although the details of the plan would not be made public until Monday next week, Minister of Economic Affairs J.W. Kuo (郭智輝) said yesterday. The Cabinet established an economic and trade task force in November last year to deal with US trade and tariff related issues, Kuo told reporters outside the legislature in Taipei. The task force has been analyzing and evaluating all kinds of scenarios to identify suitable responses and determine how best to assist domestic industries in managing the effects of Trump’s tariffs, he
TIGHT-LIPPED: UMC said it had no merger plans at the moment, after Nikkei Asia reported that the firm and GlobalFoundries were considering restarting merger talks United Microelectronics Corp (UMC, 聯電), the world’s No. 4 contract chipmaker, yesterday launched a new US$5 billion 12-inch chip factory in Singapore as part of its latest effort to diversify its manufacturing footprint amid growing geopolitical risks. The new factory, adjacent to UMC’s existing Singapore fab in the Pasir Res Wafer Fab Park, is scheduled to enter volume production next year, utilizing mature 22-nanometer and 28-nanometer process technologies, UMC said in a statement. The company plans to invest US$5 billion during the first phase of the new fab, which would have an installed capacity of 30,000 12-inch wafers per month, it said. The
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
‘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
RSS