US adds WeChat and AliExpress to list of ‘notorious’ markets for fake and pirated goods
- The platforms join long-time Chinese entries Baidu Wangpan, DHGate, Pinduoduo and Taobao on the list maintained by the US trade representative’s office
- Goods directly from China or shipped through Hong Kong account for 79 per cent of all fake goods seized at the US border by volume, the report noted
The Biden administration named six Chinese online and nine bricks-and-mortar markets on Thursday in its latest list of “notorious” sellers of counterfeit goods violating US trademarks and copyright law.
Produced by the US Trade Representative’s office, the 2021 Review of Notorious Markets for Counterfeiting and Piracy included two first-time online Chinese entries – the AliExpress and WeChat e-commerce ecosystems – in addition to long-time entries Baidu Wangpan, DHGate, Pinduoduo and Taobao. Global counterfeiting costs the US economy some US$29.2 billion annually, the report said, and China is the world’s largest producer of fake goods.
AliExpress and Taobao are units of Alibaba Group, which owns the South China Morning Post.
“The global trade in counterfeit and pirated goods undermines critical US innovation and creativity and harms American workers,” said US Trade Representative Katherine Tai. “This illicit trade also increases the vulnerability of workers involved in the manufacturing of counterfeit goods.”
Child labour and sweatshops are difficult enough to identify in supply chains of well-established multinational companies, the report said, let alone those making pirated goods.