China Trade: Six Ways That China Engages in Unfair Trade Practices

[Archer]

Six Ways That China Engages in Unfair Trade Practices

Below are six ways that various economists and trade experts suggest that China is engaging in unfair trade practices:
1. China demands proprietary technology from non-Chinese firms. China recently announced a plan to force foreign manufacturers to hand over cutting-edge technology in exchange for access to the Chinese market. Under China’s so-called “indigenous innovation” program, foreign manufacturers that want access to vast swaths of China’s market are concerned they would have to enter joint ventures in which they are limited to minority stakesand share critical technologies.

2. China does little to prevent counterfeiting. China systematically ignores the manufacture and sale of counterfeit goodsof foreign products. Piracy in China costs U.S. firms billions of dollars per year in lost sales and forceU.S. manufacturers and content providers to spend money fighting Chinese piracy. China’s widespread counterfeiting not only harms the business interests of foreign rights holders but also can pose a direct threat to the health and safety of consumers in the United States, China and elsewhere, from contaminated pharmaceuticals and deadly food products to substandard car parts and toxic toys.

3. China continues to support illegal subsidies for domestic industries. Despite its WTO membership, China continues to subsidize industries in direct contravention of global agreements. In December, the Obama administration initiated a WTO case contesting the subsidies China is providing to wind power firms. Wind power and other clean energy firmsare the industries of the future, and it is clear China has every intention of trying to subsidize its way to international leadership, instead of competing fairly with American firms.

4. China abets the dumping of underpriced goods. Hand in hand with its illegal subsidies, the Chinese government does nothing to prevent, and often encourages, the dumping of goods on U.S and other markets. Many Chinese exporters are state-owned enterprises whose predatory pricing practices are explicitly encouraged by government practices and policies. When caught, Chinese exporters simply find a way to circumvent those rules as well, devising schemes such ascreating bogus new companies to ship goods,falsely declaring the country of origin or mislabeling the product. The Chinese government is well aware of these schemes – exporters are not shy about advertising options on the internet – but willfully turns a blind eye.

5. China does not crack down on industrial espionage. Just this month, the U.S.government announced the prosecution of a Chinese national for stealing secrets from Dow Chemical at the behest of the Chinese government. Though China may deny it, it is hard to dispute the fact that they have certainly done little to discourage such activities. In fact, the Congressionally appointed U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, found last year that "the Chinese government has been a major beneficiary of technology acquired through industrial espionage." Much of the industrial espionage from China is done through cyber attacks.

6. Chinakeepsthe Yuan artificially weakby effectivelypeggingits currency to the dollar.. By manipulating currency exchange rates, countries can gain an unfair advantage over U.S. manufacturers by effectively lowering the price of their exports. This hurts U.S. manufacturers forced to compete at home with artificially cheap imports. Currency manipulation also imposes a direct cost on U.S. exports, making American goods sold in China more expensive and making it more difficult for U.S. exporters to compete with artificially cheap Chinese goods around the globe. This creates an unfair trade advantage, which ultimately harms manufacturers, workers, and farmers, and contributes significantly to the U.S. trade imbalance.
China Trade

I found this interesting.

[EnJoY]

All true. And nobody can do a damn thing about it, or seems to try.

[BoT]

All true and many of the same or similar things can be said about the US at this point or in the past.
...skipped my mind but who was it that said "with great power comes great responsibility".

we spend 3 times of what we spend on our defense budget on paying back our debt to china which in turn makes up there entire defense budget. it could be suggested that they do that because it seems that the US makes it more and more clear that they have no interest in paying all of it back by accusing china of all kinds of things.

don't get me wrong, not on china's side at all but it sounds to me like a bully that got bullied and now complains that he got bullied. not that his complaint is invalid but hey...

we have several agreements with the european union in regards to emission and pollution that we blatantly disregard for over a decade now. we kept little cuba on lock down for a quarter of a century because we didn't like their political views and we even forbid Switzerland to send medical supplies to them. we force countries, markets and industries with the dollar and proclaim that we are the rightful owners of a foreign countries natural resources and even go to a decade long war for it.

it is very clear that other countries want to show us actually how dependent we are on them. i hope our leaders will recognize this and get to work on making us less dependent, not just oil

[Archer]

All true and many of the same or similar things can be said about the US at this point or in the past.
...skipped my mind but who was it that said "with great power comes great responsibility".

we spend 3 times of what we spend on our defense budget on paying back our debt to china which in turn makes up there entire defense budget. it could be suggested that they do that because it seems that the US makes it more and more clear that they have no interest in paying all of it back by accusing china of all kinds of things.

don't get me wrong, not on china's side at all but it sounds to me like a bully that got bullied and now complains that he got bullied. not that his complaint is invalid but hey...

we have several agreements with the european union in regards to emission and pollution that we blatantly disregard for over a decade now. we kept little cuba on lock down for a quarter of a century because we didn't like their political views and we even forbid Switzerland to send medical supplies to them. we force countries, markets and industries with the dollar and proclaim that we are the rightful owners of a foreign countries natural resources and even go to a decade long war for it.

it is very clear that other countries want to show us actually how dependent we are on them. i hope our leaders will recognize this and get to work on making us less dependent, not just oil

Yeah

http://www.uspto.gov/news/speeches/2011/kappos_gw.jsp

[BoT]

very important

Now the good news is that China has done a tremendous amount of work to ensure that its IP laws are compliant with its obligations to the World Trade Organization’s Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of IP Rights (TRIPS). As many of you are aware, Premier Wen Jia Bao announced last fall that the Chinese government was embarking on a “Special IP Campaign” to improve IP enforcement in China. This campaign, which ended in June of this year, had backing from the highest reaches of the central government.

While we have seen successes as a result of the campaign, and are pleased by the recent announcement that they will formulate an office directly under the State Council to continue the work of the campaign, there is an enormous amount of work that still needs to be done. As China’s internet user community grows, infringers are increasingly leveraging the World Wide Web to sell counterfeit goods and pirated materials. Several enterprises also continue to complain about bad faith trademark filing—a ruthless practice where a party intentionally files for another party’s trademark, simply to take advantage of the first-to-file trademark system in China. Once an application is filed or a registration is obtained in China, it is difficult, costly and time consuming for the proper right holder to oppose or cancel the registration. This practice hurts both legitimate Chinese trademark owners and foreign right holders here at home.

in a way we do want them to fill all their stuff in patents, up to 2 mil a year expected but in another way we don't want them to file "first-to-file trademarks", just what apple was doing upon many other.

i agree with you and the report, china is getting way out of hand. i was watching a report the other day were New balance" was fighting a trademark battle against a chinese shoe maker and was shut down in chinese courts for several years before they finally got a judgment only to have the company reappear 6 month later with only a single letter changed in their name.

what is really scary to me thou and where it really goes to far is not electronics, or sporting goods but they even counterfeit medication. pfizer had or has large problems with counterfeit meds, some of which are or can be deadly. there is even counterfeit botox etc

[Archer]

very important


in a way we do want them to fill all their stuff in patents, up to 2 mil a year expected but in another way we don't want them to file "first-to-file trademarks", just what apple was doing upon many other.

i agree with you and the report, china is getting way out of hand. i was watching a report the other day were New balance" was fighting a trademark battle against a chinese shoe maker and was shut down in chinese courts for several years before they finally got a judgment only to have the company reappear 6 month later with only a single letter changed in their name.

what is really scary to me thou and where it really goes to far is not electronics, or sporting goods but they even counterfeit medication. pfizer had or has large problems with counterfeit meds, some of which are or can be deadly. there is even counterfeit botox etc

Yeah SOPA would have helped with that.

[BoT]

yes it could have but it was going to far. there is a lot more to SOPA that would have caused havoc on many levels all around the web.
simply things you and i just did by sharing and linking to someone else's content without referencing to them, in this case official content, could have caused a shutdown to TR
that's control out of control.

edit: PIPA in combination with SOPA

[Archer]

The links to the articles were there and at this juncture I believe those are public domain. Everything that is posted in this thread is linked.

Guberment sites.

[BoT]

yea, not a good example, that's why i added "in this case official content".
however, it is not uncommon that people in forums link to objectionable or questionable material. even link to news media content like cnn, reuters could be a different story. even dailytech has a limitation policy for re-sharing their content. under PIPA this could dowmright illegal and in combination with SOPA could lead to a shutdown.
stuff like sharing a background image for a website that has claims for intellectual property could get you jail.

SOPA and PIPA are steps in the right direction and surely are needed at some point but mot as a mere benefit of media companies and lobbyists. i understand that they have a large amount of IP and want to protect it but it shouldn't be at all cost. and why are they really the only ones that have an interest in it? obviously vast majority of inet companies have not, at least not in that type of fashion

[Cigarbug]

There's a lot more than 6 reasons why China and many other countries do not compete fairly in a world economy, but we do like our 60" TVs to cost less than $2000.

The US holds itself to the highest standards in the world. Standards so high that we have forced manufacturing to other countries, companies to go out of business, and people to permanently lose their jobs.

China is a communist country with the "we all own the tractor" philosophy where individual or proprietary achievement is not allowed.

We on the other hand, have no excuse.

[Archer]

Yeah American cheapness is killing us.