“Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants”, as judge Louis D. Brandeis (Supreme Court of the U.S. from 1916-1939) is quoted. But what if some of the government officials in society wear sunglasses?
Last year around this time I went to Dong Men in Shenzhen, which is part of Guangdong Province. And without any problem I could make photos of how an external disk drive became an Apple disk drive, never mind that Apple does not produce any external disk drives, see here. A year later the same phenomenon can be observed in the open.
Now it is suggested that sending some reporters that go undercover, write about what they see and hear, will change much.
Zheng Caixiong wrote for China Daily:
“At a work conference in Guangzhou on Monday, Lin Ying, deputy secretary-general of theprovincial government, repeated Guangdong Party chief Wang Yang’s call to encourage themedia to secretly visit places where the production and sale of counterfeit goods occurs to get detailed and accurate information.“
Read Zheng’s China Daily article here.
Why giving journalists assignments to go undercover counterfeiting that can be covered in bright sunlight. And if one really wants to send people undercover, why not undercover police agents that can directly enforce?
One can already predict that the stories will highlight that the Chinese government is doing something against counterfeiting (letting journalist write about it), to show that the problem is complicated, outside their control, and dangerous. This might all be true, but there is nothing more effective then direct enforcement.
China is still more interested in stability than solving counterfeiting, since it involves vested interests and employment. Counterfeiters and employees that are unhappy can wreak havoc it the idea. One can argue that lax enforcement of counterfeit trademarks has lead to a climate in which food, beverages and medicines are counterfeited, and potentially kills people and animals.