I had an exciting moment recently beneath the frills of a slinky black dress in Shanghai. It happened in a clothing shop in the famous Xiangyang Market. The black dress conceals a doorway to the shop's grimy back room where the real business takes place - the sale of pirated DVDs.
As I pawed through a suitcase filled with counterfeit movies, a panicked man burst into the room and warned that the police were coming. The movies disappeared and I was swept out of the door. But the police walked right by. Like all officers in the market, they were not interested in fake goods.
My relief gave way to wonder about the fate of Beijing's vaunted war on intellectual property theft. With popular Vice-Premier Wu Yi taking the role of anti-piracy tsar, the state media is keen to report successes in stamping out fakes. The Shanghai Customs Bureau alone says it cracked 210 intellectual property infringement cases last year, up 50 per cent on 2002.
Beijing has offered frequent promises to protect intellectual property in the past decade, but the theft is as blatant as ever. Some vendors in Xiangyang are cautious enough to have their ersatz Rolexes hidden in false-bottomed drawers. Others stick fictitious brand names over the designer logos, which can be removed with a quick tug.
Many shops do not even hide their fakes. Such brazen flouting of the law suggests that the battle against piracy is a phoney one at best. The occasional bust allows Ms Wu to keep a strait face when telling upset western trade negotiators that progress is being made. But in reality, what takes place in bazaars from Beijing's Silk Market to Shenzhen's Lo Wu Commercial City makes a mockery of China's claim to be serious about protecting intellectual property rights. The 210 cases cracked by Shanghai customs would not amount to an afternoon's work in the Xiangyang Market.
One stall owner wanted 900 yuan for a 'TAG Heuer' watch. I said the same one cost 200 yuan in Hong Kong. 'Hong Kong watches are no good. This is a Shanghai watch,' he scolded. He offered the 'best friend, last price' of 250 yuan. Knock-off luxury goods infest the streets around Shanghai's upmarket Huaihai Road shopping strip.
