By Jin Baicheng

　　Coca-Cola, Gillette, Nike, Unilever, Bayer, Dell, Du Pont, Compaq. IBM, Kodak, L'Oreal, Reebok, Siemens, Louis Vuitton, Volkswagen, Toshiba......

　　Have a look at the list of multinationals.

　　They are all real barons ?their names are known to almost everyone and their products dominate our consumption.

　　In total, their invest volume in China has surpassed US billion.

　　Some of them, for example Procter & Gamble and Henkel, or sportswear giants Nike and Adidas, or electronic appliance makers Philips Electronics and Toshiba, are irreconcilable rivals in world markets.

　　Yet here they stand shoulder by shoulder, and collaborate with each other closely.

　　The goal: to fight against the increasingly rampant counterfeiting in China.

　　The corporations all estimate that approximately 15 to 20 percent of the their products in Chinese markets are fakes.

　　Having suffered enough from counterfeiters, finally they united together, establishing asgroupscalled "Quality Brands Protection Committee".

　　The committee, which is under the China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (CAEFI), positions itself in an auxiliary role to the government in the campaign against fakes.

　　Its mission, as stated in one of its statements, is to "Work cooperatively with the Chinese Central and local governments, local industry, and other organizations to make positive contributions to anti-counterfeiting efforts in the People's Republic of China?

　　When a team of officials from the local quality and technology inspection bureau, an authority in charge of cracking down on fakes in China, steppingsintosa clothes shop in early December of last year in North Shanxi Road in downtown Shanghai searching for fake Louis Vuitton, they got nothing they had expected to find.

　　Yet the intelligence was by no means false. Just several days ago, a Chinese agent of the French luxury-goods maker reported to the bureau that the shop was selling counterfeit Vuitton as well as fake cases of other top brands such as Givenchy.

　　Obviously, the owner of the shop had been informed of the raid beforehand.

　　The raiders then searched a bungalow a block away, which served as a storehouse of the shop. When they were finished combing through the rooms, they filled a truck with 349 fake cases.

　　While a real Louis Vuitton may cost as much as 8,000 yuan (US), the confiscated fakes were sold at a disproportionate 200 yuan (US).

　　For China's intellectual property rights enforcers, it was a day like any other in the country.

　　With the Chinese Government intensifying its efforts to "regulate thesgroupsof the socialist market economy", such raids are frequently conducted in every metropolis and smaller cities.

　　The government's strengthened crackdown is a response to a situationswheresproduction and selling of counterfeit goods has become increasingly rampant in recent years.

　　The power of the counterfeiting racket is surprising. Almost all kinds of products, from auto parts to bicycles, CDs to discmans, books to films, wine to cigarettes, can be counterfeited.

　　Needless to say, the target of counterfeiters are products of brand names. The more famous a brand is, the more likely it is affected by fakes.

　　Procter&Gamble, the United States-based personal-care-product giant, is among those who suffer most.

　　The company's success in China can be described as a miracle. In 1988, it began its Chinese business in Guangzhou, the provincial capital of South China's showcase Guangdong Province. Thirteen years later, it has become the incontestable leader in Chinese markets with a dozen of its brands such as Whisper, Head&Shoulders and Safeguard finding their way deepsintosthe heart of Chinese people. It now owns three of China's top five shampoo brands.

　　Dramatically, the counterfeiting of P&G products were also miraculous. Compared with other products, it is easier to fake daily necessities. Maybe this can explain why there are so many fake P&G products - fakes have caused a loss of at least US million, according to Liang Yun, Public Relations Manager of Procter&Gamble (China) Ltd.

　　Such thorny problems are also facing many other multinationals as well as domestic companies.

　　To be fair, the Chinese Government is paying unprecedented attention to the problem.

　　So far the country has adopted most international treaties that frown on counterfeiting. And China's leaders are taking the problem quite seriously.

　　In early 1990s, besides depending on government crackdowns, many companies also kicked off their own campaigns against fakes.

　　Some of the companies, such as P&G and Nike, set up special squads to fight against fakes within their companies.

　　And the Quality Brands Protection Committee was the result of the multinationals?firm determination to fight against phonies.

　　The committee was established officially in Beijing in March 2000 by 28 transnational companies including P&G, S.C.Johnson and Gillette.

　　The idea of thesgroupswas quite attractive, and rapidly it grew, with more and more Japan, US and Europe-based transnationals joining in. Nine months later, the amount of member companies increased sharply to 57. And now it has 77 companies.

　　The first thing to do was to find out how serious the problem of fakes was.

　　In 2000, QBPC promulgated the results of a survey it had entrusted the Foreign Economic Research Department of the State Council's Development Research Centre to conduct.

　　According to estimates made by the surveyswheres83 state-owned enterprises, 16 collective enterprises and 31 foreign-invested enterprises were interviewed, every year the value of counterfeit products in Chinese markets was very near to the approximate value of smuggled goods.

　　The fakes are becoming more sophisticated than ten years ago. Take watches for example. Yesterday's fakes could be spotted by their flimsy weight, today they often contain full-sized Swiss movement and gems.

　　Although fakes are produced in many regions, the manufacture and selling of specific counterfeit products tends to be geographically concentrated and divided.

　　In many places, the racket is run in a highly ordered way, "With the whole process of producing and selling organized by different people", said Joseph Simone, a counsellor at the British American Tobacco.

　　Jack Chang, an inhouse cousel at Johnson&Johnson Medical (China) Ltd., told the case of a counter-feiter in East China's Jiangsu Province, which made him feel extremely indignant.

　　The man was found to have intentionally brought tools and raw materials to his fellow villagers for manufacturing fake Band-Aid adhesive bandages.

　　The village was then turnedsintosa big factory churning fake band-aids. Most villagers were employed in the racket, many of whom had no idea that they were actually committing crimes. And a complete distribution system and marketing channels had been established.

　　In addition, loopholes in China's legal systems have partly fostered the rise in fakes.

　　In many countries, possession and intent to sell are enough for a counterfeiter to face criminal liability. But according to China's laws, evidence of prior sales is required. As a result, few offenders have been sent to prison.

　　Combining the enormous power of its member companies, QBPC is a force not to be trifled with.

　　However, rather than sticking to fighting against certain counterfeiters, the committee is adopting a top-to-bottom strategy.

　　Meetings have been held between QBPC representatives and a variety of high-level government leaders.

　　"Since the founding of the QBPC, thesgroupshas already had a profound influence on Chinese government policy and reform efforts,"?the committee claimed.

　　Having realized the serious harm fakes could do to its healthy economy and to its international reputation, the Chinese Government is showing firm determination to solve the problem.

　　Whether such determination is driven by QBPC is not that important. The important thing is, the commitment is truly genuine. And when the Chinese government is determined to wipe out the fakes, nothing could stand in the way.

　　Last October, a national Anti-Counterfeiting Coordinating Committee, chaired by Politburo member and Vice Premier Wu Bangguo, was established in Beijing.

　　Following the establishment of the committee was an unprecedented campaign to wipe out counterfeit and shoddy products across the whole country. Wholesale marketsswheresfakes were on sale were raided, and numerous counterfeit products seized were bulldozed.

　　"The Chinese Government is a responsible government and has the confidence in solving the problem of counterfeiting,"said Li Chuanqing, Deputy Director of the State General Administration for Quality Supervision and Inspection and Quarantine.

　　QBPC has also been lobbying the Chinese Government for tougher laws and better enforcement.

　　In China, most counterfeiting and trademark cases are handled by noncriminal administrative agencies, among which the bureau of industry and commerce and the bureau of quality and technology supervision are the two main ones. Neither agency has arrest powers, nor are they inept at investigating, tracing records, and searching bank accounts.

　　Moreover, the former standards for criminal liability were quite vague. The criminal law uses terms such as "serious"?to determine whether cases rise to a criminal level.

　　In 2000, P&G aided local administrative enforcers in more than 700 raids against fake shampoo and soap. But only a dozen people were finally sent to prison.

　　The others were fined, with the fines relatively low.

　　In April, the Supreme People's Court and the Supreme People's Procuratorate issued a judicial interpretation and clarified that the conditions under which infringers maybe subject to criminal liability.

　　According to the current criminal law, only when the sales of fake and shoddy commodities reached a certain level could the dealer be sent to court.

　　The judicial interpretation, for the first time prescribes that even if the fake and shoddy commodities have not been sold, the situation can be treated as an attempted crime.

　　The Patent Law, the Drug Administration Law and the Trademark Law have been also amended providing clauses calling for tougher actions against infringement of intellectual property.

　　"Over the past year, China has achieved surprising results in promoting its anti-counterfeit-related laws and law enforcement,?said Liu Wanzhong, vice Chairman of the CAEFI.

　　And this has given the multinations much confidence.

　　Actually, even during the most difficult times, no major corporation has pulled out of China because of counterfeits.

　　"There were anguishes, helplessness, sadness and even peril in anti-counterfeiting efforts. But we have never lost confidence for a single day,?said Liu.

　　QBPC is considering recruiting many other multinations that have invested in China, such as General Electrics, Ford, Fuji, Sony and Motorola.

　　The rapid growth and extraordinary performance of some Chinese corporations have also attracted the group's attention. Local corporations which are expected to growsintosmultinationals such as Changhong and Legend, are also included in the list of QBPC's potential members.

　　"Chinese enterprises also fall victim to counterfeiting, and have as strong determination to fight against it,"said Joseph Simone.