I hate buying from China..... but

[Ukastronomer (Jeremy)]

It has been known for dozens of years that China is the biggest rip off merchant, copying and infringing copyright the world over, lenses to vacuum cleaners, fake iphones, fake watches, in fact fake everything.

What I don't understand is why governments do NOTHING about it, Chinas whole economy has been on the back of ripping off genuine manufactureres the world over.

But.......

Unfortunately, I shop there also. NOT for fake items, but genuine Chinese made items such as GoPro covers (skins/rubber), T2 mounts, red dot finders etc.

Why, price, (yes I know, sweatshops), delivery speed, faster than getting it in the UK often !!!!!, quality, never had a complaint yet.

I have just bought £20 of items from Ebay China, delivery 7 days !!!!, UK cost £75 PLUS postage, and they 100% get theirs FROM China

IF capital IF I saw the UK government cracking down on illegal imports rather than cutting back on spending on border force I would stop, but if the UK government can't be bothered................

[casstony]

Originally Posted by Ukastronomer

What I don't understand is why governments do NOTHING about it, ................

Governments don't control the world, corporations do and they are driven only by profit.

[RyanJones]

You’ve pretty much answered your own statement there Jeremy. The reason why China do what they do is because we enable them. We have recently had a housing price boom here in Australia ( which has settled a little now ) but it’s mostly been driven by Chinese investors. Everybody knows it and not a lot of people verbally like it...... and yet if you’re the one selling your house......

The current state of China’s power is almost entirely created by the rest of the world’s greed. Our lust for the same product cheaper with less regard for quality and our want to sell to them in our own country for more money has given them a big lift in the international stage.

You may not like it but you and the rest of us are to blame.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

TRUE ! , but I grabbed an ' Oyster ' stainless steel bracelet for my Seiko ' PADI ' Turtle dive watch from StrapCode in Hong Kong and its quality is as good as the lovely bracelet on my Grand Seiko or a friends Rolex ' Sub ' for $69usd + GST delivered and it was here in 3 days , impressive .

OZ post could learn how it's done from FedEx .

Brian.

ps. nearly all my scopes are Chinese except the iStar which is made in the good old US of A .

Originally Posted by casstony

Governments don't control the world, corporations do and they are driven only by profit.

[brian nordstrom (As avatar)]

Japan in the 1970's .

Would you have got a slow , oil leaking 750 Triumph Bonnie in 1979 ( nice bike ) or a Honda CB750 inline 4 that performed forever ? or a Datsun 1600 or an Austin Morris 1800 land crab ? , its the same today .

Yes there was rubbish then as there is today and the same rule applies " Buyer Beware " .

Brian.

Originally Posted by Ukastronomer

It has been known for dozens of years that China is the biggest rip off merchant, copying and infringing copyright the world over, lenses to vacuum cleaners, fake iphones, fake watches, in fact fake everything.

What I don't understand is why governments do NOTHING about it, Chinas whole economy has been on the back of ripping off genuine manufactureres the world over.

But.......

Unfortunately, I shop there also. NOT for fake items, but genuine Chinese made items such as GoPro covers (skins/rubber), T2 mounts, red dot finders etc.

Why, price, (yes I know, sweatshops), delivery speed, faster than getting it in the UK often !!!!!, quality, never had a complaint yet.

I have just bought £20 of items from Ebay China, delivery 7 days !!!!, UK cost £75 PLUS postage, and they 100% get theirs FROM China

IF capital IF I saw the UK government cracking down on illegal imports rather than cutting back on spending on border force I would stop, but if the UK government can't be bothered................

[Tropo-Bob (Bob)]

I was surprised when the Chinese first made Dobs. They seem to throw out many of the golden rule for newtonians. For example. the 1/6 thickness main mirrors. Furthermore, and their secondaries were oversized. Yet, they worked fine and actually better than my previous newtonians for which I paid a lot more money.

They have come a long way in making good, but cheap scopes.

I have been wondering if stargazers in the US now have to pay a tariff on these scopes?

[Ukastronomer (Jeremy)]

I also remember back years when people said "Japanese" who would want to buy "Japanese" cheap rubbish

We will keep on buying good old British quality goods like British Leyland Hahahahah after all when..... when they aren't on strike they do make cars (crap ones)

[Rainmaker (Matt)]

Originally Posted by Ukastronomer

It has been known for dozens of years that China is the biggest rip off merchant, copying and infringing copyright the world over, lenses to vacuum cleaners, fake iphones, fake watches, in fact fake everything.

What I don't understand is why governments do NOTHING about it, Chinas whole economy has been on the back of ripping off genuine manufactureres the world over.

But.......Unfortunately, I shop there also. NOT for fake items, but genuine Chinese made items such as GoPro covers (skins/rubber), T2 mounts, red dot finders etc.

Why, price, (yes I know, sweatshops), delivery speed, faster than getting it in the UK often !!!!!, quality, never had a complaint yet.

I have just bought £20 of items from Ebay China, delivery 7 days !!!!, UK cost £75 PLUS postage, and they 100% get theirs FROM China

IF capital IF I saw the UK government cracking down on illegal imports rather than cutting back on spending on border force I would stop, but if the UK government can't be bothered................

That's a cop-out, it is you/we the consumer that can't be bothered doing something about it. If we stopped buying the cheaper ripped off designs then China would stop making them. Blaming the Government is a nonsense....

We are the enablers that make it possible for China to prosper and its we who allow them to buy out Australia.....

[multiweb (Marc)]

Originally Posted by Rainmaker

That's a cop-out, it is you/we the consumer that can't be bothered doing something about it. If we stopped buying the cheaper ripped off designs then China would stop making them. Blaming the Government is a nonsense....

We are the enablers that make it possible for China to prosper and its we who allow them to buy out Australia.....

Yep, that pretty much sums it up. Convenience, supply and demand.

[JeniSkunk (Jenifur)]

Originally Posted by Ukastronomer

It has been known for dozens of years that China is the biggest rip off merchant, copying and infringing copyright the world over, lenses to vacuum cleaners, fake iphones, fake watches, in fact fake everything.

What I don't understand is why governments do NOTHING about it, Chinas whole economy has been on the back of ripping off genuine manufactureres the world over.

Originally Posted by Rainmaker

That's a cop-out, it is you/we the consumer that can't be bothered doing something about it. If we stopped buying the cheaper ripped off designs then China would stop making them. Blaming the Government is a nonsense....

We are the enablers that make it possible for China to prosper and its we who allow them to buy out Australia.

The problem, Jeremy describes, is NOT one that is solely for either Western governments or western consumers to solve. It requires effort from both.

Western governments need to make it impossible for Chinese counterfeiters to do business in the west.
The US IPO for AliExpress should never have been allowed to go ahead. Not for anti-Chinese racist views, but because of the counterfeits which make up the bulk of listings on there, and which Ali was supposed to have cleaned up and KEPT cleaned up before being allowed to list on the US stock market. The clean up never happened, and the IPO went ahead.

Equally, western consumers need to actively NOT buy Chinese counterfeit, and report it when found on places like ebay and Amazon, and for those businesses to close down the shop fronts of the Chinese counterfeiters whenever reported.
Yes, that does get to be whack-a-mole, but the more that are reported and blocked and closed down, the less consumers can be ripped off by those counterfeiters.

The third thing which needs doing is for Western governments to BAN Chinese companies, who demand full access to the patented and copyrighted tech of western corporations, as part of a joint venture, then break the JV and make and sell those goods globally solely themselves using all the acquired data.

[dikman (Richard)]

I don't know about Amazon, but ebay won't take any action against shonky sellers (usually Chinese) if you complain. First hand experience here (I'm talking about a $600 item) they sent me lots of nice words about how the seller is being investigated but nothing happened, same with PayPal. It was only after I got the Australian financial complaints authority involved that PayPal gave me my refund.


These corporations don't care about us, it's all about money.

[casstony]

If governments were in control they could have forced business to choose any number of developing countries to source cheap labour (SE Asian, Mexico) rather than empowering an Authoritarian regime. Unfortunately corporations have a very strong influence over government.

[bojan]

Originally Posted by JeniSkunk

.....The third thing which needs doing is for Western governments to BAN Chinese companies, who demand full access to the patented and copyrighted tech of western corporations, as part of a joint venture, then break the JV and make and sell those goods globally solely themselves using all the acquired data.

However, you can look at this detail from another angle..

Western companies and governments were very happy to use cheap (underpaid) labour available in China (and elsewhere)... and when Chinese government started to demand some sort of equality in treatment and position (by demanding transfer of technology and IP).. suddenly they are not happy with new arrangements..
All I am trying to say here is, everybody benefitted so far (including us, consumers... who didn't mind buying cheaper products.)

[xelasnave]

Caveat Emptor.
Folk expect the "law" to solve their problems which won't really happen, if it does you have just experienced what is called good luck.
You should never enter into any transaction if you are not confident that you will not have to go to court or seek a remedy from a third party.
Sure it should be a perfect world ...but its not.

Alex

[LewisM]

This thread makes me laugh.

It is the CONSUMER that is the root cause - nobody else. If you HATE buying from China Jeremy, than I propose you stop buying Celestron, Skywatcher and many Canon products. I suggest you seek the ones made in Japan, genuine Celestron (pre-Synta ownership) and just ditch Skywatcher altogether. Then throw out your television, anything with a PCB in it, your clothes.... and so on ad nauseum. I understand the point of your post, but where do you draw the line?

Unless an item is a deliberate counterfeit - meant to deceive the buyer - then anything else is just a CONSUMER ITEM. "Western" society facilitated the entire issue you despise based entirely on greed (profit driven). Return the manufacture of said items to the USA, UK, Australia et al and watch how the cost spirals exponentially, market dwindles. Poverty is already problematic in the US (13.9% - 18.5 million people), UK (22% - 14.2 million people) and Australia (13.2% - 3 million people), so let's just make it even worse and apply a backward ideology.

"MAGA" and similar nationalistic policies are chest thumping and "patriotic", until you realise that actually doing it is nigh on impossible in these modern times.

[xelasnave]

And should we even have patent protection.

Let the business go to who gets it to me at the cheapest price and the best quality...now that is a truly free market...
I would wear a fake Rolex watch that was stopped..broken..just to hear stupid folk say..that's a great watch...I would get a kick out of that..but I had it fixed and started wearing it cause I got tired of pulling out the phone for the time...so much for my view on brands.

They, a real one are not good investments in my view...they are not too uncommon...one of my paintings will be worth more in five thousand years...if I cut off a body part.

I think most of us would not have our hobby of astronomy unless we were mirror makers if not for China. Heck just think what a eq6 is more or less a copy of...it's only $20k more however.

A hippy I know..on the dole.. said "..life ain't too bad now, I can go to town on pay day, buy a small genny ($100 to $150 two stroke) a small lap top and have enough left over for two weeks food."..heck when I was first married you had to be careful or you could miss a day eating and I was apparently well paid ... you did not buy a pair of shoes with a little more than loose change in your pocket...I was thinking of getting a fiber glass horse bow..under $100 ...for me it has never been so good and I thank my real invisable friends in China.
Alex

[raymo]

We cannot expect the man in the street [as opposed to the wealthy] to buy
from developed countries when many items from China are HUGELY cheaper.
For example you can buy 10 AG 10 button batteries for $1.10 including
postage, or 10 of the larger RS232 for $2.10 inc postage. One RS232 costs
about $4.00 here. If the Chinese 232s only last half as long, they are still
effectively only 1/10th of the price here,[mine have always been just fine]. A rear engine mount for my Honda
is $281 here. I got one delivered by express post from China for $58
delivered to my door in 72 hrs.
raymo

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Heck just think what a eq6 is more or less a copy of...it's only $20k more however.

Nah, only about $6000 difference between the EM-200 (original) and the EQ6 (copy)

[xelasnave]

Originally Posted by LewisM

Nah, only about $6000 difference between the EM-200 (original) and the EQ6 (copy)

Only $6000.
Alex

[LewisM]

Originally Posted by xelasnave

Only $6000.
Alex

$14000 cheaper than you thought