Why the Hell Do the Chinese Copy Everything?

I woke up one morning with absolutely no memory of what I was doing the previous night. Turns out I was under the influence of certain substances, milk and Oreos to be more precise. Then I realized that they weren’t Oreos; they were Olios. I should have known. I googled it.

The Chinese had already reinvented the original Oreo cookies for their market (this is the re-invented Chinese version). And it was only because of my milk and Oreo addiction that I ended up with this.

So, why the hell does China have to copy everything? Unfortunately, we will never know. However, here’s me trying to use my head to figure out what leads this great nation and its people to make copy everything and anything.

1. They make everything anyway

Chances are that the very device you are reading this article on is made in China.  It happens to be home to the cheapest manufacturing facilities in the world. And since it lets companies position their products more competitively in the market, almost everything is made in China. One of the best known out of these numerous manufacturing contractors is Foxconn. It makes all the Apple products that you love so much in its residential factory complexes which have their own TV channel. Oh yes, that’s what China means by capitalist communism. To cut to the chase, this gives the country and it’s industry access to just about anything they’d wanna rip off.

2. The everybody-wants-an-iPhone syndrome

This is relatively easier to understand. Every guy or girl out there wants an iPhone because it’s ‘cool’ to have one. My point here is that we can replace the iPhone with any fancy commodity you’d like: a Merc, a Beemer, or fuck cars, I want a private jet. We all love having these cool things to flaunt. And as it turns out, China being the nice little country it is, loves serving us. Hence they make knock-offs of every product that we’d associate the term ‘status symbol’ with. The only downside is that these products are not even half as good. There’s a reason why a Rolex costs that many more times than it’s Chinese knock-off Rollex. But honestly, I’d drive a car that looks like a Beemer; who cares if it falls apart and blows up in the middle of the road?

3. They are very good thieves

The Chinese are probably the world’s best thieves.  This is because to make a copy of everything, you need to know how to do it. As I mentioned in the first point, most of the original stuff that ends up getting replicated in China is also made in China.  But what would China do if they had to make low-cost fighter aircraft? Well they make a plan. They buy the license to manufacture the Sukhoi-27 fighter from a newly formed Russia and then actually make these planes for 15 years. Then they suddenly launch an aircraft called the J-11b and call it an indigenous effort. They even fail to change the nomenclature (you see, the J-11 is the Chinese code for the Su-27). The best part? They now intend to sell these jets to other countries like Pakistan (which also funded part of the fighter’s development). Did I mention they have also ripped a cancelled Israeli fighter? Or that they have ripped another Russian fighter (the Su-33) even though the Russians warned them of litigation for copying the Su-27?

4. They love working and making people work

China is home to billions of ‘sweatshops’ each of which can keep many human rights groups busy for years to come. And of course, you and I obviously don’t care if the iPod we love so much is made by an under-aged under-fed 8-year-old. That’s the bad bit of capitalism you see, and as we all know, the Chinese do a fantastic job in adapting things. There exists a China beyond those glass buildings and fancy cities. Most of the working class is so poor that they can’t afford to live in those cities. They work and then they disappear. Probably this is the perfect method to control such a large population but it’s unfair that only a section (the larger chunk) has to go through such hardships to live the dream of driving in a fake BMW while an entire section is busy driving around in their authentic BMWs wearing real Rolex wrist watches.

5. They don’t give a fuck

Have you heard of China feeling sorry for anything they have done? If you have, you should stop doing coke, it’s bad for you. China as a country has probably the biggest pair of balls ever. They don’t give a fuck about anything anyone has to say or do. And the worst part is that since they make almost everything we use, we can’t really fuck with them. It’s purely based on this unfair advantage that China goes about doing whatever the heck it wants to. Be it massacring democratic protestors, hunting Tibetan monks, claiming Arunachal Pradesh and parts of Kashmir as their own or letting such a huge industry of counterfeit product manufacturing right next to the places where the real deal is made. Their message is clear: copyrights and human rights? Well, you can stuff it.

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Featured image by Anurag Banerjee