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Kill copycats, open floodgates of creativity

By Alexis Hooi (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-10-30 08:09

As many visitors to Zhejiang province know, some of the region's top draws are the ancient watertowns along the Grand Canal where major cultural figures and ideas throughout Chinese history have sprung.

But one of the main impressions I got from my recent trip down south turned out to be a repeated warning I received from travel guides instead.

"Souvenirs or silk please remember not to buy anything from vendors or shops on the tourist site because the goods will most likely be fake," went Su Fei, a guide for the picturesque town of Wuzhen.

In a broader sense, the advice marked a low point in a major challenge facing the world's third-largest economy.

Copying and counterfeiting from home and abroad remain rife in this country, even as the public and private sectors renew calls and efforts to safeguard intellectual property.

From shanzhai or knock-off cellphones that offer the latest in communications to local franchises that amuse foreigners with their blatant imitations of global chains, many consumers know that "if original-brand manufacturers can make it, Chinese ones can fake it".

Estimates put the number of shanzhai cellphones made annually alone at about 150 million, or one-third of the domestic market for the devices.

I too sometimes find it hard to resist the dirt-cheap, pirated DVD movies and books regularly peddled on the streets of Beijing.

Others even revel in this culture of copying, maintaining that it breeds grass-roots innovation and provides an outlet for creativity at the common level.

But encouraging such a climate of counterfeiting will only continue to punish the real innovators instead.

Fake products, by aiming for lowest-common-denominator prices and buyers, serve to dilute, discourage and dampen original ideas.

Whether it is the iPhone or hybrid car, leading producers of the times have repeatedly proven that real innovation stems from novel solutions, not outright imitations.

That is why authorities and companies must continue to boost research and development, to complement moves in stemming intellectual property and copyright infringements.

To that effect, Beijing held its second international copyright exposition in the past week to expand the platform of sectors ranging from publishing to software.

Pointing to the continued growth in the country's economy and a significant rise in its cultural and creative industries for the first half of the year, Lu Yongxiang, the vice-chairman of the Standing Committee of the National People's Congress, was reported as saying at the event that innovation will be key in the ongoing battle against the financial crisis.

As such, "intellectual property is a strategic resource" for economic development and any competition in the global economy would basically entail competition in major areas like technological prowess and intellectual property, Lu said.

The State Council is also laying out a national strategy for intellectual property that aims to "develop a higher capacity to create, use and protect" the field in the next decade.

It would be a waste for Chinese manufacturers to ignore these calls, because the country is well poised to become a major player of creativity in the market as its role on the global stage grows.

By tapping on a rich culture and proud heritage to keep the best of its talent flowing onto the path of modernization instead of just copying blindly from the outside, China also does justice to its position as one of the world's greatest civilizations.

alexishooi@chinadaily.com.cn