I may never buy a used guitar again...

[Ch0jin]

....
These fake guitars are really an affront to American's intelligence and the US government. It shows how weak our customs accountability is. If this is a large scale scam it really makes us look foolish.....

Not just the US mate, this is a world wide situation.

[Duff]

I see Chojin, it's like the sleeping dragon awakened, flamming the entire world economies, indiscriminately, with hot fire and cold fire, good products and junk products. It sounds like the Industrial Revolution all over again, just in another part of the world; child labor, low wages, non-existent labor management relations or worker unions, uninforced safety and environmental standards, people living in super cramped quarters at company compounds, cotrolled by the big brother industrialists and government, afraid to speak out against anything or say anything that might threaten their shaky, at best, existence. The education level is probably also not very high in rural China where these factories are located. A little money is WAY better than no money. I read too many Clive Cussler books.

I don't know, it's just a mental image that is forming in my mind reading about these factories and factory towns that spring up in the middle of nowhere, exploiting a ripe labor force.

[Jimi75]

Those Chinese fakes are ridiculous. The foto finish flame....OMG...can it get worse? Still a lot of new players who believe the fake and buy such instruments.

I buy used instruments, but not at ebay or any other online source. I have to see and play the instrument. There are well known authorized dealers who have professional knowledge. That is where you can buy used instruments, too.

[FrankenFretter***]

This post has really generated some very interesting dialogue, and some great points.

Capitalism is a very new thing in China, and they've grabbed hold of it with both hands and run with it. Granted, it is their own version of capitalism, but it is changing the country rapidly. We've certainly fueled the fire based on large industries desiring less overhead and more profit. Greed and vanity is what drives the growth of industry in China. Buying a counterfeit guitar is rarely done because it's seen as a good deal on a quality instrument; it's to impress people with the name brand. There are plenty of bargain-priced Asian-made guitars out there that are great quality, and NOT counterfeit.

I find it interesting, or perhaps morbidly fascinating, that the counterfeiters are producing better copies all the time. They read the forums. They read the Gibson articles on how to spot a fake. They pay attention, and they adapt the products. I had read that the Les Pauls (or Ling Pauls, as they're known in some forums) used to have three-screw truss rod covers, and no control cavity or switch covers. They do now. They're also learning which models have how much binding, and where. They're getting better, and it's getting harder for us to know which guitars are genuine. Perhaps Gibson will go the route of MS, and have a unique registration number for each guitar that you have to call in and verify. There need to be some way to tell a fake from the real thing that the fakers can't duplicate.

That's my vent for the day. Talk amongst yourselves...

[syo***]

Duff, Ch0jin, this is probably going well beyond the original point of the thread (sorry frankenfretter), but you raise some good points.

I haven't gone native and I am hardly an apologist for the very real abuses that exist in China and many other developing countries. But I must say that alot of the reporting that is done on all things China dwells overwhelmingly on the negative. Sure there are knock offs in China but they are hardly the driving force behind the world's second largest GDP.

Most of my business has had to do with violins. It is a very established industry, one that has taken many who lived in poverty to quite a decent lifestyle. Many violins sold as European instruments are actually 90% Chinese made. Laws in some European countries allow for a designation of "made in Belgium" (for example) if the distributor uses Belgian made fittings and set-up. These are usually quality instruments made by a skilled and upwardly moving workforce. I have paid anywhere from USD $50 to $8,000 for violins made in China. The top instruments are made by world class makers whose work sells for considerably less than some inferior European instruments merely because the general perception of Chinese goods is lower.

What I've learned in my past year around the Chinese guitar industry is that it is a rapidly maturing business. Although not as long established as the violin, thanks to the influx of foreign (mostly American and Japanese) expertise, China does now produce many excellent guitars. Certainly the export of knock-offs represents a tiny fraction of a percent of all exports.

I will relate one story when I first started checking out factories. The first factory I visited had a complete lack of ventilation in the painting rooms and nothing but paper masks (and often no masks at all!) for protection. I had to leave quickly as the fumes were seriously overwhelming.
My Chinese assistant, who has lower standards than I when it comes to workplace conditions, was appalled. After we left, I seriously wondered if I would be making any guitars in China. I was depressed and still shudder at the thought of the place. I have since visited many factories and have never again come across such horrible conditions. In fact I have found many professionally run businesses with very good safety standards/working conditions.

What makes the above story even worse, is that this factory is 100% foreign management who set up and manage it. Further, it is a factory that manufactures some OEM guitars that get great buzz on this and other forums. They don't produce knockoffs so far as I know.

I truly believe it is in the interests of the government in China to raise living conditions for everyone as, at the very least, it ensures their survival. It isn't happening without abuses however. With such rapid growth abuses can be difficult to police. But then there are still some sweatshops in the First world too...

Well I've expended enough air. Sorry for being so long about it.

[Duff]

Syo, no dude. You don't need to apologize. You have first hand knowledge of what is happening in the guitar industry in China, and we should know about the status of its conditions, safety, environmental quality inside and outside the factories, management practices, etc.

So many US companies have moved to China that it is astounding. As you alluded to, it is a growth type of thing and here in the US the "limits to growth" are getting pushed; hence very expensive US made Gibsons Fenders and so on. Passing a certain limit the average person can no longer afford the American made guitar and, oftentimes being economically sensible rather than nationalistic or loyal to American production, luckily finds a really well made guitar coming from another part of the world.

As I indicated before, the US government - the trade commission or whatever, as well as the governments of other countries, should require that certain human rights and factory conditions are maintained in these offshore industrial operations.

Our government could instantly pull the right of US companies to operate in China at any moment, just as the gov of China could expel our citizens from China at any given moment in time. Other concerned countries could also immediately suspend any operations outside their borders without hesitation.

I have met people from China that work there in factories making products for the US. I noticed that they work very hard, oftentimes working for free on their own time, just to try to insure that they will keep there job and be perceived by upper management as assest - because, they tell me, there are thousands of other workers that would LOVE to have their job. These workers sound like they are not valued very highly and are largely expendable.

Now, I understand that a super skilled machinist or engineer or designer or even factory floor assembler would be valued very highly because of the key role that they play in quality of production. These people are most definitely treated way more reasonably than the run of the mill employees that can be bought in straight from the street and taught everything they need to know to do an excellent job within a relatively short time, or no time at all.

It is incredibly interesting that you mention that some of the factories that engage in the worst health and safety practices are ones that are operated and managed by our own professionals. Professional would be using the term lightly here, in light of the paint room scenario: that is just plain irresponsibility and probably even illegal in China to put a person in an environment like that to work all day. Imagine that? That is a sad image for me to visualize.

As was said, industrialization in the developing world is an evolving process. But precedents have been set here in the US and in Europe and elsewhere that have resulted in standard operating procedures that ensure worker safety and health, and eliminate child labor, etc. It is not like WE have to reinvent the wheel. We already know what it is and choose to ignore its existence and exploit ripe labor markets that don't have environmental and health requirements that cost A LOT OF MONEY. It is a greed motivated type of thing.

Here they jump ship leaving American workers totally trained and out of jobs and forbid anyone that buys the old factory from making the product that the local workers are highly skilled at making. This is as unethical as requiring offshore workers to work in less than humane conditions.

The world turns and we turn with it. It is really really hard to change the course of the river.

[FrankenFretter***]

As was said, industrialization in the developing world is an evolving process. But precedents have been set here in the US and in Europe and elsewhere that have resulted in standard operating procedures that ensure worker safety and health, and eliminate child labor, etc. It is not like WE have to reinvent the wheel. We already know what it is and choose to ignore its existence and exploit ripe labor markets that don't have environmental and health requirements that cost A LOT OF MONEY. It is a greed motivated type of thing.

First of all, let me just say that I am not now, nor have I ever been a union worker. That said, the labor unions had a lot to do with the worker standards we have now, including the safety standards. If (and it's a big if) China were to develop labor unions, they may see some progress on that front. In a repressive gov't such as theirs, that seems near impossible, but I have seen many thing happen in the last few decades that I thought were impossible. I hope for the sake of the people there, they do institute some national policy that is strictly enforced regarding worker safety and welfare. It could happen.

[Duff]

Remember the Chinesse dude and the tank?

What ever happened to that guy? Anybody ever hear from him again?

Anyway, they are all communists; like one big union, right? Cleaning up these messed up factories and straightening out this criminal activity should be a short order for them.

Seriously though, my new Vox AC15c1 is a really nice China made amp. A lot of really really good products are coming out of China. Our Classic Vibes we love so much come from China. Whoever made these items are good workers that obviously take pride in their work and probably value their jobs.

There has to be mega money going back into China and a substantial proportion of that money has to be going back to the workers and people, in one way or another. Then again, there are SO MANY PEOPLE in China that mega amounts of money going into the economy probably is diluted very significantly, just by the sheer number of people living there and the massive superstructure of the country and the cost of maintaining it, even at a marginal level.

Maybe Syo knows if the factory owners are allowed to keep the vast majority of the profit or if there is a big stockholding class that benefits from the profits. Do the workers in some of the plants get to buy stock or are they given "x" amount of stocks. Do they have profit sharing in any of the plants? It is possible that there are incentives for excellence. Seeing so many excellent products coming out of China would seem to suggest that something is going right, at least in some places.

[Ch0jin]

Remember the Chinesse dude and the tank?

Of course. Tiananmen Square 1989. Protesters take to the streets of Beijing to mourn the death of Hu Yaobang, a Pro- Democracy campaigner. As with plenty of large public protests, all kinds of of other groups joined in as well and the protest was eventually put down violently by the military. The image you reference is, as far as I know, the only image (or one of very few at least) that came out of the whole event. It depicts an unknown man in a white shirt blocking the path of a PLA tank. I was in the very same spot only last year.

What ever happened to that guy? Anybody ever hear from him again?

Shortly after the iconic photograph was taken he was ushered back into the crowd by a small group. Friends? Concerned citizens? Secret Police? Nobody knows for sure, but as far as I can tell, he has never resurfaced.

Anyway, they are all communists; like one big union, right?

If you mean all of China, then yes. They run a single party system and the governing party is the Communist Party of China, making all of China a communist state.

Cleaning up these messed up factories and straightening out this criminal activity should be a short order for them.

I get where you're going with this, but I don't think anything is going to be that simple in a country of 1.3 billion people, single communist state or not.

To go completely and utterly off topic....

If you get the chance, Beijing is a great city to visit. For a city of some 22 million people I was amazed at how clean, slick, modern and organised it feels. (especially after experiencing what 18-20 million people in Cairo feels like.....) Not Tokyo slick by a long way, but impressive nonetheless.

[Duff]

I was joking that because they are communists, comparing it to a big union, looking out for the general welfare of all the population, particularly the working class person, is their main communist objective and alternative approach to government and economic distribution of wealth among the people.

I doubt that anything like that is happening. They have no power to protest or initiate workplace change and are probably dominated by an upper class of some type, probably not refered to as aristocrats, but the managerial elite or business owners or something of that sort that consolidate all of the decision making power and all other power. There is probably a HUGE group at the bottom of the socio-economic pyramid that don't have anything coming and live basically hand to mouth, with few, if any opportunities to move up the ladder of society. They are likely very passive and apathetic. Easy for the power brokers to manipulate in their ostensibly warped version of communism and capitalism.

Syo would know best about the demographics since he has seen the situation first hand, especially out of the cities in the rural industrial areas.