China provides counterfeit electronics to U.S. military?
(Screenshot by Liu Jiayi/CBS Interactive at http://news.cntv.cn/china/20120522/113186.shtml)
After being accused of providing counterfeit electronic parts to the U.S. military system, China suggested the U.S. get their facts straight before pointing fingers.
"We are astonished by the U.S. Senate committee's report," said Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei at a press conference on May 22. "Who exactly did the U.S. military purchase the electronics from and under what contracts? The U.S. government should do its own investigation first."
Among 1,800 cases in the investigation, the Senate Armed Service Committee identified China as the source country in 70% of over 100 cases.
Some one million counterfeit parts were used in the aircrafts in U.S. Air Force, Navy, and Special Operation forces, according to a report done by the Committee after a yearlong investigation.
"Our report outlines how this flood of counterfeit parts, overwhelmingly from China, threatens national security, the safety of our troops and American jobs," the Committee Chairman Carl Levin said. "It underscores China's failure to police the blatant market in counterfeit parts - a failure China should rectify."
The report also showed that the Chinese government failed to take steps to stop counterfeiting operations that were carried out openly in that country. According to the report, the Chinese government also denied visas to Committee staff to travel to mainland China as part of the investigation.
However, China came second after the U.S. in a global counterfeiting ranking, according to another report released earlier in the month by IHS iSuppli, an American market intelligence company.
"Companies in two countries accounted for two-thirds of counterfeit incident reports in 2011," said Rory King, director, supply chain product marketing at IHS. "China was actually No. 2, while the United States was No. 1. The two countries were neck and neck, with China at 32 percent and the U.S. at 33 percent. So, in terms of counterfeiting, the enemy is also within."
(Screenshot by Liu Jiayi/CBS Interactive at http://www.isuppli.com/Semiconductor-Value-Chain/News/Pages/One-Counterfeit-Part-Every-15-Seconds.aspx)