Introduction

The Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) Draft Voluntary Guidelines for Countering Illicit Trade in Counterfeit Goods on Online Marketplaces is a new set of non-binding best practices aimed at promoting coordinated action by public and private sectors in OECD member countries to combat the global trade of counterfeit goods.[1] The draft guidelines get a lot right: they recognize that counterfeiting is a global digital problem that requires coordination between platforms, governments, and rights holders all operating across borders and at the speed of e-commerce. Setting an international benchmark, even as a non-binding instrument, can help reinforce positive behavior from platforms that already act in good faith, provide guidance to emerging e-commerce companies, and create a transparent basis to evaluate which companies and countries are truly implementing best practices.

But as promising as these guidelines are, they stand on a shaky foundation: the assumption that all platforms, governments, and sellers are equally invested in reducing the $467 billion per year issue of counterfeit trade.[2] That assumption does not grapple with the central role of China in the counterfeit economy.

In January 2025, the U.S. Trade Representative’s Notorious Markets List stated that “China continues to be the number one source of counterfeit products in the world.”[3] And in the 2024 fiscal year, 90 percent of U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s intellectual property (IP) seizures originated from China and Hong Kong.[4]

While China is not an OECD member, its platforms are rapidly gaining market share in OECD economies.[5] These platforms, including Temu, SHEIN, AliExpress, and others, are not neutral actors. Backed by significant industrial policy support, they benefit from subsidies, regulatory protection at home, and assistance toward international expansion.[6]

The draft guidelines should better reflect the reality that China’s government, platforms, and vendors have aligned interests that diverge sharply from the goals of transparent, rule-based digital commerce. These interests prioritize global market share growth over compliance with IP or product safety laws for Chinese cross-border vendors and platforms.

Recommendations for Draft Guidelines

Confront the Central Role of China and Its Strategic Divergence

The guidelines treats all governments as if they share aligned interests in transparency, accountability, and consumer trust, defining governments as “public bodies with responsibility for developing and implementing policies and measures to combat counterfeiting.” That assumption does not hold for China. The Chinese government uses IP enforcement not as a neutral public service, but as an economic statecraft tool deployed selectively in support of national goals. China’s 2024 Annual Report on China’s Combating of IPR Infringement and Counterfeiting highlights efforts to become an “IP powerhouse.”[7] In practice, this means enforcement is selective and directed at protecting Chinese companies with valuable IP or bolstering China’s global image when politically convenient, rather than systematically curbing the flow of counterfeit goods originating from its own territory.

Likewise, the guidelines’ assumption of online marketplaces—that they “have a keen interest in gaining the trust of consumers by providing genuine products”— does not hold up in the context of China. Chinese e-commerce platforms have a keen interest in maintaining a breadth of industrial policy benefits bestowed by the Chinese government. China’s industrial policy is designed to grow global market share, and often comes at the expense of compliance, as platforms are incentivized to scale fast and dominate markets. As a result, some Chinese platforms tolerate or even overlook counterfeit sales when doing so enables faster growth in foreign markets.

Recommendation 1: Revise paragraphs 17–18 and 25–26 to explicitly name China as the dominant source of counterfeit goods and recommend tailored enforcement approaches for Chinese platforms and regulatory frameworks (Topic 1(a), Topic 11(a)).

Recommendation 2: Revise paragraphs 12 and 15 to recognize that only some governments and some online marketplaces have responsibility and incentives to advance anti-counterfeiting efforts.

Recognize the Double Standard in China’s Platform Liability

China’s domestic IP and product safety enforcement regimes are more stringent than many OECD observers realize. For example, under Article 6 of China’s State Administration for Market Regulation’s (SAMR) May 2025 draft “Regulations on the Supervision and Administration of Quality and Safety of Key Industrial Products Sold Online,” platforms that “know or should know” a product is illegal or unsafe are required to bear joint liability with sellers.[8]

Yet these draft regulations only apply to “the business activities of e-commerce platform operators providing services for the online sale of key products” “within the territory of the People’s Republic of China.”[9] For example, if regulators flag a counterfeited product sold on Pinduoduo, an e-commerce platform that operates domestically in China, the same item may still be sold abroad on Temu, which shares the same parent company as Pinduoduo, with no equivalent compliance obligations. As a result, a Chinese e-commerce firm could have actual knowledge of counterfeit products being sold on their platform without taking any action. OECD should address this situation.

Recommendation 3: Expand paragraphs 21–22 to highlight the inconsistent application of anti-counterfeiting measures in different jurisdictions by the same platforms and recommend that platforms that adopt stronger IP rights protections in some markets—such as Chinese platforms governed by SAMR rules—maintain those measures in all markets, especially within OECD countries (Topic 3(a)).

Recommendation 4: Amend paragraphs 23–24 to encourage OECD member countries’ national consumer product safety agencies (e.g., the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, or CPSC) to monitor Chinese-language recall and public notice portals maintained by platforms like Pinduoduo and report safety risks to global databases, such as the OECD GlobalRecalls portal (Topic 4(a)).

Recommend Artificial Intelligence (AI) Tools to Scale Enforcement

The speed and volume of digital commerce—especially from platforms backed by China—makes traditional (manual) IP enforcement unmanageable. AI-generated listings and dynamic seller profiles are already used to flood markets with counterfeit goods. These same technologies should also be part of the solution.

These tools should be scalable and specifically directed at platforms and marketplaces that operate with high volume and low transparency. Public-private AI collaboration should be a core tenet of next-generation enforcement.

Recommendation 5: Expand paragraphs 29–30 and 35–36 to encourage governments and platforms to harness AI more effectively (Topic 5(a), Topic 2(b)), such as by:

▪ Creating incentives for platforms to share counterfeit detection data;

▪ Developing joint AI-powered risk assessment systems;

▪ Procuring or building automated counterfeit detection tools, including those focused on product origin verification.

Recommend Enforcement Mechanisms that Reflect Asymmetric Incentives

Chinese platforms and exporters often exploit high-volume de minimis shipments and opaque logistics networks to evade IP enforcement. Voluntary cooperation will not be sufficient to address this behavior.

Recommendation 6: Strengthen paragraphs 19–20 and 44–45 by including best practices tailored to non-cooperative platforms (Topic 2(a), Topic 3(b)), including:

▪ Enforcement partnerships between customs agencies and e-commerce platforms focused on high-risk geographies and exporters;

▪ Mandatory disclosure of logistics and ownership data for de minimis shipments;

▪ Shared enforcement actions or joint investigations among OECD countries targeting Chinese-origin vendors.

Strengthen Collaborative and Multilateral Channels for Enforcement

While enforcement should be robust, it should also seek to build cooperation where possible. China has a number of semi-official and non-governmental organizations that already engage with global stakeholders on IP protection, including:

▪ Beijing Anti-Infringement and Anti-Counterfeiting Alliance (BAAA), also known as China Anti-Infringement and Anti-Counterfeiting Innovation Strategic Alliance (CAASA)[10]

▪ China Trade Association for Anti-counterfeiting (CTAAC)[11]

▪ The annual China-EU E-Commerce IP Protection and Innovation Conference[12]

▪ Quality Brands Protection Committee of China Association of Enterprises with Foreign Investment (QBPC)[13]

These entities offer potential avenues for constructive engagement, including information sharing, joint training, and platform accountability, which can bolster enforcement and improve collaboration. These entities also operate within state-aligned ecosystems and maintain embedded Chinese Communist Party leadership.[14] They are not equivalent to civil society or trade associations in OECD countries. Rather than viewing these groups as neutral third-party partners, the Guidelines should acknowledge their dual role as both potential collaborators and instruments of state-aligned industrial strategy. Still, engagement with these organizations can be valuable if structured with transparency, safeguards, and realistic expectations.

Recommendation 7: Expand paragraphs 25–26 and 48–49 to encourage OECD member governments to collaborate more deeply with Chinese anti-counterfeiting groups and regulators (such as SAMR), building on existing dialogues to enable joint risk identification, notification, and enforcement (Topic 11(a), 11(b)).

Compete in the Global Marketplace of E-Commerce Norms

China’s global e-commerce model—prioritizing growth, scale, and state backing—will increasingly compete with OECD norms. The guidelines should not only provide best practices but also serve as a credible counterweight to regulatory models that deprioritize transparency or intellectual property rights.

Recommendation 8: Frame paragraphs 27–28 and 60–61 as part of a broader effort to align OECD members around a values-driven digital commerce framework—one that balances openness with enforceability and sets a clear alternative to state-directed e-commerce expansion (Topic 1(b), Topic 11(c)).

Conclusion

The OECD guidelines are a critical step in shaping how global e-commerce operates. But unless they reflect the geopolitical and regulatory asymmetries that define today’s counterfeit trade, they will fall short of their ambition. By naming the challenges posed by China’s platforms and regulatory gaps directly and recommending practical mechanisms, including AI tools, to close those gaps the OECD can establish a more enforceable, equitable, and forward-looking framework.

Endnotes