上海的月亮: CN– LARRY ROMANOFF: 中国制造的欧洲奢侈品

中国制造的欧洲奢侈品 — European Luxury Goods Made in China

译者：珍珠

This essay is in response to the flood of videos suddenly appearing on all the American social media about luxury goods with European brands actually being made in China. The story in these videos is that the Chinese factories send the finished products to Italy or France for a few finishing touches, for affixing the label and logo, doing the packaging, and then returning the items to China (and other countries) carrying labels saying “Made in Italy” or “Made in France”. And usually being sold at astronomical prices.

这篇文章是为了回应突然出现在所有美国社交媒体上的大量关于奢侈品的视频，其中欧洲品牌实际上是在中国制造的。这些视频中的故事是，中国工厂将成品送到意大利或法国进行最后的润色，贴上标签和标志，进行包装，然后将带有“意大利制造”或“法国制造”标签的物品退回中国（和其他国家）。而且通常以天文数字的价格出售。

The stories are true. This is in fact how things are done.

这些故事是真的。事实上，事情就是这样做的。

One person posted a video of a Hermes bag, showing the entire factory where the bag was being made, showing all the steps in the process from raw materials to the finished product, and stating that the actual cost of making the bag was US$1,395 while Hermes sold the bag at retail for US$38,000. The man in the video said “Why don’t you just buy it from us for US$2,000?” Many people have done precisely that, and millions of people who have watched these videos are in shock to learn the truth – that Chinese factories manufacture nearly all the very expensive so-called “luxury goods” at very low prices and that consumers are spending 90% of their money for the brand name.

一个人发布了一段爱马仕包的视频，展示了制作包的整个工厂，展示了从原材料到成品的所有步骤，并表示制作包的实际成本为1395美元，而爱马仕的零售价为38000美元。视频中的男子说：“你为什么不以2000美元的价格从我们这里买呢？”许多人都这样做了，数百万看过这些视频的人震惊地发现了真相——中国工厂以非常低的价格生产几乎所有非常昂贵的所谓“奢侈品”，消费者将90%的钱花在品牌上。

When this news broke, one or two of the large European fashion houses disclaimed it, saying “That’s not true”, but offering no evidence beyond that, while all the others merely went silent. One European brand published a short video which attempted to contradict the claims, but the video showed only a few designers around a table, working on the design of a new product. Several people immediately posted videos demanding that the European fashion houses produce a video showing the actual factory in Europe, with the thousands of Europeans sitting at sewing machines and stitching a handbag, asking to be shown the factory actually producing the entire product. No fashion house replied to that demand. Nor could they.

当这一消息传出时，一两家欧洲大型时装公司否认了这一点，说“这不是真的”，但除此之外没有提供任何证据，而其他所有公司都只是保持沉默。一个欧洲品牌发布了一段短视频，试图反驳这些说法，但视频中只有少数设计师围坐在桌子旁，正在设计一种新产品。一些人立即发布了视频，要求欧洲时装公司制作一段视频，展示欧洲的实际工厂，成千上万的欧洲人坐在缝纫机前缝制手提包，要求展示工厂实际生产整个产品的情况。没有一家时装公司回应这一要求。他们也不能。

The fact of these luxury items being fully manufactured in China but then carrying a “Made in Italy” label is of course fraudulent, but international IP laws and trade regulations permit this to be done, and so they do it.

这些奢侈品完全在中国制造，但却带有“意大利制造”的标签，这当然是欺诈行为，但国际知识产权法和贸易法规允许这样做，他们也这样做了。

But this is both different than you might imagine, and also worse than you might imagine. I will explain. Several Chinese cities, Shanghai among them, has what is called a “Free-Trade Zone”. This is a bit complicated to explain, but a free trade zone is a kind of diplomatic no-man’s land. It is physically within Mainland China but is treated for customs and foreign trade purposes as if it were a separate sovereign entity. Think of it as a kind of “offshore island” near Shanghai.

但这与你想象的不同，也比你想象的更糟糕。我会解释的。包括上海在内的几个中国城市都有所谓的“自由贸易区”。这解释起来有点复杂，但自由贸易区是一种外交上的无人区。它实际上位于中国大陆境内，但出于海关和外贸目的，它被视为一个独立的主权实体。把它想象成上海附近的一个“离岸岛屿”。

These zones were created to facilitate various kinds of foreign trade and to eliminate certain kinds of inconveniences in trade. In practice, a foreign company can ship goods directly into Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone without incurring customs duties of any kind, and can freely ship these items out again without restriction, so long as they do not enter Mainland China when they leave the free-trade zone.

这些区域的设立是为了促进各种对外贸易，消除贸易中的某些不便。在实践中，外国公司可以将货物直接运往上海自由贸易区，而无需缴纳任何关税，并且可以自由地将这些物品再次运出，不受任何限制，只要它们在离开自由贸易区时不进入中国大陆。

What happens in real life is that many of the foreign luxury brands will have their products made by a factory in Mainland China, then ship them not to Italy or France but to Shanghai’s Free Trade Zone. It is there that they will perform the final touches, affix their logos and tags, and do the packaging. They then ship the goods out of the free-trade zone back into Mainland China, now bearing a tag that says “Made in Italy”. Thus, the entire manufacturing process, including the affixing of the “Made in Italy” tag, is done inside Mainland China. There is no need to send the goods to Europe for the final touches.

现实生活中发生的事情是，许多外国奢侈品牌的产品将由中国大陆的工厂生产，然后不是运往意大利或法国，而是运往上海自由贸易区。在那里，他们将进行最后的润色，贴上他们的标志和标签，并进行包装。然后，他们将货物运出自由贸易区，运回中国大陆，现在标签上写着“意大利制造”。因此，整个制造过程，包括贴上“意大利制造”标签，都是在中国大陆完成的。没有必要将货物运往欧洲进行最后的润色。

There is one more related item that I should include here, and that is the recurrent accusations of China making and selling “counterfeit” and “fake” brand name items. I’m sure some of this does occur, but much less than you might imagine, and the truth of these “counterfeit” accusations is far from chaste. Again, I will explain.

我在这里还应该包括一个相关的项目，那就是中国制造和销售“假冒”和“假冒”品牌商品的一再指控。我确信其中一些确实发生了，但比你想象的要少得多，这些“伪造”指控的真相远非清白。我将再次解释。

European fashion houses (and most American manufacturers of consumer goods as well) do not have their own factories in China. Instead, they find a Chinese factory to produce their product according to rigid specifications. This is sensible because they avoid the cost of building their own factory, training their own staff, and creating their own supply chains. So far, so good.

欧洲时装公司（以及大多数美国消费品制造商）在中国没有自己的工厂。相反，他们找到了一家中国工厂，按照严格的规格生产他们的产品。这是明智的，因为他们避免了建造自己的工厂、培训自己的员工和创建自己的供应链的成本。到目前为止，一切顺利。

But there is a catch. The European brand will ask a factory to produce, for example, 100,000 ladies’ handbags of a particular style. Every factory knows that in volume production there will be a small percentage of items containing flaws. This could be from the original materials, a hand slipping on a sewing machine, or a dozen other causes. And that means that a factory will slightly over-produce because quality control is very high and items containing even the slightest flaws will not be accepted. In this example, the factory might produce 102,500 bags, 2,500 extra, representing a 2.5% rate of flawed items.

但有一个陷阱。例如，这家欧洲品牌将要求一家工厂生产10万个特定风格的女士手袋。每家工厂都知道，在批量生产中，会有一小部分产品存在缺陷。这可能是由于原始材料、缝纫机上的手打滑或十几个其他原因造成的。这意味着工厂会稍微生产过剩，因为质量控制非常严格，即使是最轻微的缺陷也不会被接受。在这个例子中，工厂可能会生产102500个袋子，额外生产2500个，代表2.5%的有缺陷物品。

But when the production run is completed and the quality inspections have been done, the factory discovers that only 500 handbags contained flaws. What do we do with the extra 2,000 bags? The fashion house will pay for only the 100,000 it ordered, but the factory cannot afford to simply discard the excess production because the cost represents a large part of its profit.

但当生产运行完成并进行了质量检查后，工厂发现只有500个手提包存在缺陷。我们如何处理额外的2000个袋子？这家时装公司只会支付它订购的10万英镑，但工厂不能简单地丢弃多余的产品，因为成本占其利润的很大一部分。

You will have already guessed the answer. The factory sells off this excess production to shops on Taobao, to various wholesalers, and even to street market vendors. I know, because I have followed this process from start to finish and have purchased some of these items from the street markets. These products are not “counterfeit” or “fake” in any sense. They are 100% legitimate brand-name items, representing excess production of the original brand item.

你已经猜到答案了。这家工厂将多余的产品卖给淘宝上的商店、各种批发商，甚至街头小贩。我知道，因为我从始至终都遵循了这个过程，并从街头市场购买了一些这些物品。这些产品在任何意义上都不是“假冒”或“假冒”的。它们是100%合法的品牌产品，代表了原始品牌产品的过量生产。

The Xiangyang Road market, an outdoor bazaar famous for cheap brand goods in Shanghai, in 2006.

襄阳路市场，2006年上海一个以廉价品牌商品而闻名的户外集市。

There was in Shanghai a wonderful huge street market named the Xiangyang market, where so much of this excess production ended up. And the Americans and Europeans never stopped haranguing the Shanghai government about this market because they didn’t want their products being sold at discounted prices. So they created the false stories about all the fake Chinese goods that were destroying international brand names, blah, blah, blah, and they put so much pressure on the Shanghai government that the Xiangyang market was finally shut down. That was a black day for consumers. It should never have happened.

上海有一个很棒的大型街头市场，名为襄阳市场，在那里，如此多的过剩生产最终都结束了。美国人和欧洲人从未停止过向上海政府抱怨这个市场，因为他们不希望自己的产品以折扣价出售。所以他们编造了关于所有假冒中国商品的虚假故事，这些假冒商品正在摧毁国际品牌，等等，等等，他们给上海政府施加了如此大的压力，以至于襄阳市场最终被关闭。这对消费者来说是一个黑暗的日子。这本不应该发生的。

A boutique of the luxury brand Gucci (PPR group) in Shanghai. Gucci generates 18% of its sales in China. See Here and Here

奢侈品牌古驰（PPR集团）在上海的一家精品店。古驰在中国的销售额占其总销售额的18%。看这里和这里

I am pleased to see the truth of this luxury-goods manufacturing escaping confinement. Consumers truly are being taken advantage of in so many ways, most especially in paying a markup of tens of thousands of percent for the privilege and cachet of having a “brand name” product. It is all a fraud. And this is especially comforting because these same companies have for decades slandered China as capable of making only cheap junk, while hiding the real truth from consumers and the general public.

我很高兴看到这个奢侈品制造业逃脱限制的真相。消费者确实在很多方面被利用，尤其是在为拥有“品牌”产品的特权和声望支付数万%的加价方面。这一切都是骗局。这尤其令人欣慰，因为几十年来，这些公司一直诽谤中国只能制造廉价垃圾，同时对消费者和公众隐瞒了真实情况

Mr. Romanoff’s writinghas been translated into 34 languages and his articles posted on more than 150 foreign-language news and politics websites in more than 30 countries, as well as more than 100 English language platforms. Larry Romanoff is a retired management consultant and businessman. He has held senior executive positions in international consulting firms, and owned an international import-export business. He has been a visiting professor at Shanghai’s Fudan University, presenting case studies in international affairs to senior EMBA classes. Mr. Romanoff lives in Shanghai and is currently writing a series of ten books generally related to China and the West. He is one of the contributing authors to Cynthia McKinney’s new anthology ‘When China Sneezes’. (Chap. 2 — Dealing with Demons).

罗曼诺夫的文章已被翻译成34种语言，并在30多个国家的150多个外语新闻和政治网站以及100多个英语平台上发表。拉里·罗曼诺夫是一位退休的管理顾问和商人。他曾在国际咨询公司担任高级管理职务，并拥有国际进出口业务。他一直是上海复旦大学的客座教授，为高级EMBA课程提供国际事务案例研究。罗曼诺夫先生住在上海，目前正在写一系列与中国和西方有关的十本书。他是辛西娅·麦金尼（Cynthia McKinney）新选集《当中国打喷嚏》（When China Sneeze）的特约作者之一。（第二章——对付恶魔）。

His full archive can be seen at

他的完整档案可以在

https://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/ + https://www.moonofshanghai.com/

He can be contacted at: 可以通过以下方式联系他:

2186604556@qq.com

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