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Theory, Culture & Society, Vol. 25, No. 6, 117-140 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/0263276408095547

`China Who Makes and Fakes'

A Semiotics of the Counterfeit

Laikwan Pang

Chinese University of Hong Kong

This is a study of the semiotics of counterfeit products. Beginning with an analysis of a number of piracy-related activities taking place in China, I look at how and why China is understood by the world as a pirate nation. Through a careful reading of the counterfeit product as a material object, my study aims at demythologizing the relation between China and piracy, and I relate the logic of the counterfeit to the logic of capitalism. I argue that piracy is a result of global capitalism rather than to do with the character of a particular people, and I demonstrate the urgent need to establish a politics of mimetic reading, which refuses to be shut down by capitalist discourse, such as that produced by the intellectual property rights regime.

Key Words: China • copying • creativity • intellectual property rights • mimesis


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