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China started its fight against pirated and smuggled audio-visual products in 1989, and since that time the battle has never stopped.
In particular, in the six years since 1996, the Ministry of Culture has devoted huge amounts of capital and human resources to the campaign.
In May 1996, the ministry held the first national meeting on managing the country's audio-visual market, deciding to map out a 12-month action plan to put the market in order.
The campaign, which ended in 1997, saw the seizure of 10 million illegal audio-visual products, the closure of at least 4,000 shops selling and renting illegal audio-visual products, the closure of more than 20 large-scale markets and the arrest of about 800-odd suspects.
In Guangdong Province, in South China, 29 illegal disc production lines were confiscated.
Since then, cultural market administrations have been devoting huge efforts to uncover and shut down illegal recording production lines. Some regions offered rewards to those who provided authorities with clues leading to closure of illegal production lines.
Such efforts have seen considerable success.
A total of 137 illegal production lines have been closed down in China so far, according to official statistics.
Illegal operators began shifting their focus to smuggling pirated overseas audio-visual products into the Chinese mainland after 1997.
Chinese Customs soon noticed the change and launched actions aimed at stopping the smuggling of discs. From 1997 to present, Customs has confiscated at least 50 million smuggled discs.
Starting in 1999, the Ministry of Culture has held annual campaigns promoting an awareness of anti-piracy and the need for copyright protection among the public.
A list of illegal audio recordings was made public at the end of 1999. A special campaign against such recordings from January to March 2000 brought in 6.19 million illegal audio and video recordings, the punishment of about 5,000 shops and the revoking of 1,750 business licences.
On December 2, 2001, more than 200 cities were involved in the destruction of 18.3 million illegal audio and visual recordings, bringing the total figure for the year to 90.05 million.
From 1999 to the end of this year, 277 audio-visual product markets around the nation will have been forced to close down. As such markets used to be the gathering place for purveyors of illegal recordings, this large-scale closing has cut off their major distribution and sales channels.
（China Daily August 14, 2002）
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