China is apparently anxious to show that it is willing to take other people's intellectual property seriously, rather than just outright taking it. As such, its legal system has started giving counterfeiters a hard time and hard time. Most notable among them was the "Chinese Sex Pill King" who recently received a stiff sentence for a massive counterfeit Viagra operation:

A Chinese man was jailed for eight years for making 60 tonnes of fake sex pills, state media reported on Friday as the country cracks down on pirates who copy nearly every product. Xi Yongli and his accomplices sold 21.8 million yuan ($2.78 million) of America Number One, Male Exclusive, Great Big Brother -- the popular Chinese name for Viagra -- and other pills and ingredients promising men vibrant sexual lives, a court in central China's Anhui province found, Xinhua news agency said on Friday. Xi and his gang received sentences spanning from a little over a year to eight years for making and selling medicine without a licence, selling counterfeits, and illegally processing Sildenafil Citrate -- the key ingredient in Viagra, Pfizer Inc.'s top selling male potency pill. They were based in Fuyang, a city in Anhui notorious for selling fakes, including baby milk powder without any nutrition that killed at least 13 babies in 2004.

This last line made me wonder, was Xi tried and convicted because of illegal processing of the real thing, for producing something that deliver the results it promised, or for producing something that actually harmed someone, like the baby milk powder? I ask because when I compare his sentence to the one that a movie disc pirate got, it makes me wonder what the Chinese government is trying to prove, and to whom:

Pfizer won a Chinese patent for its key ingredient from a Beijing court in June, overturning an earlier rejection of its patent application. Other countries have also refused to acknowledge Pfizer's claim.The United States and European Union both complain that rampant illegal production in China lies behind counterfeit fashion, movies, films, equipment and medicine surging into global markers. Washington has brandished threats of taking China's counterfeiting to the World Trade Organisation, the Geneva-based global trade umpire. China says it is cracking down. Earlier this month, EU trade chief Peter Mandelson urged China to stamp out piracy of intellectual property, saying its fakes now include birth-control pills. On Thursday, China sentenced a man to life imprisonment for pirating over 30 million movie discs.

Questions abound. How does one explain 8 years for the sex pill king for his 60 tons of fake Viagra, which might poison or harm someone, and life for the pirate for his 30 million DVDs? Did one of these guys neglect to bribe the proper local official? Why is Pfizer getting such a hard time from the Chinese legal system? How did Hollywood become to be taken more seriously in China than sex? I was last in China in 2001 and now wonder, what's the guy who offered to sell me fake North Face gear going to face- a firing squad?