Chinese daigou resellers from Osaka got into a fistfight at a cosmetics counter.

Professional shoppers fly to Japan, Korea and Europe to buy luxury handbags, cosmetics, supplements and infant formula because Chinese import taxes and a mature counterfeit industry make domestic prices higher and trust lower.

These shoppers clear out popular items in bulk, then resell them on Chinese platforms at a markup.

The gap is structural: China charges tariffs + 13% VAT + consumption tax (15% on high-end cosmetics), with personal imports facing 20–50% comprehensive rates.

China’s simple average MFN tariff is ~7.5%. Infant formula sits at 15% MFN. Agriculture averages higher. Effective burdens on consumer goods rise further with VAT and consumption tax.

The same government that calls U.S. tariffs a “joke” and unilateral protectionism maintains these barriers, plus extensive non-tariff ones:

• Market access and investment restrictions favoring domestic firms

• Forced technology transfer and state-sponsored IP theft

• Preferential treatment and subsidies for SOEs

• Discriminatory regulation, unique standards and data localization

• Administrative hurdles, delayed inspections, licensing and selective SPS measures (NTBs drove roughly half the drop in U.S. exports to China in 2018–19)

• Export controls on rare earths and critical inputs used as leverage

The fistfight is just the visible symptom of a policy that taxes foreign goods heavily, sustains a large gray market, and then criticizes others for using tariffs. https://t.co/6AzYLFPeGD