Russia Wants Criminal Charges for Chinese Tech Rebranded as Domestic

The Chamber of Commerce and Industry requested Ministry of Industry and Trade deputy head Alexey Matushansky to tighten controls over fake hardware localization. Vice president Elena Dybova urged the government to tie tax breaks directly to verified local microchips and introduce criminal liability for vendors cheating state procurement rules.

Local manufacturers submit authentic domestic components to pass registry inspections, only to swap them for cheap foreign parts during mass assembly. State buyers currently have zero technical capacity to inspect what sits inside the chassis once delivered, creating a massive grey market of imposter devices.

Industry executives at GS Group highlighted that fake domestic tech usually comes from newly registered shell entities with no manufacturing facilities promising impossible delivery times. Meanwhile, Fplus pointed out that fake local devices run 20% to 40% cheaper because importers spend nothing on actual research and development.

The most widespread scheme remains level-two localization, where blueprints are written locally while actual manufacturing takes place entirely in China. Despite oversight from the FAS and Prosecutor General's Office, core processors and microcontrollers inside certified machines remain completely foreign.

Years of aggressive import substitution policies have successfully produced a vibrant industry of professional sticker application. The attempt to audit every single circuit board promises to build a legendary bureaucratic monster rather than actual semiconductor factories.