[mylastattempt]

This way of working is marketed as such by Chinese manufacturers. They will refer to it as something along the lines of: Made in South East Asia. Sometimes they produce the products in (e.g.) Vietnam, but more often than not, everything is done in China, then shipped to Vietnam for packaging or adding a "Made in Vietnam" label, and shipped out from there. Thailand is another upcoming player in this scheme.

Large companies are well aware of this and happily use their existing Chinese suppliers' SEA entity to avoid sanctions and tarrifs, or to show that they are moving away from having everything Made in China.

To be fair, only gullible or naive people could truly believe that products coming from any part of Asia are not made, controlled, or otherwise influcnced by the Chinese.

[trimethylpurine]

Do you work in manufacturing?

In my experience, no, companies are generally not aware and not accepting of this and brands/licensing requirements ensure that's the case. For sure in regards to valuable trademarks.

A manufacturer would absolutely not want to risk their entire business. And that's all it takes for a brand to pull your license. Now what? Everyone is fired and a $120M contact is lost over a few cents per unit.

It's possible that it happens as Chinese factories skirt the rules and make false presentation, but manufacturers spend a lot of money to send someone to many countries and factories to trial and vet them over the course of years to meet brand requirements for licensure before they begin manufacturing with them and often through repeat checks during the manufacturing process. But I'd say that's rare, again, in regards to branded goods of valuable trademarks.

[lukan]

"or otherwise influcnced by the Chinese"

That last statement makes it almost meaningless. Then you can also say, no product on this world was made without US influence. Otherwise all those countries like Vietnam do have a agency of their own (Vietnam for example even succesfully fought china before with military)

And south korea and Japan (and Taiwan) also are somewhat out of the direct control of china.

[csomar]

The country am from is neither in Asia nor influenced by China. People do it because there is money in doing it, simple as that. Chinese accept it (they sell low what other people sell high) because regulation/tariffs put them at a disadvantage and they just have to suck it up.