China’s Many Ways of Evading Expensive Import Tariffs

The Ningbo Port, a major storage and transshipment base for crude oil, iron ore, containers, and liquid chemical products, in Ningbo City, Zhejiang Province, China, on June 9, 2005. Guang Niu/Getty Images

The United States’ recent tariffs on Chinese imports has led to new scrutiny of China’s trade practices. One persistent problem has been China’s methods of evading import duties.

On April 20, European Union and Italian authorities revealed that they were investigating possible wide-scale tax fraud by Chinese criminal gangs who import goods via Greece’s largest port, Piraeus, a trade gateway between China and Europe, officials said.