Fraud and exploitation in China's global e-commerce boom

Due to global supply chain restructuring and domestic overcapacity, Chinese enterprises are increasingly expanding to overseas. Yet, the high financial barriers to international market entry have led Chinese small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) to adopt cross-border e-commerce as their primary strategy for globalization. In response, China's cyber ecosystem has created a robust "overseas expansion supply chain" that serves Chinese businesses seeking to expand through cross-border e-commerce.

This "overseas expansion supply chain" includes a diverse network of tools and services offering everything from web domains and registry numbers to website development, account management, product selection, search engine optimization (SEO), social media marketing, payment processing, and logistics support. While these services are legitimate in nature, Chinese SMEs often exploit them to deploy aggressive tactics for competitive advantage, which has fuelled the rise of the grey market and posed operational difficulties for the original service providers.

For instance, some businesses may register many fake accounts to manipulate product reviews on e-commerce platforms, which can further involve the unauthorized use of personal data. Others may manipulate SEO to boost their visibility in search rankings artificially. More critically, certain products sold through these channels could bypass regulatory oversight, such as beauty devices and weight-loss products that usually require certification in many jurisdictions.

Our presentation explores China's overseas expansion supply chain and how service providers and platforms are being manipulated within this ecosystem. Our goal is to identify the fraudulent activities that have emerged in China's expanding global e-commerce landscape and propose detection and mitigation strategies to help curb these exploitative practices.