China opposed to US listing Taobao as market for piracy

China is "greatly concerned and strongly opposed" to the United States' listing of Taobao, the country's largest consumer e-commerce website, as a notorious market for piracy, a spokesman for China's Ministry of Commerce said on Wednesday.

Last month, the United States kept Alibaba Group's Taobao unit on the United States Trade Representative's (USTR) November notorious markets list for offering a wide range of copyright infringing products.

"When referring to Chinese businesses, we noticed that the United States notorious market list would use terms like 'alledged' and 'according to industry information'," Shen Danyang, a spokesman for the Ministry of Commerce, told a news conference.

"With ambiguous terms and no conclusive evidence or detailed analysis, this is very irresponsible and not objective," Shen said.

China believes the United States should take into account the efforts made by Chinese companies to fend off piracy.

"We urge the US to take into account China's effort for IPR protection and the progress made on it and to make a more comprehensive, more objective, more fair evaluation," Shen said.