Chinese fake cables How fake, how good?

As someone already posted, some of the stuff coming out of China is junk. I bought some bulk 'furutech' rca cable and it was truly junk. Looked crap, quality crap, sounded crap - ended up in the bin. But, there are gems out there too, as my experience with the nordost cable leads me to believe. Do your homework, and buy from trusted China seller, and you'll surprise yourself. 
I never expected my $300 nordost cable to beat the $10000 genuine article, but it competes with everything I've tried up to $2000. I'm happy with that. 
Anyway, why are we worried about China?The real elephant in the room is Taiwan - I can't speak highly enough of the quality of the components coming out of this place. In my opinion, they are the worlds best in manufacturing individual hifi components at the moment. The current equivalent of where Japan was in the 1970s and 1980s.

So many aspects of products fall in the gray area.
I doubt audio cables made in China were ever assembled by child labor, doesn’t make business sense for the Chinese employer. And if we frown on forced labor, weren’t most license plates in the US made by prison labor?
as for the profit margins versus the material cost, compare to the fashion industry. A High fashion pair of shoes costs a lot because of many factors not related to the product cost.  Like they purposely want to be exclusive to certain people in order to maintain a high profile so they can continue to command ridiculously high prices. It’s only when you have huge volume that mega retailers bring costs down to grab a larger market share.  don’t you think a designer handbag would come down tremendously in cost if one of the Marts thould they could turn over a gazillion of them?
as for the different quality levels of knock offs, REFLEX watches can be had in China for ten bucks that will work for a month, forty bucks and it will work for six months, 120 bucks and it will actually look decent, 800 bucks and it will be indistinguishable from real to a consumer or 1600 bucks (stillonly 25% of the cost of real one) and the Zurich factory would be impressed at the quality of the knock off.
you can’t possibly know what quality level of know off you are getting without real feedback from previous purchasers, not staged fake feedback posted by the supplier.  
The ethical aspect is clear, it is not ethical to use someone else’s name and associated positive reputation.  Period. Can this be controlled? Yeah, to the same extent illegal drugs are , about 3-5%.
is there an ethical work around? Sure. Advertise that your cable is 99% the same as the brand’s product at 25% of the cost, or something along that line.  Done that way in auto parts all the time.

Chinese corrupt/criminal empire are manufacturing FAKE commercial airline parts. Engine components, brake components, electronics, etc. All are grossly substandard and endanger the public.
I find it no surprise to read in this thread that corrupt Chinese are also producing FAKE counterfeit audio cable. At least counterfeit audio cable is not lethal.

clearthink and skycap are dead on!  This is not a debate over how good a fake really is, the issue is the act and its damage to commerce of the legitimate firm.  Fake pharmaceuticals may be formulated as well as the genuine article, however the pharmaceutical firm saddled with 2 billion dollars in total costs for R/D plus drug trials and FDA approval will be harmed.

STOP!!  I'm not supporting the pharmaceuticals industry, only using them as an example of deep pockets investment corrupted by IP theft.

Stories abound of audio industry players setting up manufacturing in China, receiving a quality product for the money and then discovering renamed identical product in other markets.  When approached, the Chinese manufacturers are dumbfounded there exists a problem as the contractual agreement is in their minds fully met.  Of course all of the engineering and intellectual property has been stolen in the process. 

Years ago Top Gear tested Chinese car models.  One was eerily similar to the BMW X5.  BMW had sued for design infringement and lost in Chinese courts.  Imagine that!?

STOP!!  Before some wander off waving a banner marked "China-phobic", I'm merely addressing a current prevalent offender, with full understanding there are plenty of others around the world to include U.S. firms.  Check the court dockets.  

I once purchased on a lark in Thailand a copy of Microsoft Office for $6 (180 Baht).  It was a souvenir and I never loaded it. I was afraid to.   I just wanted to see if it were possible to purchase on the black market.

For those who still support finding that special deal no matter what, I hope your house wiring is not mis-marked as 14-guage, the contractor having secured a smoking deal to cut costs, only to find in the post-fire forensics it to be 20-guage overwhelmed by a toaster oven.

If you really want to see something disturbing, search for Dartzeel on Aliexpress.