Interesting article:
http://www.mi-pro.co.uk/news/29407/Music-China-recognised-for-excellence- Running since 2002, Music China has become the biggest annual fair for music products in Asia. ... The 2007 fair featured over 1,000 exhibitors from 23 countries, attracting 37,000 distributors, dealers, retailers and musicians from across China and around the world.
That's huge!
I've seen comments on some other boards where people seem to think if you have, say, three or four Beatle Bass clones, they all must be coming from the same factory with different brand names. A friend in the industry told me that was very unlikely, that there are many factories making clones. But even so, I didn't realize how big the industry must be over there.
Also, I didn't realize that the Messe Frankfurt trade shows are based in Shanghai. My, how times change.