None of this is authorized by Disney - but that has not stopped the state-owned park from creating its own counterfeit version of the Magic Kingdom in a brazen example of the sort of open and widespread copyright piracy that has Washington fuming.

The United States announced Monday it would file a case at the World Trade Organization over rampant copyright piracy in China, a practice which US companies say deprives them of billions of dollars each year.

But 31-year-old housewife Zhang Li betrays a typical Chinese attitude on the issue while chasing her young son around the park.

"I don't understand why that is such a big problem. Shouldn't others be able to use those characters besides [Disney]?" she asks.

Her view is common in a country where lax societal and law-enforcement attitudes toward copyright protection has seen the counterfeit goods industry become a key part of the national economy.

A US congressional panel says China's own data suggests such goods account for 15 to 20 percent of goods made in the country.

Such numbers seem hard to dispute in Beijing, where one can spend a morning at an imitation Disney amusement park, have lunch at a KFC knock-off, shop for fake foreign-brand fashions in the afternoon and relax at night with a DVD of a Hollywood film that is still in the theaters in the United States.

"It's part of living in China," Canadian businessman Brian Dugood says while browsing fake Armani jackets at the Yashow Clothing Market, one of several multi-story bazaars in Beijing where counterfeit brands are allowed to be sold openly by pushy merchants to Chinese and foreigners alike. "Why buy the original when you can get a pretty good copy at one-tenth the price?"

A few stalls away, a merchant, who would only give her surname as Luo, sells a pair of fake Puma athletic shoes to a Russian tourist, waving her hand dismissively at the suggestion that the market or her suppliers could one day be shut down.

"Impossible," she says, after carefully scrutinizing a pair of 100 yuan bills to make sure she has not herself been passed a fake.

"We have heard that kind of thing many times before and I guess there could be some pressure but our suppliers know how to get around it."

The US case could result in retaliatory trade measures on China, but those may be easier to overcome than the task China faces in changing attitudes in a country where most consumers have little hope of affording legitimate DVDs and designer clothing, said Zhang Zhifeng, a member of the state-sponsored China Intellectual Property Society. "There's a lack of consciousness of IPR in China. People don't really feel that the use of pirated goods is bad," he said.

Moreover, China's stability-conscious government has little incentive to crack down forcefully on a key economic sector, he said.

"If they increase IPR protections, this is of no benefit to China, only to foreign copyright-holders. If they go and protect these, then China's own IPR sector will not be allowed to develop and become competitive," he said.

Either way, the case will have a big impact on the two countries' trade relations, he said.

Lei Danni, who runs a small shop selling fake DVD and compact discs, brushes off accusations by American companies that his business hurts sales of legitimately produced software. "We aren't stealing from anyone. Most of my customers say they wouldn't buy the real thing anyway because its too expensive. So there is no connection."

AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE