It was a while back but I vaguely recall that for a very long time China had still been considered a developing country by the Universal Postal Union, and was t

It was a while back but I vaguely recall that for a very long time China had still been considered a developing country by the Universal Postal Union, and was thus charged far less for international postage than a developed nation. So shipping for things off of aliexpress or whatever would be practically free. That was cancelled IIRC a couple of years ago (?) and they now pay closer to "true" shipping rates.