BLOGGER TEMPLATES AND TWITTER BACKGROUNDS »

Thursday, April 2, 2009

The Power known as China

Howdy everyone! I had one of my great readers ask me to comment on the topic of China. Here are my 2 cents... Is China the most powerful country in the world? No. A superpower? Yes. The Chinese are very hard working. My dad recently went on a trip there to visit a manufacturing plant that wanted to produce these trailers we wanted to build. He observed how these thousands of workers came in, worked 10 to 12 hour days. They all came into the cafeterias right at the whistle blow, where the factory fed them all efficiently, and then right on the dot of an hour they were back out on the lines. They do this 6 days a week, but only for about 10-15 years. At that point they "burn out" and will take all the money they've saved and move out to the mountains to live out the rest of their lives. Now this isn't common all over China, so don't let that story paint the whole story for you. Chins seems to excel in everything they do, as they seem to be extremely hard working and disciplined people. I'm amazed when I watch shows on the Olympics, and you see these athlete "Factories". They have kids coming in, some as young as 2. They do nothing but train and master their sports in the hopes to be selected to represent the entire country on the global stage. They are so competitive, that they went as far last summer to forge documents on 2 of their gymnasts, to make them appear older than they really were.
Anyway, my opinion on China as a whole is this. They are a global superpower for sure, due to their industry and pure numbers in population. But are they the most powerful country in the world no. The communism thing sets them back a bit.We all know communism in theory works, but in real practice it doesn't because of mans inability to govern themselves appropriately. Clearly as we've seen, there is always corruption in that type of system. Also, I think that though they are industrialized, the standards they hold up to are still decades behind the rest of the modern world. However, I gotta tell you, I love Chinese food!

Please feel free to leave me comments on my posts people, I learn the most when I hear from you!

2 comments:

jaime said...

Hahahaha were those 2 cents, or 2 million dollars from you??

You know, although I agree with you in China still having some standards or government system a little bit old, I have to tell you that even so China has overcame the U.S. in economic and militar power already
Numbers dont lie, and look how fast they r taking the whole world for themselves, kind of Clinton´s style in the 90 s, but now they r being more consistent and intelligent with a very well selected strategy

Also, we need to be real on this, how many people ar there in China??, and you brought up a point that really doesnt mean a lot, about those cheater olympic athletes. The same thing happened here in our country and in most of the south american lands they all forged documents to do the same crap. My friend, I really think that China is not only number one in Olympics, but also in economy and militar power nowadays

See you later Geoff and I´ll look for your well supported reply

Regards

Jaime Pedroza

Geoff Crane said...

Jaime,
I understand your point for sure, and the numbers are supportive. I'm not speaking from a statistical point of view, but purely from experience with China on a business standpoint. First off, while China economically has boomed, I think that this global economic crisis will effect them largely. From what I can see, their big thing is inexpensive labour and cheaper material costs. However this crisis is causing a lot of countries to take a look at thier out sourcing and look at staying domestic. This crisis has really made people look at their local economy and say to themselves "we need to support our local businesses". This will have a major impact on countries that rely on outsourcing. They'll see a huge decline in incoming business as the economies become slightly more domesticaly supportive.
On another note. I had mentioned earlier that we had some business with a Chinese factory at one point. It turned out to be a really frustrating ordeal. There was a lot of politics that had to be played with the government. Then the finished product we recieved was far below our standards, some of the changes we asked for were not made, and short cuts were taken. On top of that they lied about the specifications, and we ended up with a product that we legally couldn't use on the roads. Due to this, we learned our lesson; we broke off our deal and walked away. I think a lot of problems like this are being exposed now more and more. Look at the lead based paint scandal in childrens toys, or the pet food scandal, or the baby formula disaster. These are all problems that were due to corners being cut, standards being lowered, and most importantly greed. I think its bringing awareness to a lot of companies as to what you might get if you do business with China. I feel personally that this could have a major impact in their economy (which effects everything else) if companies, don't have confidence in them. This is something that the government should really look into if they want to stay competitive in the current global economy. Just my thoughts. Thanks for the comments my friend! I love the discussion.