China is set to overtake the U.S. in manufacturing this coming year. Peter Marsh writes, in "US manufacturing crown slips" (Financial Times, June 20, 2010): "The US remained the world’s biggest manufacturing nation by output last year, but is poised to relinquish this slot in 2011 to China – thus ending a 110-year run as the number one country in factory production." The figures come from a league table being published on Monday by IHS Global Insight, a US-based economics consultancy.
As Vladimir Lenin said in 1922: “The capitalists will sell us the rope with which we will hang them.” Or, as Lev Navrozov says, "China Provides Rope for U.S. to Hang Itself" (Newsmax.com).
Remember when "Made in China" meant crap? I can even remember when "Made in Japan" meant crap. Then one began seeing brand names like Sony, Nikkon, Honda, Toshiba, Mitsubishi, etc. Yet now the Japanese are laying off thousands. I just bought a first-class wireless modem from AT&T. The fine print read, of course, "Made in China." Is it possible to buy something that is NOT made in China anymore, besides a local microbrew? Before long, the United States may become China's BANANA REPUBLIC. Just imagine! Mao and Chou must be laughing in their graves.
Are the communists--dead or "living"--laughing?
ReplyDeleteI doubt it. The ethic has fallen out of vogue. Being good ideologues, these folks are being turned with the soil or turned out of centers of power for proving disruptive--the revolution is over, so what is the need for revolutionaries?
China manufactures heaps upon heaps of stuff, from trivial crap (sorrrry to those with sensitive ears) to, as you note, decent modems.
Who designs this stuff? To whom is it marketed?
Not the Chi-coms. And yep, not the Chi-coms.
Is there a truly burgeoning middle class in China?
No. These are party hacks, corporate kissers of particulars as RRD has noted in earlier topic, and corporate fronts in the attempt to make their reality look a little more appealing. These corporations are certainly in close relations with the government, but how can this be--capitalists/industrialists being in bed with communists? Is this reality or a dream?
The diehard communists are on the way out. What remains in the government are totalitarians. They could even be termed economic fascists. If power is in industry and dominance of the trade of these goods, then the Chinese fascist economic model has done well for itself to a point. It's weakness is in interest in its goods. No market = no sales =no production = retraction of presumed middle class. And isn't it the luck of the totalitarian that to remain strong, his power cannot be in the people/citizens? This means that serious markets for real to knock-off products must remain in foreign lands. This further means that it is crucially in China's interest to see a strong field of foreign markets, rather than one being taken in economic/financial blight.
The power of the totalitarian state of China is not in an educated populace. It remains in a powerful elite. And how does this differ from any previous Chinese dynasty?
Many good points, Lutheran. The one I like best is the last: "And how does this differ from any previous Chinese dynasty?"
ReplyDeleteThis reminds me of how this point was driven home in my Far Eastern Studies program in Tokyo years ago -- namely, that despite the influence of Marxist ideology in Maoism, the Chinese redaction of that ideology lacked the 'bed' of the Enlightenment worldview that defined Western concerns since the mid-17th century. In other words, as you suggest, the Maoist Revolution of 1949-50 fundamentally had the characteristic of yet another typically-bloody dynastic succession. China remains the "Middle Kingdom," both politically and in terms of substantive worldview.