China's domination of manufacturing

Emp_Fab

While walking through a street market that was packing away yesterday, I was looking at all of the boxes (the plain 'outers' as they're called) as the traders were loading up their vans.  Everything was stamped "Made in China" - *everything*.

It's the same if you look at most stuff in Tesco, Asda, etc - Chinese.

When did China come to have such a complete stranglehold over the manufacture of... well... Everything!

It just seems rather bizarre...  Imagine if everything in the food aisles came almost exclusively from, say, Argentina.

monofin

Price!!

Danny1969

It's the low cost of Chinese labour and the fact they are very good at making things. Once they know how to build something they are better at doing it more efficiently than we are

A lot of UK food comes from China as well

Hootsmon

I sent for one of these distressed/washed out baseball caps from Amazon...£2.97 (including postage) from China 

it's a kinda retro motor oil/engine type logo, amazing cap and quality TBH......on close inspection it says on it ..."stek on the gas"

no shit

holnrew

Because they work people without regard to human rights.

Heartfeltdawn

Emp_Fab said:

It just seems rather bizarre...  Imagine if everything in the food aisles came almost exclusively from, say, Argentina.

Look at the menus of several corporate pub companies (I work for one) and you'll see it being dominated by foreign produce. I work for one of them. Our 8oz rump steaks cost us just over £2 per steak and the country of origin in the last three weeks of ordering has seen meat come from Argentina, Uruguay, Netherlands, and France. The quality is dreadful but people buy them. Race to the bottom. 

It's one reason why I mock more upscale restaurants for fart on about their local produce. Generally this means they buy local meat and then say fuck all about where their vegetables come from. 

paul_c2

I'm not sure they totally dominate manufacturing. They do dominate, for low-cost or commodity goods, but not luxury items. And there's massive profit to be made from these types of thing, since "branding" and perception can play a massive amount in setting the value of these items. For example, would you buy a Squier Affinity guitar from China if your budget was £200? Probably. Would you buy an Elite Strat from China, if your budget was £1500? Probably not, you'd do your research and perceive that the only place you'd be happy it were built, for £1500, was USA. If you had less money (say £507) you'd probably be okay with it made in Mexico but not China, etc etc. Plenty of examples for other luxuries eg prestige cars.

bluechargeboy

In addition to the obvious direct cost benefits (currently), Western countries can reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by outsourcing manufacturing to other countries. Then it doesn't get counted as our emissions, even though we are asking for the stuff to be made; so we don't have to give a shit and can carry on consuming.

Globalisation eh?

lloyd

holnrew said:

Because they work people without regard to human rights.

Yeah but, cheap TVs.

boogieman

holnrew said:

Because they work people without regard to human rights.

Yup. Some workers actually sleep in the factories. They use child labour. They have no qualms at all about ripping off other people's designs and churning them out at a fraction of the price because there's no R&D costs. 

Chalky

boogieman said:

holnrew said:

Because they work people without regard to human rights.

Yup. Some workers actually sleep in the factories. They use child labour. They have no qualms at all about ripping off other people's designs and churning them out at a fraction of the price because there's no R&D costs. 

The vast majority of manufactured goods have very low R&D costs compared to subsequent volume of manufacture.  That case has been overstated many times.

menamestom

holnrew said:

Because they work people without regard to human rights.

Sounds like Sports Direct!

I've been to a few factories in England that could easily be somewhere in China or India.  We probably need to get our own shop in order as well, some of the conditions in the UK are just as bad.  These are obviously on a smaller scale and off the radar but it could easily be addressed.

Mick

monofin said:

Price!!

Yep. and a lot of it is cheap crap to be honest. Not sure if the old saying, "you get what you pay for" is entirely true nowadays.

ICBM

In the 19th century, British manufacturing dominated the world in the same way - including at the cheap shoddy end with workers in poor conditions.

In the 20th century, American manufacturing did.

In the 21st century, Chinese manufacturing will.

This is the reason they have been/will be the defining superpowers of their respective centuries.

Antique_Guitars

Worth noting that a lot of the big manufacturing plants in China are not owned by the Chinese. They are owned by a whole range of companies throughout the world. They obviously own a whole load themselves, but as people have said the labour is cheap and actually pretty experienced too.

Fretwired

China is losing out - costs are rising and the way people buy is changing. A problem with making things in China is you have to go for volume due to  the lead times in getting restocked if demand is high (manufacturing and shipping). For example, Apple caught a cold with large stocks of unsold iPhones and iPads. If manufacturing is closer to your key markets you can structure what you make to demand. Firms are therefore starting reshoring manufacturing back to the UK - still a long way to go but China is no longer thought of as the only place to go.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-26235707