It's getting harder and harder for me to buy stuff that's Made in China

[Mabouya]

It's impossible to participate in the current US economy without buying stuff that's made overseas, but for quite a while, and for a variety of reasons, I've tried to be willing to spend more to buy something that's made in the US the EU, or even Japan. However, often you just don't have a choice.

Lately, I've been doing my best to avoid products that are Made in China, and when I read stories like the one linked below, or, say, something about the Uighurs, that makes it ever harder. I don't feel personally responsible for the actions China takes in HK or Tibet, but there's no doubt that their recent prosperity, fueled in large part by people like us who buy stuff from them, makes it a lot easier for them to be more aggressive than they've been in the past.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/m...smid=url-share

[bigbill]

China reinvented itself in the 90s and no one understood how large their economy could become.

This book does a good job of describing how it all began. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/...and_the_Dragon

[AngryScientist]

One thing that really bugs me the staggering volume of counterfeit stuff that comes out of China. Its low, sleazy theft of intellectual property and sometimes dangerous. With the recent shortages of stuff I'm starting to get worried that if I order a KMC chain from someplace I dont usually do business with i'll get a fake - and sure enough KMC warns against fakes.

[colker]

Everything is made in china now! Unless i buy 5x more expensive and 2x less functional pro photo equipment i have to buy made in china.

[j44ke]

One thing that really bugs me the staggering volume of counterfeit stuff that comes out of China. Its low, sleazy theft of intellectual property and sometimes dangerous. With the recent shortages of stuff I'm starting to get worried that if I order a KMC chain from someplace I dont usually do business with i'll get a fake - and sure enough KMC warns against fakes.

Amazon is raking in the bucks off this crap.

[BBB]

China, like any authoritarian nation, is run by a small grouping of people (men) whose sole preoccupation is keeping power. It is sad as it is pathetic. But, we will all swallow our feelings and send teams off to compete at the Winter Olympics, just like we did in the Summer Olympics in 2008.

Russia, China, various countries ending in 'stan' from the former USSR...all of them are hopelessly autocratic and some are just a bit more sinister than others. And all run by men.

As for the theft of IP, one explanation is that the Chinese Government is willing to turn a blind eye to this type of behaviour as it keeps people occupied and making money. If they weren't engaged in this activity they might otherwise be not making money and potentially agitating. The Chinese Government does not want this and hence IP theft takes place. IP theft can be countered with the help of the Chinese Government, but it usually requires considerable resources to do so.

[bigbill]

China is a supersized Singapore, an authoritarian government with limited capitalism. In my last job, we had a plant in China to make products sold in Asia. When the plant was built, it had four mills that were made in the USA. A year later the Chinese had added eight mills by reverse-engineering the proprietory US design. It was suspected that the Chinese were planning to open their own facility and were using US designs. There is no control of patents. US engineers traveling to China to work in the facility had to take special laptops that were factory load because they knew they would be hacked. Chinese nationals visiting US plants had to use provided laptops in the plant and were not allowed internet access in the plant.

Vietnam is becoming the preferred provider to many US factories requiring small parts or hardware.

[fastupslowdown]

China is a huge country. There are countless companies, some state, run others not. Why would anyone assume that all Chinese companies engage in the same business practices. Certainly not the case in the U.S. why would it be true in China? -Mike G

[johnmdesigner]

China realized long ago that controlling the means of production is way more powerful than threats with a standing army (though they have a rather large one).
Our own economy prospered in the 80's - 90's by moving production offshore. Americans have gotten used to T-shirts for $9,99 and are far removed from their conscience when told that the cotton is being harvested by forced labor in Xinjiang.

When we wanted to get rid of our recycling shit who took it? China.
And what about our debt? China.
We wanted cheap labor. Where did we go? China.

It's easy to blame the Chinese for the current state of things but they would have never risen this high without the West taking advantage of them.
And they know our hypocrisy of preaching morals to them is just that. Hypocrisy.

On another note, I have in-laws in Shanghai and Beijing and they are victimized by shoddy and counterfeit products in ways that are far more hazardous than a bicycle chain. The food and drug chain in China is about the same as America 150 years ago. We might complain about our FDA but the Chinese have no protections at all when it comes to food and drug safety.
Here is a good example:

https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scien...uid-180970473/

This shit goes on in China today.

[spopepro]

A lifetime ago one of the things that caused a bunch of hurt feelings, grief, and inane discussion of lunchtables and cool kids was some folks pointing out the subtle racism in a dislike or distrust of asian manufactured goods. I don't think it was a small part of the great forum split, even if most of the folks that made this place this place aren't here or active anymore. The reality is that if you're not buying from some small manufacturer or have a personal relationship with the maker... choosing a different country of origin makes little difference, and even then sometimes it's just not possible.

Let's look at an example. Patagonia stakes most of their reputation on a sustainable, responsible supply chain. One of their suppliers is Polartec China. If we believe Patagonia, the factory is located in JinShan, Shanghai. So no Uighur forced labor textile mills here, which is good. But say you don't think that's ok, and you know that Polartec has factories in the USA. And even better, you don't need to by that R1 hoodie from Patagucci, you can get something even better sewn by an awesome small shop in Leadville, Melanzana. They state that they only source their polartec fleece from US mills. Which is awesome... except that Malden Mills went bankrupt, and Polartec is now owned by private equity who promptly shutdown the union manufacturing shop in Lawrence, Mass to move to cheaper, non-union shops. So what does it matter? Who's labor is is ok to exploit, and who's billionaires' pockets will you fill? Almost none of it is going to the workers either way.

I guess... I just feel like we're so far beyond any "personal responsibility" solutions to colonial exploitation. Picking out China in particular seems to be falling into old tropes.

[echappist]

China is a supersized Singapore, an authoritarian government with limited capitalism. In my last job, we had a plant in China to make products sold in Asia. When the plant was built, it had four mills that were made in the USA. A year later the Chinese had added eight mills by reverse-engineering the proprietory US design. It was suspected that the Chinese were planning to open their own facility and were using US designs. There is no control of patents. US engineers traveling to China to work in the facility had to take special laptops that were factory load because they knew they would be hacked. Chinese nationals visiting US plants had to use provided laptops in the plant and were not allowed internet access in the plant.

Vietnam is becoming the preferred provider to many US factories requiring small parts or hardware.

That’s way too reductive and perhaps misses the point, not to mention that you really didn’t expounded more on this alleged similarity.

Yes, at first glance, both countries with significant characteristics sinica, but that similarity ends there.

Singapore is by and large a country of law, as long as the government isn’t criticized. It is quite pro-business and adheres to the British legal tradition, and i have not heard of any report of prevalence of issues such as IP theft. One may say it’s much more comparable to Hong Kong pre-1997, as the latter also didnt have a representative democracy but otherwise was business friendly and adhered quite closely to British legal traditions.

You have always argued for nuance in making arguments (see posts in various OT threads such as the vaccine one), and i hope you apply the same level of nuance you urge others to apply. Some may see your lumping of the PRC with Singapore and suspect ulterior reasons.

Now, the similarities between the PRC and Vietnam is greater. Both are effectively “free-market” with one-party communist-rule characteristics (to paraphrase the CCP's hackneyed line of "socialism with Chinese characteristics").

[echappist]

It's impossible to participate in the current US economy without buying stuff that's made overseas, but for quite a while, and for a variety of reasons, I've tried to be willing to spend more to buy something that's made in the US the EU, or even Japan. However, often you just don't have a choice.

Perhaps i’m reading too much into this, but why add the qualifier “even” before Japan? The EU is also not a monolithic entity; I’m also quite certain that Hungary and Poland are both in the EU, and both have less than stellar recent human rights records.

It's impossible to participate in the current US economy without buying stuff that's made overseas, but for quite a while, and for a variety of reasons, I've tried to be willing to spend more to buy something that's made in the US the EU, or even Japan. However, often you just don't have a choice.

Lately, I've been doing my best to avoid products that are Made in China, and when I read stories like the one linked below, or, say, something about the Uighurs, that makes it ever harder. I don't feel personally responsible for the actions China takes in HK or Tibet, but there's no doubt that their recent prosperity, fueled in large part by people like us who buy stuff from them, makes it a lot easier for them to be more aggressive than they've been in the past.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/04/m...smid=url-share

Who had no say in whether a factory should be relocated. If anything, heap the blames on the people who choose to relocate factories, as they are the ones who benefited the most from it (not only that, the off-shoring also led to stagnation Stateside). We the consumers are miles downstream from that decision and have no input.

With all that said, my suits are mostly made in Massachusetts/ Canada; and my formal shoes are all made in Wisconsin. I try where I can, but I'm not made out of money and cannot justify spending $150 on a MUSA shirt when a $40 shirt from Tyrwhitt would work just as well (not to mention that the MUSA shirt is made in a place where the seamstress makes under $20/hr, and that factory got closed down anyway).

[bigbill]

That’s way too reductive and perhaps misses the point, not to mention that you really didn’t expounded more on this alleged similarity.

Yes, at first glance, both countries with significant characteristics sinica, but that similarity ends there.

Singapore is by and large a country of law, as long as the government isn’t criticized. It is quite pro-business and adheres to the British legal tradition, and i have not heard of any report of prevalence of issues such as IP theft. One may say it’s much more comparable to Hong Kong pre-1997, as the latter also didnt have a representative democracy but otherwise was business friendly and adhered quite closely to British legal traditions.

You have always argued for nuance in making arguments (see posts in various OT threads such as the vaccine one), and i hope you apply the same level of nuance you urge others to apply. Some may see your lumping of the PRC with Singapore and suspect ulterior reasons.

Now, the similarities between the PRC and Vietnam is greater. Both are effectively “free-market” with one-party communist-rule characteristics (to paraphrase the CCP's hackneyed line of "socialism with Chinese characteristics").

That's a lot to take in. China patterned their economic growth in the 90s around the Singapore model. Does Singapore treat their people the same way, absolutely not, but their model of authoritarian government with capitalism was the foundation of China's entry into the world economy. I've been to both places, Singapore is a wonderful place to visit with nice people and great public transportation. I felt safe the entire time.

[sk_tle]

If you want goods that comes from your country, you have to accept the pollution that will inherently go with it.

Who wants a huge factory in his neighborhood?

[echappist]

That's a lot to take in. China patterned their economic growth in the 90s around the Singapore model. Does Singapore treat their people the same way, absolutely not, but their model of authoritarian government with capitalism was the foundation of China's entry into the world economy. I've been to both places, Singapore is a wonderful place to visit with nice people and great public transportation. I felt safe the entire time.

This probably deserves its own thread, but here it goes.

Authoritarian government + capitalism captures only part of the modus operendi of the state-dictated PRC economy. The PRC has also utilized other means in accomplishing economic growth, with IP theft mentioned above being a prominent tool (both straight-up copying and forced technology transfers). The former is condoned by the PRC government in most cases while the latter is the express policy of the PRC government. And by forced technology transfers, what I really mean is that any foreign company seeking to make or sell in the PRC is heavily "incentivized" (if not outright forced into) forming joint ventures with a local company. Last I checked, Singapore doesn't engage in wide-scale IP theft.

Yes, the Singaporean economy served as an inspiration to the PRC politburo (and in particular for Deng), but the PRC not only implemented its own methods of doing so (see above) but also failed to implement so much of the structural foundations that are key to Singaporean success. For starters, Singaporean bureaucracy has long been regarded as perhaps one of the least corrupt (if not the least corrupt) bureaucracy in the world. Other than matters concerning civil rights, one can expect a fair trial in Singapore when it comes to financial matters, and a foreign company is not going to feel it is at an inherent disadvantage when facing a Singaporean company in a Singaporean court. This level of rule of law just isn't present in the PRC.

At the most, the present economic system in the PRC can be considered a madhouse reflection of that of Singapore; to be sure, there are similarities, but it's a ersatz copy as opposed to a scaled-up version of the real thing. Were labor cost and the number of consumers in Singapore comparable to that of the PRC (while maintaining the former's rule of law), you could bet that no one would pick to do business in the PRC. That basically sums up the draw: hundreds of millions of middle-class consumers to whom to sell and tens of millions of semi-skilled laborer to whom a lower wage can be paid.

ETA: if you know enough to know that Singapore served as one of the inspirations, you probably also know that it wasn't the sole inspiration, with two of the others being Republic of Korea and Taiwan. Both were beginning to be quite prosperous in the 1980s, and both were autocratic well into the late 80's (martial law ended in Taiwan in 1987 and first direct presidential election in 1996; ROK had its first fair and open election in 1987). But just like it would be fairly invalid to say the PRC based its economic growth around the Taiwanese/ROK model, it's equally invalid to make the same comparison vis-a-vis Singapore. In all three cases, nothing much more than an inspiration.

[9tubes]

I've gotten weary of the U.S. complaining about Chinese IP theft. It is true, but the U.S. is in no position to wag its finger. The U.S. was a rampant IP thief a hundred years ago. Once it got its economy up and finished stealing everything available from everyone and everywhere, it switched to wanting IP protection.

Fun fact: Gilbert & Sullivan's play The Pirates of Penzance was an inside joke referring to America's brazen IP theft.

Most current articles about the U.S. wagging its finger at China (IP theft, foreign policy, treating natives poorly, etc.) all could use the same single headline from The Onion: "America Complains that China Is Now Doing What America Did For 100 Years."

I make no excuses for China. I do advocate that in order that we make good decisions, we need to be able to see objectively.

[echappist]

I've gotten weary of the U.S. complaining about Chinese IP theft. It is true, but the U.S. is in no position to wag its finger. The U.S. was a rampant IP thief a hundred years ago. Once it got its economy up and finished stealing everything available from everyone and everywhere, it switched to wanting IP protection.

Fun fact: Gilbert & Sullivan's play The Pirates of Penzance was an inside joke referring to America's brazen IP theft.

Most current articles about the U.S. wagging its finger at China (IP theft, foreign policy, treating natives poorly, etc.) all could use the same single headline from The Onion: "America Complains that China Is Now Doing What America Did For 100 Years."

I make no excuses for China. I do advocate that in order that we make good decisions, we need to be able to see objectively.

That's a fair point, and Dicken's really hated the proliferation of unauthorized versions of his book being sold in the U.S., all the while not receiving royalties from it.

And at the same time, I guess we really ought to ask the cui bono question. Yes, shady producers in China use the "night shift" to make shoddy work, but platforms in the U.S. are all too happy to act as a conduit for said shady producers, as long as said shady producers give the platforms a cut of the proceeds (think fake stuff on Amazon and eBay). The platforms then forces the real IP owners to play whack-a-mole when an issue comes up, but in reality couldn't care less.

[BBB]

I make no excuses for China. I do advocate that in order that we make good decisions, we need to be able to see objectively.

After World War 11 and the horrors that took place, the world shook its collective finger, prosecuted people for horrific crimes and, through the UN, adopted the universal declaration of human rights. The declaration is generally considered part of customary international law and its breach is usually considered dimly.

The difficulty I suppose, and one that galls nations like China, is the selective finger wagging that goes on when human rights are raised. Australia cops it for example over historical treatment of its native population if human rights are raised in connection with China. Australia is not imprisoning or torturing certain people based on their ethnicity or religious beliefs. I think we can all agree this is not a good thing.

Yes the west is far from perfect, but in 2021 there is no room for the horrific human rights abuses that get laid at the feet of the Chinese government (or others). China gets away with it as they have a large and powerful military and have economic clout. Objectively speaking, that they do this and get away with it is not a good outcome (IMO).

[9tubes]

BBB, I'm not follow you on this. Australia was imprisoning children not that long ago. It took native children away from their parents at gunpoint and placed the kids in re-education boarding schools far away. The parents would never see their kids again. The goal was to eliminate the native culture and language by imprisoning native children and indoctrinating them relentlessly until the kids forgot their cultures, their language and their parents. Similar efforts were done in Canada. Let's not get started on the human rights abuses of England.

America just finished killing a million people in Iraq and Syria and making 15-20 million homeless for...what exactly? Does anyone know what the goal was or is?

The U.S./UK/Aus axis cannot be persuasive on the world stage with this history. "You can't do what we've done for decades" is not going to win hearts and minds. We need to find a better approach.

[BBB]

BBB, I'm not follow you on this. Australia was imprisoning children not that long ago. It took native children away from their parents at gunpoint and placed the kids in re-education boarding schools far away. The parents would never see their kids again. The goal was to eliminate the native culture and language by imprisoning native children and indoctrinating them relentlessly until the kids forgot their cultures, their language and their parents. Similar efforts were done in Canada. Let's not get started on the human rights abuses of England.

America just finished killing a million people in Iraq and Syria and making 15-20 million homeless for...what exactly? Does anyone know what the goal was or is?

The U.S./UK/Aus axis cannot be persuasive on the world stage with this history. "You can't do what we've done for decades" is not going to win hearts and minds. We need to find a better approach.

By the same token, that policy was ended more than 50 years ago and it has been the subject of significant Government initiated report that shined a light on the issue (and initiated more than 25 years ag). Australia, through its highest court has also undermined the basis for occupation by the British, which in turn paved the way for legislative recognition of native title. Is there more that can be done? Absolutely. We as a country have an unfortunate history with respect to our native population, but we are slowly moving in the right direction.

What Australia is not, and like the US or the UK, is authoritarian. A small cadre of individuals do not hold sway over the majority and seek to entrench their power, brutally, using the power of the state. You cannot say the same of China, Russia and their ilk. This is my beef. Why on earth should a small handful of people intent on holding power by any means be able to get way with trampling all over others? Xi, Putin et al are essentially glorified school bullies.

You or I can protest about our Government and stand outside our institutions of power with placards decrying the intellect of those in charge. Try the same stunt in China. Or Russia. Hell, you can't even Google Tiananmen Square massacre in China.

We can't escape history, but it does not mean we have to be trapped by it and stay quiet in the face of serious humanitarian abuses.