China recorded a total surplus of over US$100 billion in trade in technical equipment during the first eight months of 2017, according to data from the China Machinery Industry Federation.
Advances in China’s manufacturing capabilities are most evident in the slew of indigenous, cutting-edge warships, warplanes and weaponry that have been rolled out for the Chinese military in recent years. Such items – which include, for example, the Dongfeng-41, a nuclear intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 15,000 kilometers – have been widely hailed by party mouthpieces.
Yet there exists an inconvenient truth – that while China, as the world’s factory, now churns out high-tech products for the global market, it still depends heavily on imports of many other products, including items as “low-tech” as bolts and ballpoint pens.
As reported by Global Times, Tan Jianrong, a member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and a lead scientist for China’s National Basic Research Program, told a forum at the end of last month that “bolts for precise instruments have to be imported from overseas because our factories simply can’t make them.”
To be sure, Chinese manufacturers crank out low-end fasteners, bearings and all sorts of other industrial components and parts for export, usually at razor thin margins. But the country still has to import top-notch fasteners and bearings from places such as Japan, Germany and the United States as there are no homemade alternatives of comparable quality.
Take the example of ballpoint pens. Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has reminded people more than once that the world’s second largest economy remains unable to produce those tiny rotating balls that are fitted to end of pens and dispense ink as one writes.
Chinese pen manufacturers – who produce, or more correctly assemble 38 billion ballpoint pens each year – import such balls from Germany, Switzerland or Japan.
The reason why the world’s largest exporter of stationery has not mastered the rotating ballpoint is that China lags behind Japan, Germany, Switzerland and so on in high-precision metalworking lathe technologies. And such machine tools produce not only tiny metal balls for pens but also a whole host of precise parts for civil and military use.
In the case of pens, there is also the problem of China’s inability to produce the highest quality of steel materials.
Today the country still relies heavily on high-quality steel alloys imported from Germany, Japan, Russia and the United States to build its high-speed railways, bridges and even aircraft carriers and submarines.
Some maybe old enough to remeber when the same was said about Japan and more recently Korea. While there might cultural advantages none got there over night.
This is complete sour grapes minutia. When Japan started production of cheap goods, they were considered inferiour to US producs. Now Japan produces high end quality goods.
Germany is a bit of different kind of the beast. Germany, Switzerland have long had protestant work ethics that produced quilds of skilled trades. After WWII, it was important for US to occupy those men who came from the war in Germany and Japan. So, US have invested in stabilization of Germany and Japan by encouraging building up skilled trade there.
When economy starts to move forward, the first harvested are the "low hanging fruits". China have took on the challenge to mass produce cheap and affordable goods for US economy that was flooded with "cheap and affordable" credit. The don’t fix it, just buy new on credit created a huge market for Chinese made goods. The scores of US "businessmen" who wanted to take 90% profit margine would brownbeat Chinese manufacturers to the prices at cost. In order to make profit, the Chinese manufacturers would keep wages low, and cut the corners in processes. Quality Control is by far the biggest corner one can cut.
Tony Tan , You are exactly correct.
Tony Tan , Your comment is exactly correct
That’s exactly what the "Staff Writers" in this article hope to achieve with readers who do not read it with skepticism and research a little further.
Firstly, as a producer in any country, you do not try to produce every little thing. There are opportunity costs to be considered, given all economic resources are scarce, including knowledge and technology.
I have pointed out this is old news and the Chinese have already solved the problem. For more recent news about this very topic, see:
http://fortune.com/…/10/china-ballpoint-pens-steel-japan/
China Couldn’t Make Its Own Ballpoint Pens—Until Now
By Kate Samuelson January 10, 2017
[quote] After half a decade of research, stationery manufacturers in China have finally cracked a skill that eluded them for years—the making of ballpoint pen tips….[unquote]
If indeed they cant produce quality ball pen and bolt, how much more can they contract construction projects in other countries to produce quality products?
The ppoint is: while the writer(s) may have "observed correctly" they, nevertheless, not only did not observe as original thinkers and almost "plagiarize" the content from another source without attribution but also deliberately obscure the fact that Chinese had "solved the problem" according to Xinhua and BBC. Thus, their intent is to denigrate the PRC achievements and to cast aspersions on their entire manufacturing capability.
I’d say: please continue to do so. If I am your enemy, the best thing for me is for you to under-estimate my capabilities. The more you publicize my "incompetence" in this way, the better for me! So, thank you, "Asia Times Staff Writer"!
The writer has observed correctly. Quality control is the product of mindset that demands dedication to quality, pride in one’s work and the desire to satisfy the customers’ needs. Japanese achieved this after the war out of necessity! Germans excelled in producing industrial quality and it is very good. But the Chineses placed emphasis in catching up first. It is not a bad step in practical point of view!
A CURTAIN OF IGNORANCE
In 1965, I first read A CURTAIN OF IGNORANCE by British-American author Felix Greene. It is a mini-history of American fake news propagated, at the highest levels, including by the US State Department and US Secretaries of State Dean Acheson and John Foster Dulles, and by prestigious newspapers like the New York Times, US World News & World Report, New York Herald Tribune, The Christian Science Monitor, and the Time and Newsweek magazines, on the emerging PRC in the 1950s and 60s that was to distort American and Western perceptions and policies for many years, even up to the present.
Having just re-read that book, I am amazed at the continuity of "news" slanted to portray China as incompetent, belligerent, etc …any and every which way to denigrate and demonize an Asian nation. This is one unoriginal (almost plagiarized) article by "Asia Times Staff Writer" written for that purpose, in the same mold as those detailed in A CURTAIN OF IGNORANCE. Here are my comments posted to Asia Times:
Asia Times has changed its tenor of coverage over the recent years. It used to be more balanced on Asian issues but has become just another Asian/China-basher (except for one or two authors) and US/Western propaganda mouthpiece.
This news is outdated but is used to bash China’s industrial capability. For more recent news about this very topic, see:
http://fortune.com/2017/01/10/china-ballpoint-pens-steel-japan/
China Couldn’t Make Its Own Ballpoint Pens—Until Now
By Kate Samuelson January 10, 2017
[quote] After half a decade of research, stationery manufacturers in China have finally cracked a skill that eluded them for years—the making of ballpoint pen tips….[unquote]
China itself has admitted and reported candidly on this deficiency but in the context of having overcome, finally, a serious competitive issue in Jan 2017. BUT the writers of this Asia Times article have taken old news and deliberately slanted that news to focus on the negative without reporting the positive. Here’s China’s own report from XinHua:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2017-01/10/c_135970334.htm