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GeneChing
06-26-2013, 09:48 AM
With global shifts in trade and manufacturing, this thread is dedicated to Chinese factory issues. We'll begin with this:

My Brother Is Being Held Hostage At The Factory He Founded In China (http://www.businessinsider.com/chip-starnes-held-hostage-in-china-2013-6)
Julia La Roche Jun. 25, 2013, 11:41 AM 10,906 76

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/51c9b5486bb3f74e18000008-480-/chip-starnes.png
Photo courtesy of John Starnes
Chip Starnes and his wife Cecily
American executive Charles "Chip" Starnes, the co-founder of Coral Springs, Florida-headquartered Speciality Medical Devices, has been held hostage by Chinese workers at a Beijing factory since last Friday over worker demands for severance packages.

We spoke with his younger brother John Starnes over the phone earlier today.

"It's been tough. It's kind of like a movie. I get word Friday that my brother is being held hostage in a facility in China," he said, adding, "It's been surreal, to say the least. It's been very scary."

John has maintained contact with his brother via telephone and email, but the internet has been cut off since Friday.

He described his brother Chip's conditions up until the story broke in the news media as bad. At one point Chip went 24 hours without food and water, and was deprived of sleep. Chip also has a severe infection in his eyes, which started while he was in China.

However, the media attention has already helped improve things a bit.

"Once the news story broke, the conditions have gotten much better. My understanding is they finally got him some medical help regarding his eyes...They've given him a cot in the last day or two — He's not sleeping on the floor," he said, adding that his brother now gets three meals a day.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/51c9b57c6bb3f74e1800000b-586-439/chinese-workers-sleeping.png
Photo courtesy of John Starnes
Chinese workers sleeping, taking shifts watching Chip

When the lock-in began, John said that the factory employees were standing in Chip's office watching him sleep. Once Chip managed to get them out, the employees started banging on the windows making it difficult for him to sleep, John explained.

Things have eased up in the last 24 to 36 hours. He said his brother now has some mobility around the factory and isn't just confined to his office.

So far, it's been impossible for him to leave, though.

Chip sent his brother some video footage from his cell phone demonstrating this. The video, which is posted below, shows him trying to leave the facility and being blocked from the exit by a bunch of factory workers.

John told us that it's his understanding that all of the entrances to the facility are blocked. He said that it's also his understanding that the Chinese authorities are outside of the facility maintaining order and the workers are inside the facility blockading him.

What's more is the factory workers are sleeping in shifts to make sure Chip doesn't leave, John explained. Chip also sent a photo showing this (See above).

The Specialty Medical Devices facility in China has been up and running for a decade. John estimated that his brother Chip has been visiting the facility once a quarter during the last ten years.

He doesn't have any family in China. None of his relatives were traveling with him at the time.

Chip's wife and three children are back in Florida. John said that it has been a very challenging time for the family.

"The stress level is high. The concerns are high. The emotions are high. We are very concerned for his safety and for his well being."

The family has been in touch with officials in the U.S. to help Chip.

When John first got word of the situation he reached out to Tony Baltimore, who does constituent outreach relations for Congressman Mike Rogers.

"They've been a tremendous help."

There's a cell phone vid (no pun intended) if you follow the link above.

GeneChing
06-28-2013, 02:27 PM
Chip is free.


U.S. exec Chip Starnes freed from China factory (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/06/27/china-factory-chip-starnes/2462705/)

The boss of a US medical supply company in China went free on Thursday after agreeing to to a deal with the employees who had held him hostage. Chip Starnes says he'll pay generous severance packages, even though the employees will keep working.

Calum MacLeod, USA TODAY 9:43 a.m. EDT June 27, 2013

BEIJING — U.S. businessman Chip Starnes walked to freedom Thursday after paying off the workers who held him hostage for six days in the factory he founded close to the Chinese capital. And now he plans to re-hire some of the very people who held him.

The dispute, sparked by worker worries about lay-offs and unpaid salaries, highlights the widespread lack of trust between employees and their employers in China, as well as the often desperate measures Chinese workers adopt to protect labor rights that are enshrined in Chinese law but regularly abused in the real world.

Its resolution offers further proof that, in China, taking the law into one's own hands may achieve the best results.

Starnes, 42, co-owner of Specialty Medical Supplies, a Coral Springs, Fla.-based company, had come to the plant last Friday to finalize severance payments for 30 workers who were being laid off as Starnes moved the firm's plastic-injection-molding division to Mumbai, India, where production costs are lower.

The remaining 100 employees, fearful the entire factory would be closed, also demanded similar severance packages, and complained about unpaid wages, a claim Starnes has denied. To force his hand, they barricaded Starnes inside the plant.

A deal was reached by early Thursday morning, when 97 workers received two months' salary and compensation that together totaled almost $300,000, reported the Beijing News, a local tabloid. Starnes told the Associated Press he was forced to give in to the workers' demands, and described his experience over the past six days as "humiliating, embarrassing."

But he plans get back to business, and rehire some of his captors. "We're going to take Thursday off to let the dust settle, and we're going to be rehiring a lot of the previous workers on new contracts as of Friday," he said.

"Everything has been properly resolved," said Chu Lixiang, a local trade union official, her voice hoarse after several days and nights of negotiations. "I just want to tell foreign investors that Huairou has a very good investment environment and fully-fledged laws, they don't have to be scared," said Chu, director of the government-controlled workers union in the Huairou district of Beijing, where the factory is located.

Yet some U.S. businessmen might think twice about investing in China, where several Chinese managers have been killed or injured by angry workers in recent years. The kind of stand-off Starnes endured is not rare, as sometimes workers lack more effective methods to show their rights are being violated, Lin Yanling, a labor relations expert at the China Institute of Industrial Relations, told the Global Times, a Communist Party newspaper.

"The local workers' union should play a very important role in solving workers' claims or difficulties by better communicating with employers," said Lin. "But in many cases, they only get involved when an incident has happened and pay too much attention to keeping stability."

Chinese workers, who are well aware of their legal rights to compensation, as well as often higher "market rate" for compensation, share "a well-founded suspicion of the boss' intentions," said Geoffrey Crothall, communications director for China Labour Bulletin, a Hong Kong-based labor rights group. During the 2008 financial crisis, there were hundreds of cases of fleeing bosses, he said. "The situation is not so bad now but workers are still suspicious whenever there are signs that the factory is closing down or moving away."

While China's court system can sometimes be effective, it is over-stretched and employers can use endless appeals to delay proceedings, said Crothall. "The main problem is clearly the lack of a proper trade union and a mechanism through which that union can negotiate with management whenever issues like lay-offs and relocation come up."

Unless ordinary workers get involved by standing for election in the factory union, and forcing management to talk to them, "strikes and protests will continue to be the order of the day," he said.

GeneChing
07-17-2013, 11:19 AM
I want to see that celebrity acrobatic snake-training talent team.


The Demanding Off-Hour Escapes of China’s High-Tech Workers (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/17/world/asia/the-demanding-off-hour-escapes-of-chinas-high-tech-workers.html?_r=0)
By DAN LEVIN
Published: July 16, 2013

Thousands of young Chinese come to the city of Zhengzhou to work in electronics factories. To escape the monotony of the assembly line, many take up roller skating as a hobby, like at the outdoor roller rink. More Photos »

Liang Yulong, 19, who tests iPhone motherboards at the Foxconn Zhengzhou Technology Park, arrived at the club with a single goal in mind: to obliterate his dreary daytime reality on the spring-loaded dance floor. “Dancing lets me vent my anger and stress,” he said, cigarette in hand. “When I’m here, I forget everything else.”

Here on the gritty outskirts of Zhengzhou, the capital of central Henan Province, the nocturnal menagerie reveals a little-explored aspect of the global supply chain, the off-hour escapes that give the masses of workers the motivation to return to the assembly line.

The hands that make the world’s electronics belong almost entirely to young people with dreams of their own, and a lifetime of contented industrial drudgery is not among them. Their precious time off is a rare chance to enjoy the present as they strive for a better future.

“Everyone gets psyched for the weekend,” said Bai Sihai, 24, as he navigated open potholes on the way back to his dorm after work one afternoon. His plan? A video-game binge session at an Internet cafe followed by a long-distance phone call to his girlfriend.

The captains of industry are beginning to see the merits of off-hours leisure. In recent years, a wave of riots and suicides at China’s huge factories have drawn attention to working conditions. In April and May, two workers and a prospective employee jumped to their deaths from dormitories that cater to workers at the Zhengzhou plant, which is owned by Foxconn, the Taiwan-based manufacturing giant that produces electronics for Apple, Microsoft and other companies. Foxconn maintains that the suicides were unconnected to work at the factory. Also in May, a worker committed suicide at a Samsung plant in the southern province of Guangdong, where labor rights organizations had documented a string of violations like forced overtime and under-age workers.

The industry has responded with carrots and sticks to save both the lives of their workers and their own corporate reputations. Under pressure, Foxconn has raised wages and cut overtime hours. At the Shanghai plant run by Quanta, which makes hardware for companies including Apple, Toshiba and Asus, workers can pay for yoga and taekwondo classes.

After the latest suicides at the Zhengzhou plant, the company instituted “silent mode,” which banned all talk about nonwork tasks on the factory floor. Although Foxconn later announced it had rescinded the policy after a public outcry, workers say it remains in effect.

In the high-tech Olympus of Silicon Valley, employees in ergonomically luxuriant offices can get subsidized massages and haircuts, scale rock-climbing walls, play foosball, meditate and do Pilates — all in the name of promoting creative innovation.

The work environment is considerably more bare-bones here. Unlike Apple’s modernistic new campus in Cupertino, Calif., which will be surrounded by apricot trees, the Zhengzhou factory has all the charm of a penal colony. Employees, who must wear matching uniforms, say supervisors routinely curse and yell. In the residential compounds, rows of brick dormitories house up to eight workers in rooms filled with metal bunk beds, a combination shower-toilet, and not much else.

Perhaps that is why the world beyond the factory gates resembles a gigantic street fair. As dusk fell one night recently in Zhengzhou, Mandarin pop music blared from hair salons and couples strolled past stalls selling pirated DVDs, sliced watermelon and roses covered in silver glitter. A flatbed truck piled high with oversize stuffed animals drew a mob of young women like sharks to blood. “I want the green teddy bear,” cooed a teenage girl to her boyfriend, who dutifully handed over 10 renminbi, or $1.60.

Down the block, a construction site played host to a parade of distractions, including a tattoo parlor set up in the back of a van, those arcade games with the metal claw that featured a pack of cigarettes as the big prize and a beer garden of sorts, where hordes of young factory workers chugged watery beer and chain-smoked over plates of sliced pig knuckles.

At some point, a troupe of dolled-up singers was supposed to take the nearby stage, though Luo Haojie, 20, and his friends were finding ample amusement in their shot glasses. In May, Mr. Luo quit his factory job making iPhone 5 parts, which earned him about $295 a month, including overtime. “Our supervisors are vicious,” and the cafeteria food is terrible, he said, to a round of applause from his drinking buddies.

Eventually he will need to find another job, but for now he is content to bask in the joys of youth, which means meeting girls and getting drunk with his former co-workers. “I’m here for my bros,” he said. “Without them I’d be miserable.”

Summer is the low season in China’s factory towns, so many workers get a day off on weekends, sometimes even two. There are numerous colorful characters on hand to keep them entertained. One evening, a band of itinerant performers dressed like Buddhist monks had set up shop across from a KFC-inspired eatery confusingly named Donut. Garbed in silken yellow robes, the “celebrity acrobatic snake-training talent team” worked the crowd of bored onlookers by whipping balloons and hawking blessed ornaments for rearview-mirrors. A monk with an earring blew fireballs.

“The circus that came around a few months ago was better,” said Li Yu, 19. “They had real lions and tigers.”

Those looking for more athletic diversions can usually be found at the local roller rink.

In the glow of swirling rainbow lights one Saturday, Zhou Pengzheng, 20, another iPhone 5 motherboard tester, narrowly avoided several neophytes as he spun to a halt on a pair of $160 in-line skates, which cost him roughly a third of his monthly salary. “It feels like I’m flying,” he said, before zooming once more into the throng of careening youths on tiny wheels.

In-line and roller skating has developed something of a cult following among the Foxconn strivers. A half dozen teams with names like Rainbow, F-2 and Shadow gather for weekly group skating sessions across the city.

Fang Xuema, 17, learned to skate not long after coming to work at Foxconn last spring and soon joined team Shadow, which has around 100 members. The rink has since become her second home. A high school dropout, she quit the factory in May, because her age prohibited her from working lucrative overtime hours. “I used to come to the rink twice a week, but now I’m here every night,” said Ms. Fang, in a black miniskirt and matching nail polish.

At 11 p.m., the street performers had vanished and the love hotels were getting busy. After a long day of making iPhones, Wang Puyan, 20, and his girlfriend were heading toward their rented apartment off-campus, since factory dormitories are separated by gender.

A romantic adventure was not in the cards, however. “We see each other every day at work,” he said. “Why would we go on a date?”

Syn7
07-17-2013, 04:20 PM
a KFC-inspired eatery confusingly named Donut


Awesome! :p

I would hate to live in one of those work dorms.

David Jamieson
07-18-2013, 10:16 AM
All boats rise with the tide. Eventually it will even out and there won't be any particular country or people to exploit.

Once China and India understand the concepts of trade unions and fair pay, benefits, etc etc it'll be like trying to start an entrepreneurial business in Europe at a large scale which is for the most part highly pointless and unprofitable without being a huge conglomerate to begin with.

GeneChing
10-07-2015, 09:25 AM
I forgot about this thread and it was hard to search for - kept searching 'kidnapping' but I should of searched 'hostage'. Searching 'apple' delivered.



'Mass suicide' protest at Apple manufacturer Foxconn factory (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/china/9006988/Mass-suicide-protest-at-Apple-manufacturer-Foxconn-factory.html)
Around 150 Chinese workers at Foxconn, the world's largest electronics manufacturer, threatened to commit suicide by leaping from their factory roof in protest at their working conditions.

http://i.telegraph.co.uk/multimedia/archive/02106/foxconn-2_2106079b.jpg
150 Chinese workers at Foxconn, threatened to commit suicide by leaping from their factory roof in protest at their working conditions Photo: Club.china.com

By Malcolm Moore, in Shanghai 12:04PM GMT 11 Jan 2012

The workers were eventually coaxed down after two days on top of their three-floor plant in Wuhan by Foxconn managers and local Chinese Communist party officials.

Foxconn, which manufactures gadgets for the likes of Apple, Sony, Nintendo and HP, among many others, has had a grim history of suicides at its factories. A suicide cluster in 2010 saw 18 workers throw themselves from the tops of the company's buildings, with 14 deaths.

In the aftermath of the suicides, Foxconn installed safety nets in some of its factories and hired counsellors to help its workers.

The latest protest began on January 2 after managers decided to move around 600 workers to a new production line, making computer cases for Acer, a Taiwanese computer company.

"We were put to work without any training, and paid piecemeal," said one of the protesting workers, who asked not to be named. "The assembly line ran very fast and after just one morning we all had blisters and the skin on our hand was black. The factory was also really choked with dust and no one could bear it," he said.

Several reports from inside Foxconn factories have suggested that while the company is more advanced than many of its competitors, it is run in a "military" fashion that many workers cannot cope with. At Foxconn's flagship plant in Longhua, five per cent of its workers, or 24,000 people, quit every month.

"Because we could not cope, we went on strike," said the worker. "It was not about the money but because we felt we had no options. At first, the managers said anyone who wanted to quit could have one month's pay as compensation, but then they withdrew that offer. So we went to the roof and threatened a mass suicide".

The worker said that Foxconn initially refused to negotiate, but that the workers were treated reasonably by the local police and fire service.

A spokesman for Foxconn confirmed the protest, and said that the incident was "successfully and peacefully resolved after discussions between the workers, local Foxconn officials and representatives from the local government".

He added that 45 Foxconn employees had chosen to resign and the remainder had returned to work. "The welfare of our employees is our top priority and we are committed to ensuring that all employees are treated fairly," he said.

Jimbo
10-07-2015, 11:25 AM
When I lived in Taiwan, there were two big, friendly Jamaican guys who became acquainted wth my second Mantis teacher, me, and some of the other students. They had come to Taiwan with the promise of good work and lots of money.

As we got to know them better, it turned out they were being held against their will in a small factory, living in slave conditions. They were being mistreated, and by early evenings they were literally locked in the factory, unable to go anywhere. They were terrified of the bosses, a man and his wife who ran the factory. This ****ed us all off, especially my teacher, and he eventually went back with them and confronted the couple. As I remember it, after much back and forth between my teacher and the couple, the two were eventually given back their passports and allowed to leave. I don't think they received all the remaining pay they were owed, but they didn't care, because they were finally free to leave. Before they returned home, they came by to see us one last time, and it was so cool to see them really happy for the first time.

GeneChing
12-16-2015, 12:36 PM
I've heard some horror stories about Teaching Abroad jobs, but nothing as bad as that.

Meanwhile, here's another MiC tale that has been getting a lot of news lately. There's a little hoverboard kiosk at the mall nearby and they have some sample boxes with a big warning sign saying 'don't buy these hoverboards' to imply that the other ones they are offering are safe, but the kiosk was completely unattended. Talk about an Xmas gift bust. A lot of retailers lost big time on this one.


Epidemic of exploding 'Made in China' hoverboards prompts Amazon to pull them from shelves (http://shanghaiist.com/2015/12/16/exploding_hoverboard_epidemic.php)

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/alexlinder/exploding_hoverboard1.jpg

In response to the increasing number of headline grabbing reports of hoverboards made in China unexpectedly exploding and catching fire, Amazon has made the decision to begin pulling the self-balancing scooters from its online shelves.
Many of the hoverboards sold on Amazon have already been removed, including all five models once reviewed by BestReviews.com. That site now warns consumers that “for the time being, we are not recommending any hoverboards until they are proven to be safe”, the Guardian reports.
Another seller, Swagway, stated that the online retailer Amazon has started questioning makers about their safety standards and requiring sellers to provide documents proving that their products “are compliant with applicable safety standards," with particular focus on the battery and chargers for the units.
Although levitating hoverboards just like Marty McFly's iconic gadget in Back to the Future II are unfortunately not a thing just yet, the fashionable two wheeled scooters have exploded in popularity (pun intended), spurred on by celebrity interest in them, including from the likes of Justin Bieber.
Most are manufactured cheaply in bulk in China before being purchased in bulk by resellers who apply their own cosmetic retouching and branding. In the month of October alone, 400,000 boards shipped from the cheap tech manufacturing hub of Shenzhen.
Disputes over the product’s intellectual property status has contributed to a free-for-all to make an easy profit and allowed irresponsible manufacturers to exploit high demand and attempt to flood the market with cheap and sometimes dangerous products.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/hoverboard2.jpg

China as we all know quickly jumps on consumer trends but often without much quality control, and in turn this has raised serious questions about the regulation of the devices and the existence of proper safety standards.
“All the hoverboards in the US are sold by importers, who barely even know the factories they are buying it from,” Andrew “Bunnie” Huang, a hardware analyst based in Singapore, told Quartz. “In a hyper-competitive market that’s driven by a fad, taking six months to do a comprehensive testing program for safety means you’re missing out on a lot of business."
Despite stricter regulations and also some official inspections the situation is also worrying in the UK. Of 17,000 hoverboards inspected by the UK’s National Trading Standards since October, 15,000, or 88%, were deemed “unsafe,” because of “issues with the plug, cabling, charger, battery, or the cut-off switch within the board, which often fails,” the standards agency said.
While it would be easy to point the finger at Chinese manufacturers for all the problems, industry experts are quick to point out that importers share at least as much of the blame.
“Chinese manufacturers operate according to a ‘make to order approach,'” Fredrik Gronkvist, a consultant who helps foreign vendors source products from China, told Quartz. “If you fail to communicate the regulations to which a product must be compliant, it will not be.”
The unregulated, fad and profit driven state of the industry means for now at least, it really is all down to consumers to weigh up the potential dangers of buying a cheap "Made in China" hoverboard.

http://shanghaiist.com/attachments/shang_shanghaiist/hoverboard3.jpg

By Daniel Paul
Contact the author of this article or email tips@shanghaiist.com with further questions, comments or tips.
By Shanghaiist in News on Dec 16, 2015 2:30 PM

GeneChing
01-12-2016, 03:30 PM
This is in reference to the opening post of this thread and Jimbo's reply (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China&p=1287710#post1287710).


JAN 11, 2016 @ 09:17 AM 2,326 VIEWS
How To Avoid Being Held Hostage In China (http://www.forbes.com/sites/danharris/2016/01/11/how-to-avoid-being-held-hostage-in-china/)

Dan Harris
CONTRIBUTOR
I write about the legal side of doing business in Asia.
FOLLOW ON FORBES
Opinions expressed by Forbes Contributors are their own.

It is not uncommon for one of the China lawyers at my law firm to get contacted regarding a Westerner blocked from leaving China. The people contacting us are usually the spouse or sibling or employee of the person being held in China, though sometimes we get calls from the “hostage” himself (I say “him” because nearly every time it has been a male). I have a friend who works for the Shanghai office of a large international risk advisory company and he says that office alone typically deals with a half dozen such situations a month.

What does it mean to be held hostage in China, and why is this so common? More importantly, what can you do to ensure this never happens to you?

Almost all of my firm’s hostage cases have involved someone whose company allegedly owes money to a Chinese company and the Chinese company is holding the businessperson hostage in an effort to get paid. About half the time, the Western company admits to owing the money, but claims not to have enough to pay it all off at once. The other half of the time, the Western company denies owing the Chinese company anything at all or anything near the amount claimed to be owed. The dispute often stems from the Chinese company having provided the Western company with bad product for which the Western company is not willing to pay full price.

The person held hostage in China usually has had his or her passport taken by the Chinese company to whom the debt is allegedly owed. The hostage is usually then kept under fairly loose security in a mid- to lower-tier Chinese hotel, usually in the second- or third-tier city in which the Chinese company is located. After a week or so, the hostage usually comes to realize he or she is not going to be physically mistreated, but by the third or fourth month, they become pretty desperate to get out.

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/danharris/files/2016/01/Trapped_heat_5878017197-1200x800.jpg
How to avoid being trapped in China.

The thing is that much of what I have above described as a hostage situation is legal under Chinese law. China’s Supreme People’s Court has stated that foreigners who work for a foreign company involved in a China commercial case may be blocked from leaving China, so long as the following conditions are met:

(1) There is pending court case against a foreign company;

(2) the restricted person is a party to the case, the legal representative of a party to the case, or a responsible person with a party to the case;

(3) there exists the possibility that the party with whom the person is affiliated would evade the litigation or the performance of a statutory obligation (i.e., the court award of damages against it); and

(4) if the restricted person were to leave China, the court might have difficulty conducting the trial or enforcing the judgment if levied against the party with whom the person is affiliated.

Who constitutes a “responsible person” is left to the discretion of the Chinese courts and generally is anyone with a high enough or important enough position in the debtor company to have some impact on the case or on the company’s decision on whether to pay or not.

The above is the law, but in our experience, the Chinese judges can and do permit someone to be held in China if the judge believes doing so will speed up resolution or settlement of the pending case. And since most Western companies will settle cases quickly when one of their employees is being prevented from leaving a particular Chinese city, China’s courts are willing to hold just about any American or European or Australian or other Westerner in China whose company might owe a debt to a Chinese company.

But most hostage situations take place completely outside China’s court system. Our China lawyers have handled a number of matters where foreigners were held because of a debt and there was no court order. These people were being held by private parties, usually with local government and/or local police acquiescence. In these situations, the Chinese parties claiming to be owed money took the law into their own hands. In these non-legal situations, my firm’s work usually involves our helping the hostage to escape and/or negotiating for his or her release.

There is an easy way to avoid being held hostage in China: Do not go there if a Chinese company claims that your company owes it money and if you are already in China when that happens, leave as quickly and as surreptitiously as you possibly can. In the majority of the hostage cases my firm has handled, the Westerner held hostage went to China to “explain” why their company owed less than the amount claimed by the Chinese company or to try to work out a payment plan. Do not ever do this. If you or your company are being sued in China or if a Chinese company or individual is threatening to sue you or your company in China or if someone in China is merely claiming that you or your company owe money, you should not go to China until that issue is resolved.

It is that simple.

Dan Harris is a founding member of Harris Moure, an international law firm with lawyers in Seattle, Portland, Beijing, and Qingdao. He is also a co-editor of the China Law Blog.

Faux Newbie
01-18-2016, 06:47 AM
The only people who should be holding your passport are the local police if you are applying for residency. Companies often use this to tell people, "oh, we need your passport to take it to the local bureau." However, in most cases, you actually need to be there when it goes to the bureau, so you're best saying, "Okay, let's go."

Some foreign teachers at private cram schools end up in this situation. Never let anyone manage your passport for you.

On another topic, the second time I saw the Shaolin monks performing was at a dance club in Zhumadian, which is near zhengzhou. Surreal to see the little kids doing head kong routines while girls in little more than lingerie were dancing languidly on poles. At 1 AM. (not a strip club, but, like many things in China, a combination of patrons dancing in what could best be termed the Platonic Peanuts Dance while languid pole dancing occurred in the background).

GeneChing
03-08-2016, 12:12 PM
I cut&pasted the hyperlink to the original study for future reference.


http://www.futurity.org/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/made_china_1170-770x460.jpg
"National image is not just a perception out of nowhere. It's cultivated by media, depending on how media cover the story related to the country," says Gang (Kevin) Han. (Credit: Michael Mandiberg/Flickr)

HOW ‘MADE IN CHINA’ GOT A BAD REPUTATION (http://www.futurity.org/made-in-china-1116202-2/)
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY Original Study (http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/1553118X.2014.960082)
Posted by Angie Hunt-Iowa State on March 7, 2016

You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license.
For many Americans, the “Made in China” label has become synonymous with low-cost and low-quality.

But the stereotypes often associated with those three simple words didn’t always exist, says Gang (Kevin) Han, an associate professor in Iowa State University’s Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication.

“People really enjoyed products from China. They viewed products, such as tea, furniture, or dishware, as unique. It was a quality product and there was a cultural value,” Han says. “But when China became a world factory and produced so many items for so many brands, people changed their views.”

This shift reflects a combination of consumer experience and influence of media coverage related to Chinese-made products.

In a series of studies on framing effects, published in Journalism and Mass Communication Quarterly (2012), Newspaper Research Journal (2014), and International Journal of Strategic Communication (2015), Han and coauthor Xiuli Wang of Peking University examined how news stories about Chinese goods directly affect public opinion of a product, but also indirectly shape perceptions of the country where it’s made.

Han says how the story is framed dictates whether consumers have a positive or negative impression of the “Made in China” label, and more often than not it’s negative.

Han can point to several examples on product safety—toxic pill capsules, food contamination, and toys containing lead paint—as well as concerns about human rights in China and US-China trade disputes. Over time these stories impact how we look at an issue or topic.

“If you read a lot of negative articles that leads to negative concerns and perceptions,” Han says. “Media may provide a certain type of experience for people who don’t have personal or direct experience with a country, so they get the message mainly from the media. They then accumulate this message with their experience of products and the two together form the image of the country.”

HOW NEWS STORIES ARE FRAMED
To test the relationship between news coverage and public opinion, researchers asked 120 college students to read a story about products made in China. The story, originally published in The New York Times, was rewritten in two versions: one focused on the risks, the other on the benefits.

After reading the story, students were asked what they thought about buying and using products made in China and their thoughts on the country, as a whole.

Han says they saw a significant influence on opinions related to how the story was framed. As expected, those reading the story focused on risks formed more negative views and those reading about the benefits had more positive views. The same could be said for any number of issues, Han says.

“This is true if you look at how the media writes about the elections, social movements, or international conflicts,” Han says. “We see a lot of framed messages in these stories and receive the message subconsciously.”

Han says it’s important for governments or corporations to understand how consumers get impressions of their country or products through news media, if they want to change those opinions.

He and Wang suggest a strategic advertising or public relations campaign, but add that the solution may be much more complex. The Chinese government has tried different tactics, including advertising in Times Square, to change public opinion in the US, but such efforts may not be as effective as expected, Han says.

“The reason could be that we get the message from China through our daily experience—product use or media coverage,” Han says. “National image is not just a perception out of nowhere. It’s cultivated by media, depending on how media cover the story related to the country.”

Source: Iowa State University

GeneChing
03-18-2016, 10:22 AM
Made in China Not as Cheap as You Think (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-03-16/made-in-china-not-as-cheap-as-you-think?bcomANews=true)
Just 4% less than in the U.S.
Enda Curran Benchmark
March 16, 2016 — 3:00 PM PDT

Here's something to think about the next time you hear a U.S. presidential candidate criticize China for unfair trade: labor costs adjusted for productivity in China are only 4 percent cheaper than in the U.S.
Even with the dollar's rally since 2014, U.S. manufacturing is benefiting from the world's strongest rate of productivity, a flexible labor market, cheap energy and from having a big domestic market.
That's according to new research by Oxford Economics, which found that the U.S. manufacturing sector remains a world beater.

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/ixSNGBRMq5bY/v1/-1x-1.png

"Although U.S. manufacturing is currently facing meaningful headwinds from a stronger dollar and the collapse in investment in the shale energy sector, it remains the most competitive worldwide," analysts Gregory Daco and Jeremy Leonard wrote in a note.
The figures are striking. Manufacturing output per employee in the U.S. rose around 40 percent from 2003 to 2016 compared with 25 percent growth in Germany and 30 percent growth in the UK. While productivity has doubled in India and China, the U.S. remains 80 percent to 90 percent more productive.
It's that robust productivity that has helped the U.S. keep down the unit cost of labor--or wages in relation to worker output.
"Since wage growth in China has largely outpaced productivity growth, and the renminbi has strengthened, China’s unit labor costs are now only 4 percent lower than in the U.S.," the analysts wrote.

http://assets.bwbx.io/images/iJ9DXhzd.NBY/v1/-1x-1.png

Two caveats: Productivity growth throughout the U.S. economy as a whole has been meager in recent years, partly dragged down by the burgeoning, albeit inefficient, health-care sector. And the U.S. continues to run a trade deficit with China.
There are other risks ahead. If the U.S. dollar starts to rally again, that would spell danger for exporters.
"Another 20 percent appreciation of the dollar," the analysts wrote, "would certainly dent U.S. competitiveness, and once again make China an attractive production hub, as well as giving Japanese manufacturers a significant advantage."
Criticism of China is a hot topic in U.S. politics right now. Republican presidential candidates led by Donald Trump have blamed China for the decline of the American middle class through manipulating its currency and one-sided trade policies.
Premier Li Keqiang brushed off the criticism on Wednesday when he said relations with the U.S. will endure no matter who wins the election.
Reports such as this one from Oxford Economics may bolster Li's case the next time China faces criticism from U.S. politicians.

I was wondering if the tables would turn on this eventually.

GeneChing
04-21-2016, 03:42 PM
China to create top adult brands (http://www.shanghaidaily.com/business/consumer/China-to-create-top-adult-brands/shdaily.shtml)
By Zhu Shenshen | April 15, 2016, Friday

CHINA will tap its industrial design and integration with smart technologies such as virtual reality to produce its own world-class brands of adult products in one or two years, Shanghai Daily learned at the China Adult-Care Expo, which opened yesterday.

More than 95 percent of global adult products are made in China and at least 70 percent of them are designed in the country. But high-end brands come from the United States, Europe and Japan though they are made or designed in China.

“Chinese firms have advanced industry design and high-tech development abilities, as well as relatively low talent cost,” said Lin Degang, chairman of Chunshuitang, who is also a veteran in the adult product industry.

Changzhou-based Chunshuitang, which sells intelligent adult products online, plans to expand into overseas markets including the US and Europe this year. The firm is expected to sell products valued at 30 million yuan (US$4.6 million) this year, according to Lin.

Chunshuitang plans to list on the over-the-counter board around July.

During the show which is held till Sunday, firms displayed latest design and technologies in the industry, covering wireless connection, automatic vibration and VR.

UKN, a startup founded in 2015, will offer VR products “within several months” to improve user experience. Baofeng.com, China’s biggest VR glass vendor, also displayed their products in the booth of partners in the show.



"intelligent adult products" :eek: ;)

bawang
04-21-2016, 06:53 PM
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kM6gCqhtxyQ

GeneChing
06-09-2016, 08:31 AM
I've been watching this trend but this is the first article that has been so explicit. I was noticing this peripherally from our Shaolin-s-African-Disciples (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66870-Shaolin-s-African-Disciples) thread.

There's a vid if you follow the link.


In The Future, ‘Made In China’ Could Become ‘Made In Africa’ (http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/2016/06/09/in-the-future-made-in-china-could-become-made-in-africa/)
Thanks to Beijing's economic transition, Africa has a chance to pick up some of the industrial production now leaving China.
09/06/2016 8:44 AM AEST | Updated 16 hours ago

Eric Olander and Cobus van Staden

There's a pretty good chance that some of the clothes you're wearing, the shoes on your feet and even the device you're using to read this were made in China. Even as its economy slows, China remains the world's factory, churning out billions of dollars every year of goods. The government, though, wants to change this, which could be a huge opportunity for countries like Ethiopia -- and the continent of Africa as a whole.

As China transitions its economy from manufacturing to services, some 85 million jobs will be up for grabs as a lot of that industrial production looks for a new home. Ethiopia, for its part, is aggressively positioning itself as a destination for some of that Chinese manufacturing.

Ethiopia, and Africa in general, may be a tough sale for manufacturers who are always looking to keep costs as low as possible. Compared to regions like Southeast Asia, where most of the outbound Chinese manufacturing is going, Ethiopia's infrastructure is less developed, its workforce is less educated and its supply chain networks are not as a robust.

But none of Ethiopia's challenges seems to discourage Helen Hai. Helen is the exuberant CEO of the Made in Africa Initiative and former vice president of the Chinese shoe-making giant Huajian. She helped set up the company's first factory near Addis Ababa where today some 4,000 workers produce 7,500 pairs of shoes for famous brands like Guess, Nine West and many others.

Helen believes the success of Huajian in Ethiopia is just the beginning. She points to the country's ability to attract Chinese auto manufacturers and other heavy industry as evidence that not just Ethiopia but Africa in general is well-positioned to pick up some of that industrial production that is now leaving China.

Helen joins Eric & Cobus -- in the podcast above -- to discuss the future of industrial production in Africa and why she thinks "Made in China" could one day become "Made in Africa."

Join the discussion. Do you think Africa is ready to transform itself from largely commodity and agricultural-based economies to manufacturing industrial goods? What about the lack of infrastructure, corruption and poor governance? Let us know what you think:

Facebook: www.facebook.com/ChinaAfricaProject
Twitter: @eolander | @stadenesque

GeneChing
03-03-2017, 09:55 AM
I do think this will shift, but it's a long time until 'Made in China' disappears. The massive population makes for a massive number of poor, which still means a massive amount of cheap labor.


Why the ‘Made in China’ tag may soon cease to exist (http://www.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/why-the-made-in-china-tag-may-soon-cease-to-exist/news-story/ab31ca2c00a9b2a8200ce913a013a1e0)
MARCH 3, 2017 5:59PM

http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/bfdbefe52aacd47c6ab88c4eaf90cba7
How much longer will ‘Made In China’ last?

news.com.au

THAT little “Made in China” tag can be found on much of what we own — clothes, toys, shoes, electronics, food products, kitchenware, jewellery.
For decades, the country has been seen as the “factory” of the world, with its massive supply of inexpensive manufacturing labour.
But as the country’s economy expands at breakneck speed, the omnipresent stamp may soon become a thing of the past.
Chinese factory workers are now getting paid more than ever. According to market research firm Euromonitor, the average hourly wages hit $3.60 last year. This may not sound like much, but it represents a 64 per cent growth from 2011.
For comparison’s sake, that’s more than five times the hourly manufacturing wage in India, and puts China on par with countries like South Africa and Portugal.
It means President Donald Trump’s repeated threat to go after China for its cheap exports to boost US manufacturing may be a bit outdated.

http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/aa999c57c37978e4a85f55ee2b462d5f
Chinese factory workers are getting paid more than ever.Source:AFP

An increase in wages means an increase in costs for companies who trade with the rising superpower, which means China could start losing their jobs to other developing countries like Sri Lanka, where hourly factory wages are around 50 cents.
As we speak, southeast Asian countries like Cambodia and Myanmar are already moving towards displacing China’s role as the go-to location for cheap product building.
Bloomberg reports countries like Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos will eventually displace China’s title as the “world’s factory” within 10 to 15 years.
But according to Vox, the Chinese Communist Party is unlikely to intervene, as lowering the wages to improve competition would risk provoking social unrest.
It comes as companies are also investing in robots in efforts to automate as much as possible to offset labour costs, according to Jefferies analysts Sean Darby and Kenneth Chan.
China’s industrial robotics market became the world’s largest in 2013, and is continuing to grow.
Whether the country can and will rise to “superpower status” as expected is yet to be seen.

GeneChing
05-01-2017, 10:01 AM
Nice of her to have it translated thrice...


'I work 14 hours a day': Woman finds a note from Chinese 'prisoner' begging for help inside her Walmart purse (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4461802/Woman-finds-note-Chinese-prisoner-Walmart-purse.html)

A woman believes she found a note from a Chinese prisoner in a new purse
She purchased the purse at a Walmart store in Sierra Vista, Arizona
It says the author is a Chinese prisoner forced to work under abusive conditions
The woman who found the letter said she had it translated three separate times

By Abigail Miller For Dailymail.com
PUBLISHED: 02:03 EDT, 1 May 2017 | UPDATED: 02:03 EDT, 1 May 2017

An Arizona woman says she believes that she found a note from a Chinese prisoner pleading for help in a purse she bought at Walmart.

The woman said she bought the purse at the superstore in Sierra Vista, Arizona, and later found the note, written completely in Chinese, reported KPTV.

She had the note translated three times to be certain that the message was correct.
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/05/01/06/3FCCA34600000578-0-image-a-45_1493616262802.jpg
An Arizona woman says she believes that she found a note from a Chinese prisoner pleading for help in a purse she bought at Walmart

The note's author writes that he or she is a prisoner in China being forced to work about 14 hours a day with little food or medical attention.

The alleged prisoner pleads for help from whoever reads the note, but the woman who found it said she does not have the means personally to help the prisoner, so she hopes something comes out of sharing it.

Similar letters to this one have been traced back to stores that outsource a lot of their labor, such as K-Mart, in the past.

GeneChing
06-01-2017, 10:23 AM
'Made in China' could soon be made in the US (http://www.cnbc.com/2017/05/30/made-in-china-could-soon-be-made-in-the-us.html)
Eunice Yoon | @eyoonCNBC
Wednesday, 31 May 2017 | 12:21 AM ET
CNBC.com

It's Chinese-made in America.

Yes, you read that right. Contrary to widespread belief, China isn't the cheap place to manufacture that it once was, and rising costs have been forcing manufacturers to explore new countries to make their goods.

The U.S. may not be top of mind for all industries, but some manufacturers are taking a second look at the country — and many of them are Chinese. Throw in the possibility of lower corporate taxes under President Donald Trump, and more will likely come looking.

"The reason we want to invest in the U.S. isn't only because the Trump administration is encouraging it," Xiao Wunan, deputy chairman of Asia Pacific Exchange and Cooperation Foundation, who takes Chinese business executives to the U.S. on investment tours, told CNBC. "The U.S. has natural advantages for [Chinese] investment."

Why go to the U.S.?

The cost advantage

John Ling, president of the Council of American States in China, makes a living finding prospective investment locations in the U.S. for Chinese companies.

"In every project I help to land in the U.S., if I cannot present evidence that they can lower their costs, my chance of doing [the deal] in the U.S. is almost zero," he told CNBC. "Cost is driving this."

American workers earn a lot of money compared to their counterparts in China, but the U.S. can still come out on top when costs are taken as a whole.

For Hangzhou-based textile manufacturer Keer Group, American workers were paid on average twice as much as workers in China, according to the firm's president, Zhu Shanqing. In aggregate, however, producing in the America is significantly less compared to China.

"In the U.S., land, electricity and cotton are all much cheaper," Zhu said. "My production cost per ton of textiles is 25 percent lower [there]."

In addition, he said, wages for him in China have been increasing 30 percent each year for much of the past decade. He has pledged $220 million to build and expand a facility in South Carolina and plans to eventually move the entire business to the U.S. where he plans to employ more than 500 people by the end of the year.

Add in the possibility of a lower corporate tax to as little as 15 percent, as proposed by Trump, and the U.S. becomes a no-brainer for many manufacturers Zhu said.

"If Trump cuts the corporate tax even by 5 percent, companies that left America a few years ago, will be back," he said.

The stable business environment

Compared to many other countries, especially in the emerging world, China has been a stalwart of stability for manufacturers for decades. However, the U.S. does have some selling points that Chinese companies don't really like to talk about on record: better air, safer food, straightforward access to funding and a government that doesn't intervene.

U.S. state politicians will pitch to a foreign company to bring in the jobs, but once they've invested, it's said the American officials leave them alone. Once a company is in the U.S., Chinese or not, it is treated like any other company.

The proximity to the U.S. consumer

Chinese consumers are the spenders of the future, but Americans are the buyers of today. As Chinese companies grow in stature and expand their footprint overseas, many of them see the U.S. market as the holy grail.

Guangzhou-based GAC Motor, which is eyeing the U.S. market, says partnering with a stateside automaker or even building its own American plant one day is in the cards.

"If we can succeed in the U.S. market, we can succeed anywhere in the world," President Yu Jun told CNBC, adding that having facilities in the U.S. makes a manufacturer more nimble to respond to a customer's needs.

"No matter if it's a good economy or a bad economy, the U.S. is still the number one market for any company in the world," Ling explained. "So certainly, naturally you want to be closer to where your customers are."

http://fm.cnbc.com/applications/cnbc.com/resources/img/editorial/2017/03/12/104336889-GettyImages-108117954.530x298.jpg?v=1489368673
Andrew Harrer | Bloomberg | Getty Images

Who's going, who's not?

Capital-intensive industries: Definitely.

All sorts of companies are interested in setting up shop in the U.S., according to Ling, but there is an emerging trend.

The most suited, he said, are capital-intensive industries such as textiles, chemicals, paper and packaging and auto parts. Chinese billionaire Cao Dewang, whose company Fuyao Glass makes window shields for cars, recently invested hundreds of millions of dollars to revive a plant in Ohio.

"I don't believe we have scratched the surface yet," Ling said.

Labor-intensive industries: No thanks.

Labor-intensive industries such as apparel are not as keen.

China-based Austrian garment manufacturer KTC, which sells sports clothing mainly to Europe and the U.S., says its industry still depends heavily on labor. American workers are still more expensive than Chinese and the other factors wouldn't bring costs down enough to make it worthwhile for a move, says Managing Director Gerhard Flatz.

Additionally, American workers don't have the skills right now that have been developed in China over years, he told CNBC.

Ling said some high-labor businesses, though, have been able to make the transition lowering costs since, unlike in China, manufacturers in the U.S. don't have to worry about building dormitories and canteens or arranging transportation for their workers. "You only have a small canteen with a refrigerator and one or two microwaves," Ling said about the U.S.

What's stopping them from coming?

A skills shortage

China's status as a manufacturing powerhouse means it has gained decades of experienced talent — which has been drained out of the U.S.

"We face pressure in the U.S. because we cannot find skilled workers. Most of the people have not worked in this [field] before in their lives," Keer's Zhu said.

KTC's Flatz sees a strong argument for investment in training and education for more China-based jobs to move to America. "Education—tradesman education," he said. "You have to make sure that you have enough educational power in the States, more or less, to bring up this entire industry."

Visas

To help train American workers, some manufacturers in China want to bring in their own managers and skilled workforce, but are having trouble obtaining the proper paperwork.

"Our technicians cannot get visas to go to the U.S. We need [our staff], but many of them have been refused," Zhu said. "We are facing a new challenge."

Supply Chain

In addition to the lack of skilled workers, Flatz said entire supply chains would have to relocate to the U.S. for some industries.

"None of us apparel manufacturers would move to the U.S. without having an ecosystem on site as we have in China," he said.

The U.S. would have to do what the Chinese did decades ago, the China manufacturing veteran explained: set up economic zones, offer better infrastructure and financial incentives as a package.

"Make it the same as the Chinese," he said. "And start on-shoring."

—CNBC's Daisy Cherry contributed to this report.

Eunice Yoon
Beijing Bureau Chief, CNBC

We'll know this has happened for sure when the Trumps start manufacturing their clothes lines in America. ;)

GeneChing
07-05-2017, 07:42 AM
The Fourth of July, made in China (https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/7/3/15915266/fourth-of-july-made-in-china)
How Chinese manufacturers profit off fireworks, grills, and flag sales.
Updated by Ruairí Arrieta-Kenna@ruairiakruairi@vox.com Jul 3, 2017, 1:30pm EDT

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/_UWUOSwN2axzZ_O6asZD9HhjW7A=/179x373:5616x3092/920x613/filters:focal(2853x1081:3751x1979):format(webp)/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/55557845/pexels_photo.0.jpg



The Fourth of July is an economic boom of a holiday — for China.

Ever since the first commemoration of Independence Day, Americans have celebrated with bombs bursting in air. But what started in 1777 with the firing of 13 rockets into the sky in Philadelphia has evolved into a tradition celebrated across the continent with grander and more expensive spectacles. No one benefits more from that than Chinese manufacturers.

The American Pyrotechnics Association reported in 2013 that 93 percent of fireworks used in the United States are made in China. It’s not surprising, then, that the US runs a substantial trade deficit with China with regards to fireworks. A Census Bureau report published on Friday suggests Americans imported more than $300 million worth of fireworks last year (96 percent of which came from China), while exports totaled only about $10 million.

Chinese companies clean up on your cookout, too. The Fourth of July is the most popular day of the year for Americans to cook outdoors, and a 2015 Hearth, Patio, and Barbecue Association survey showed that there’s still high consumer interest in purchasing new outdoor grills each year. The LA Times estimated in 2016 that the outdoor grill industry consistently rakes in more than a billion dollars in sales each year in the United States. But last year, IBISWorld reported that imports now make up the majority of outdoor grill sales in the United States, and Consumer Reports suggests that most are, in fact, made in China. Even Weber-Stephen, one of the oldest American grill companies, has moved production for a 2017 model of one of its popular lines of outdoor grills to China.

Even new American flags — in a small way — benefit Chinese manufacturers. April, May, and June are the busiest months for flag sales, which makes sense since Memorial Day and Independence Day are the most popular times to fly the Stars and Stripes. But while today the United States is a net exporter of the flag (a positive change from three years ago), America still imports $5.4 million worth of its own banner, with the vast majority of these imported flags ($5.3 million) coming from China.

While “Made in the USA” makes for a popular slogan, American consumers have repeatedly proven that what matters most is getting a good price. That often means buying from China. Even Donald Trump, who preached “Buy American” on the campaign trail, in his inauguration speech, in his February address to Congress, and in a recent, mostly symbolic executive order, found it difficult to buy all American for his first White House congressional picnic a couple of weeks ago.

Food for that picnic was grilled over imported coals — not from China, but from Mexico.


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DC9bakLWAAEivxP.jpg
View image on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JonLemire/status/878020966940651520/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.vox.com%2Fpolicy-and-politics%2F2017%2F7%2F3%2F15915266%2Ffourth-of-july-made-in-china)
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The charcoal at the White House for apparent use at tonight's Congressional picnic is a product of Mexico
3:44 PM - 22 Jun 2017
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The 4th of July (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?23611-Happy-4th-of-July!) Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)

Jimbo
07-05-2017, 08:00 AM
It's really sadly ironic (and a bit funny) that American companies that sell U.S. flags have been contracting to have them made in China for years.

On another note, on bladeforums, someone started a thread to see how many people who, out of patriotism, will strictly carry U.S.-made knives for the month of July. Considering that (for only one example) most if not all of the titanium in the U.S. comes from Russia, then all of the folders famously 'made in the USA' that utilize titanium in their handles, liners/liner locks/frame locks and pocket clips are already not 100% American materials. Just like I've heard that Leatherman's USA-made tools have parts from China, as well as parts from and/or some assembly done in Mexico. The Apple iPad I'm typing this on (and almost certainly whatever device Trump tweets on) is made in China.

Those who want to buy/use strictly 'Murican-made seem to have trouble realizing that it's a global economy.

GeneChing
08-09-2017, 07:35 AM
Step inside the ‘Made in China’ capital of the world, where you can find everything from pacifiers to Christmas ornaments (http://www.businessinsider.com/made-in-china-products-yiwu-international-trade-city-2017-8/#yiwu-international-trade-city-is-the-worlds-largest-wholesale-market-located-in-yiwu-zhejiang-china-1)
Talia Lakritz, INSIDER

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d127fa6b4c3a477b8f-2400/dscf7045.jpg
Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

The INSIDER Summary:
Yiwu International Trade City in Yiwu, China, is known as "Commodity City."
It's the world's largest wholesale market.
Photographer Raffaele Petralla spent a month documenting the items sold there and the people who sell them.

If you've ever bought Christmas decorations or children's toys, chances are they came from Yiwu, China.

Yiwu International Trade City, known as "Commodity City," is home to the world's largest wholesale market — 46 million square feet, to be exact, with over 62,000 booths inside. About 65-70% of these products are exported to over 215 countries and regions.

When photographer Raffaele Petralla read about Commodity City in "Confessions of an Eco-Sinner" by Fred Pierce, he knew he wanted to document the streets lined with wholesale merchandise and the people who call the city home.

Here are his incredible photos of the place where most "Made in China" products come from.

Yiwu International Trade City is the world's largest wholesale market located in Yiwu, Zhejiang, China.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b88-1200/yiwu-international-trade-city-is-the-worlds-largest-wholesale-market-located-in-yiwu-zhejiang-china.jpg
Skyline of the new offices of the Trade Market Center in Yiwu City.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

Its five districts total 46 million square feet and house 62,000 booths.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b89-1200/its-five-districts-total-46-million-square-feet-and-house-62000-booths.jpg
A wholesaler in the exhibition space inside the Market Trade Center.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

There are 400,000 different kids of products available to order at wholesale prices.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b8a-1200/there-are-400000-different-kids-of-products-available-to-order-at-wholesale-prices.jpg
Deep in the toy district.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

About 65-70% of what's sold there is exported.

http://static4.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b8b-1200/about-65-70-of-whats-sold-there-is-exported.jpg
A wholesale dealer of head coverings for Muslim women.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

It's the origin of 60% of the world's Christmas decorations.

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b8c-1200/its-the-origin-of-60-of-the-worlds-christmas-decorations.jpg
Business owner Uan Xiao Fyn posing in one of his warehouses of Christmas ornaments.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

continued next post

GeneChing
08-09-2017, 07:36 AM
Photographer Raffaele Petralla spent a month documenting the items sold there and the people who sell them.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b8d-1200/photographer-raffaele-petralla-spent-a-month-documenting-the-items-sold-there-and-the-people-who-sell-them.jpg
An exhibition store of toy guns.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

He said most of the shopkeepers are relatives or friends of the owners of the companies that produce the goods.

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d027fa6b4c3a477b8e-1200/he-said-most-of-the-shopkeepers-are-relatives-or-friends-of-the-owners-of-the-companies-that-produce-the-goods.jpg
A stand displaying children's costumes in the toy district.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

They work long hours, from eight in the morning until 10 at night.

http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d127fa6b4c3a477b8f-1200/they-work-long-hours-from-eight-in-the-morning-until-10-at-night.jpg
A businessman in the toy district.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

Petralla was drawn to the seemingly infinite nature of the materials.

http://static6.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d127fa6b4c3a477b90-1200/petralla-was-drawn-to-the-seemingly-infinite-nature-of-the-materials.jpg
A stand of kites.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

"I decided to focus on the multiplicity of products, on their seriality, the very bright colors of plastic products," he told INSIDER in an email.

http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d127fa6b4c3a477b91-1200/i-decided-to-focus-on-the-multiplicity-of-products-on-their-seriality-the-very-bright-colors-of-plastic-products-he-told-insider-in-an-email.jpg
A wholesale stand of balls in the toy district.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

He was also surprised by how many shops sold fake plants.

http://static2.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d127fa6b4c3a477b92-1200/he-was-also-surprised-by-how-many-shops-sold-fake-plants.jpg
A stand selling fake plants.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

Of course, he made sure to bring back gifts for his grandchildren.

http://static5.businessinsider.com/image/598a29d127fa6b4c3a477b93-1200/of-course-he-made-sure-to-bring-back-gifts-for-his-grandchildren.jpg
A worker in a factory of inflatable plastic bats for children.Courtesy Raffaele Petralla

The remote-controlled drones he bought "were nice, very cheap, and my grandchildren were very happy," he said. "The same product was a 'top product' for Christmas in Italy, and, in fact, I found the same toys in Italy at much higher prices."

Yiwu looks awesome and terrifying.

GeneChing
08-16-2017, 08:12 AM
North Korea factories humming with ‘Made in China’ clothes, traders say (http://www.nationnews.com/nationnews/news/99642/north-korea-factories-humming-china-clothes-traders)
REUTERS,
Added 14 August 2017

http://www.nationnews.com/IMG/803/77803/north-korea-factory-workers-0814175032-450x303.gif?1502664988
North Korean workers make soccer shoes inside a temporary factory at a rural village on the edge of Dandong, Liaoning province, China, October 24, 2012. (Reuters)

DANDONG, China – Chinese textile firms are increasingly using North Korean factories to take advantage of cheaper labour across the border, traders and businesses in the border city of Dandong told Reuters.
The clothes made in North Korea are labelled “Made in China” and exported across the world, they said.
Using North Korea to produce cheap clothes for sale around the globe shows that for every door that is closed by ever-tightening United Nations sanctions another one may open. The UN sanctions, introduced to punish North Korea for its missile and nuclear programmes, do not include any bans on textile exports.
“We take orders from all over the world,” said one Korean-Chinese businessman in Dandong, the Chinese border city where the majority of North Korea trade passes through. Like many people Reuters interviewed for this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Dozens of clothing agents operate in Dandong, acting as go-betweens for Chinese clothing suppliers and buyers from the United States, Europe, Japan, South Korea, Canada and Russia, the businessman said.
“We will ask the Chinese suppliers who work with us if they plan on being open with their client – sometimes the final buyer won’t realise their clothes are being made in North Korea. It’s extremely sensitive,” he said.
Textiles were North Korea’s second-biggest export after coal and other minerals in 2016, totalling $752 million, according to data from the Korea Trade-Investment Promotion Agency. Total exports from North Korea in 2016 rose 4.6 per cent to $2.82 billion.
The latest UN sanctions, agreed earlier this month, have completely banned coal exports now.
Its flourishing textiles industry shows how impoverished North Korea has adapted, with a limited embrace of market reforms, to sanctions since 2006 when it first tested a nuclear device. The industry also shows the extent to which North Korea relies on China as an economic lifeline, even as US President Donald Trump piles pressure on Beijing to do more to rein in its neighbour’s weapons programmes.
Chinese exports to North Korea rose almost 30 per cent to $1.67 billion in the first half of the year, largely driven by textile materials and other traditional labour-intensive goods not included on the United Nations embargo list, Chinese customs spokesman Huang Songping told reporters.
Chinese suppliers send fabrics and other raw materials required for manufacturing clothing to North Korean factories across the border where garments are assembled and exported. (Reuters)


I wonder if Ivanka's clothing line traces back to N.K.

GeneChing
09-27-2017, 08:54 AM
There's a 21 photo gallery on the Nat Geo site - most are redundant to the post above.


Where Your ‘Made In China’ Trinkets Are Actually Made (http://www.nationalgeographic.com/photography/proof/2017/09/yiwu-china-commodities-market/)
One city in China makes many of the low-cost products sold everywhere on earth.

http://www.nationalgeographic.com/content/dam/photography/PROOF/2017/August/yiwu_commodities_china/1-china-commodities-market-DSCF6246-09.ngsversion.1504798225657.adapt.676.1.jpg
A shopkeeper sits at his stall which sells artificial plants at wholesale at the Market Trade Center
PHOTOGRAPH BY RAFFAELE PETRALLA

By Daniel Stone
Photographs by Raffaele Petralla
PUBLISHED SEPTEMBER 7, 2017

Made in China. The three ubiquitous words on inexpensive products all over the world. Toothpicks, tennis rackets, birthday candles, air fresheners. It all comes from China, but much of it—on the order of 60 percent of the worlds cheap consumable goods—comes from just one city: Yiwu.

Yiwu is a small town by Chinese standards (pop. 1.2 million). But it’s globally significant to anyone who has ever bought socks, zippers, or a cheap last-minute Halloween costume.

The city attracts business visitors from all over the world. Buyers come year-round to survey goods and make bulk orders that end up in hardware stores, souvenir shops, and big-box retailers on every continent. According to one estimate by a local trade group, more than 60 percent of all Christmas decorations, especially lights, originate in Yiwu.

“Christmas starts in September there,” says Raffaele Petralla, a photographer who visited Yiwu to see the city of trinkets up close. “Christmas in China was once forbidden, during the years of communism, but now they see it as a big opportunity to sell things.”

The Christmas market covers an area larger than a stadium. There’s also a market for toys, one specifically for zippers, and another for socks. The largest market, a hodge podge with a little of everything, stands on 640 acres and holds more than 58,000 individual stalls.

Factories in Yiwu make many of the goods, but the spirit of production also extends to the suburbs and countryside, where people sew in their own homes and then sell the products to a market, where a person takes a cut to sell them to a buyer from, say, Korea, Japan, or the United States. By one estimate, more than 1,000 shipping containers leave Yiwu each day for foreign ports.

Being around so many cheap products began to feel surreal for Petralla. Things were for sale everywhere, in stories, on the sidewalk, even in the streets. He passed stalls full of people selling the same objects, all produced nearby. Squirt guns, soccer balls, jewelry, stuffed animals, hair ties, phone cases. Everything for sale for pennies.

Like many Chinese cities, Yiwu’s economy was once powered mainly by agriculture, producing things like chicken and sugar. Beginning in the 1950s, the city began to transition to production center for tradable goods. City officials invested in infrastructure and factories. Farm workers who might’ve moved away were put to work making things that could be sold cheaply on the international market.

As Yiwu has built its 21st-century economy on quantity, it has in the past few decades begun to invest more in quality as well. In 2005, one maker of socks invested more than $100 million to make “the most advanced set of socks,” built more durably and with experimental materials. The same occurred for zippers, once cheap and disposable, after significant investment to make them sleeker and stronger.

So much production and commerce results in a culture of competitiveness, where people try to outsell their neighbors.

But what unites everyone seems to be pride in making things that are consumed everywhere on the planet. “From the poorest people to the richest, everyone across every social class in Yiwu seemed very proud of their production,” says Petralla. Belts, fishing rods, mittens, One city’s work, reproduced billions of times.

Raffaele Petralla is a Rome-based photographer and is represented by Prospekt Photo.

Daniel Stone is an editor for National Geographic magazine, where he covers science, technology, and agriculture. His book, The Food Explorer, on the life and adventures of food spy David Fairchild, will be published by Dutton (Penguin Random House) in 2018.

GeneChing
10-17-2017, 09:44 AM
This thread has taken some twisty turns - there's a very topical piece to be written here just by compiling it. That's what I aspire to with all the OT threads. :cool:


Phillip Lim talks about ‘Made in China’ stigma and being Chinese at Shanghai Fashion Week (http://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-luxury/article/2115655/phillip-lim-talks-about-made-china-stigma-and-being-chinese)
The Asian American designer feels a strong connection to China and wants to change the stereotypical view of manufacturing in the country as poor-quality
PUBLISHED : Tuesday, 17 October, 2017, 12:46pm
UPDATED : Tuesday, 17 October, 2017, 4:51pm

https://cdn3.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/980x551/public/images/methode/2017/10/17/e6d3dde6-b2e4-11e7-95c2-e7a557915c7a_1280x720_163325.JPG

Jing Zhang
http://twitter.com/jingerzhanger
jing.zhang@scmp.com

“People are always asking me, ‘are you Thai, are you Chinese, are American, what are you?’,” says Asian American designer Phillip Lim from the stage at the Business of Fashion’s (BoF) first China Summit.
He joins a gathering of industry heavyweights and insiders, led by BoF founder Imran Amed, at the one-day event exploring the China and global markets and unpacking China’s unexpected power moves in fashion.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/17/1751335e-b210-11e7-95c2-e7a557915c7a_972x_163325.JPG
A look by 3.1 Phillip Lim at New York Fashion Week in September. Photo: EPA

And while he identifies with all those things, Lim is today, at Shanghai Fashion Week, exploring his China connection. “I’m Chinese and I get asked a lot how does it feel to be Chinese but not to be from here”.
“In Chinese culture, things are not spoken. Growing up in the West, you’re so used to being vocal,” he says, “but in Chinese families, at home it’s always about respect and things you won’t have to be told. A lot of values and nuances … there’s humility and hard work.”
Lim is from an ethnically Chinese family, but was born in Thailand and grew up in the US, where his eponymous 3.1 Phillip Lim fashion label is based. His business partner Wen Zhou is from Ningbo in Zhejiang, eastern China.
The pair’s covetable fashion brand is among hundreds of American labels eyeing the massive China market as bricks-and-mortar fashion retailing struggles back home. But with their natural links to China, Lim and Wen have an advantage – they already operate four stores in the country, and China’s online e-commerce giant JD.com sponsored the label’s most recent New York Fashion Week show.

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/17/f82472fe-b2e4-11e7-95c2-e7a557915c7a_972x_163325.JPG
Lim collaborated with floral artist Mark Colle on an exhibition in Shanghai that was abstracted from his spring-summer 2018 collection.

In Shanghai, Lim worked with floral artist Mark Colle on a floral exhibition abstracted from his spring-summer 2018 collection, accompanied by a stunning interactive music element.
“It’s in my blood,” he says. “As I get older and older I feel more connected [to China] … Wen and I are children of immigrants, first-generation Chinese immigrants. We’re proud of who we are.”
Lim and Wen started their company at a time when New York’s scene seemed to be flush with new fashion brands led by talented Asian American creative directors such as Alexander Wang, Jason Wu and Peter Som. With a path paved by the previous generation, including Vera Wang, Anna Sui and Vivienne Tam, New York seemed the epicentre not only of nouveau 21st century American style, but also an urbane Asian American movement.
Lim’s elegant, cool-girl chic is founded on expert, modern tailoring and sumptuous fabrications – making the award-winning designer one of the most name-checked brands in New York.
“For us being ‘Made in China’ was a privileged thing – our products were being made by the most skilful, talented people,” says Lim. He acknowledges that it can be difficult within the luxury market to “counter the stereotype that ‘Made in China’ is subpar and secondary”.

https://cdn2.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/17/0ea90006-b210-11e7-95c2-e7a557915c7a_972x_163325.JPG
A look from 3.1 Phillip Lim’s women's spring-summer 2018 collection. Photo: Reuters

Turn the clock back several years and you find few brands, even Asian American ones, who would openly admit, let alone celebrate the fact that they manufactured in China. The stigma attached to “Made in China” is in fact only just beginning to fade.
“It’s going to take a long time [for this to change]. People still see it as a place that’s fast and huge and a black hole,” the designer says. “Our Chinese-based factories are so used to clients who just want cheap, fast and large quantities” that the skill of many of those workers was not fully developed or valued.
Lim explored these possibilities at his Chinese factory, by asking staff to make a T-shirt by hand.
“At first they were trying to tell me to machine-make it, as it would be faster and cheaper, but I insisted,” recalls Lim. The results? “That T-shirt became my signature,” Lim says with a smile.

https://cdn4.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2017/10/17/22d1637a-b210-11e7-95c2-e7a557915c7a_972x_163325.JPG
Stripes and more stripes at 3.1 Phillip Lim’s spring-summer 2018 women’s show. Photo: EPA

Lim, and a handful of others, are in an enviable position in fashion. Having established themselves on the global stage, their shift to China is smoother “because we are the customer, we are Chinese”. Still, the independent label is in no rush to open a 3.1 Phillip Lim store on every Chinese high street. The approach will be more tortoise than hare.
“It is still quite daunting, it’s a huge marketplace. We try to approach it more like a boutique: slow and steady, otherwise you can become a victim.”

GeneChing
10-25-2017, 08:42 AM
They are kidding people who don't normally read the alphabet. Just imagine the reverse using Chinese characters. :rolleyes:


Who are they kidding? Hilarious pictures of made-in-China knockoffs show 'Nibe' sneakers, 'Paradi' handbags and 'Owega' watch shops (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4997564/Made-China-knockoffs-Paradi-handbags-more.html)
Counterfeit goods that are made in China took designs and names of the original
They usually sell at a much cheaper price, or being exported to other countries
Pictures emerged showing a collection of different 'Made-in-China' knockoffs
By Tiffany Lo For Mailonline
PUBLISHED: 11:22 EDT, 19 October 2017 | UPDATED: 11:21 EDT, 20 October 2017

Over the years, the Chinese commercial market has been expanding and the nation has been exporting goods to other countries.

It's not surprising to see Chinese companies producing counterfeits after some of the world's most famous brands.

Whilst some of these knockoffs might have good quality, others could get so wrong that they appear to be hilarious.

Such fake products range from an Owega (Omega) watch, a pair of Nibe (Nike) shoes to a Pearlboy (Playboy) shop.

According to United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, counterfeit goods that trade from southeast Asia to other countries are worth about 24.4 billion USD ( £18.51 bn) in a year.

Read on below to find out more 'Made in China' knockoffs.

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC57500000578-0-image-a-32_1508424590263.jpg
Chinese company Chongqing Lifan made a car model copying BMW's MINI Cooper

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC52100000578-0-image-m-34_1508424690463.jpg
A Playboy-like clothing brand called Pearlboy that sells down jackets in China

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC48100000578-0-image-a-35_1508424789627.jpg
The headphone set is printed with a trademark which was supposed to say 'Sony'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/14/457CC4F900000578-0-image-a-3_1508420836310.jpg
Because everything looks better when it's complete: The AEIPPIE logo is not bitten off

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/14/457CC50E00000578-0-image-a-4_1508421238414.jpg
Corcs clogs! These popular shoes looks as real as the official brand, but not the spelling

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC52900000578-0-image-a-5_1508421603691.jpg
Will young people have more fun playing Grand Theft Auto on their POP Station Portable?

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC49900000578-0-image-m-9_1508422038808.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC5A300000578-0-image-a-10_1508422046240.jpg
The fake Heineken, called Heimekem (left), guarantees that customers would enjoy premium quality. Mr Jack Daniel would not approve for this knock-off version whiskey (right)

continued next post

GeneChing
10-25-2017, 08:43 AM
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC51900000578-0-image-a-11_1508422763823.jpg
When Panasonic battery marks to perform 'super heavy duty', a PenesamiG battery can only be used for 'general purpose'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC49100000578-0-image-a-13_1508422967211.jpg
Devils wear Paradi? Copying a similar font as the luxurious Prada, Paradi offers casual wear

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC54500000578-0-image-a-14_1508423081358.jpg
Two horses, one message: This jeans brand gives a cartoon-like imitation of the Levi Strauss & Co classic trademark

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC58900000578-0-image-a-17_1508423323057.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC58600000578-0-image-m-18_1508423331891.jpg
Impossible is nothing: Chinese workers have redesigned the logo of German sports brand Adidas in many amusing way (left and right)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC56A00000578-0-image-a-19_1508423455284.jpg
Just do it! The signature swoosh of Nike is being used as the Chinese knock-off 'Nire'

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC54100000578-0-image-a-20_1508423462374.jpg
Don't mind the swoosh! This shop, Nibe, changes the name and design of popular brand Nike

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC55100000578-0-image-a-26_1508423820786.jpg
Because one swoosh is not enough, you need two to swirl around a basketball continued next post

GeneChing
10-25-2017, 08:43 AM
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC53100000578-0-Nobody_s_Lovin_It_People_will_get_confused_if_fast _food_are_sold-a-25_1508423816330.jpg
Nobody's Lovin' It! A jewellery and jade shop used the iconic McDonald's yellow arches

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC59300000578-0-When_Burger_King_said_you_can_have_it_your_way_Kin g_Burger_surel-m-30_1508424160482.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC55700000578-0-image-a-31_1508424170172.jpg
When Burger King said you can 'have it your way', King Burger surely takes the word in account (left). If you can't afford an Omega, try this Owega store (right)

http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC47000000578-0-image-m-42_1508425065125.jpghttp://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/10/19/15/457CC48900000578-0-image-a-43_1508425072691.jpg
A value pack of fake Gillette', called GilnGhey, that comes with a razor, blades and shaving cream (left); China's clothing brand 'HengHee' took the inspiration from Lacoste (right)



Knock Offs (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57980-Chinese-Counterfeits-Fakes-amp-Knock-Offs) - Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China) of course.[

GeneChing
10-30-2017, 08:55 AM
I predict the tide will start to turn on this. Like I've often said - if China could master quality control, they could rule the world of merchandise. But we're still a long way off from that. :o


Many Chinese Netizens Agree With Worldwide Survey Downgrading ‘Made in China’ Label (https://www.theepochtimes.com/many-chinese-netizens-agree-with-worldwide-survey-downgrading-made-in-china-label_2344645.html)
By Frank Fang, Epoch Times
October 29, 2017 1:41 pm Last Updated: October 30, 2017 10:16 am

https://www.theepochtimes.com/assets/uploads/2017/10/29/GettyImages-859647768-700x420.jpg
A Chinese worker makes stuffed panda toys for export at a toy factory in Lianyungang, Jiangsu Province on Oct. 9, 2017. A recent survey placed China at the bottom of a “Made-in-Country Index.” (STR/AFP/Getty Images)

Perhaps it doesn’t come as a shock when an international survey shows that the “Made in China” label does not generate the highest consumer confidence. However, when the product tag from the Middle Kingdom fell behind that of Bangladesh, the news generated a lot of anger on Chinese social media. For some, they couldn’t agree more with the low ranking.

The survey, carried out by German-based data provider Statista, asked 43,034 people in 52 countries about their perception of products made in three countries, giving a total of 129,102 assessments, with each country assessed by at least 2,500 people. The resulting Made-in-Country-Index (MICI) ranked Germany first, followed by Switzerland and the European Union. While the United States came in at eighth, tied with Japan and France, China came in at 49th.

Survey participants perceived products from Germany to possess high quality and high-security standards, while Japanese products were mostly associated with advanced technology. As for products made in China, they were connected to a very good price-performance ratio.

On China’s social media, many netizens reacted with outrage—some accused the survey of being Western propaganda with fake data, while others suggested that Western research institutions were not very trustworthy.

Quite a few netizens, however, voiced their approval of the low ranking by pointing out problems in China, on the comment section of the Chinese news portal Sina.

“Even gutter oil and dead pork cannot be contained. It is lucky to even make the ranking,” wrote a netizen with the moniker “Duan Shu An” from Hebei Province.

Another netizen from Hubei Province wrote, “This country is built on knockoff products. And there is not much to complain about when there are so few recognizable [Chinese] brands … People making fake products are becoming so rich, and those with some integrity in running their businesses are on the brink of bankruptcy.”

For years, China has been plagued by food problems: “mutton meat” made from rats, expired meat in McDonald’s burgers, plastic rice, and gel-injected shrimps, to provide a few examples.

The lack of trust with domestic products has led many Chinese to scoop up everything—from baby formula to toilet seats, and rice cookers to diapers—when they travel abroad. The low confidence in locally-made products has also slowed down the Chinese economy.

But in one incident, fake products turned out to be a life-saver. In March 2016, a man from Shandong Province tried to kill himself by swallowing over 200 sleeping pills. However, he woke up after a short sleep—a hospital visit afterward confirmed that the pills he had taken were fake.

GeneChing
10-31-2017, 08:52 AM
Intriguing article - wonder how this affects Hindu Feng Shui (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?9565-Feng-Shui)?


MAKE IN INDIA?
Seven reasons why Chinese-made Hindu gods rule Indian markets (https://qz.com/1114837/to-understand-why-modis-make-in-india-has-failed-look-at-china/)

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/toys.jpg?quality=80&strip=all&w=1600
China's own Make in India. (AP photo/Gurinder Osan)

WRITTEN BY
Farok J Contractor
October 31, 2017 Quartz India

Gaily coloured resin figurines of Hindu gods are plentiful in India’s hundreds of thousands of bazaars. Most shopkeepers do not know where the figurines were manufactured or, if they do, will not tell. India increasingly imports mass-produced idols of Hindu deities from China—by the millions since 2000.
Demand is growing for such household deities, along with rising incomes and a spirit of Hindu nationalism. Most Indians, 82% of the population, practice Hinduism and have a prayer area in their home. Even the poor—about 500 million Indians earn less than $2.75 per day—can afford a few such items, with retail prices starting at $3.
Questions emerge about why don’t Indians manufacture their own figurines and how do Chinese producers undersell local manufacturers, considering transportation and a tariff of 10%? Some of the merchandise made in China, including locks or jewelry, is made with raw materials supplied by India. Indian shops and street vendors are awash with inexpensive Chinese goods of reasonable quality including LED lighting, electronics, and smartphones. India has talented and hard-working entrepreneurs, and as labor costs escalate in China, India could also become a “manufacturer for the world.”
But in 2016, Indian merchandise exports to the world were $264 billion, while China’s were $2,098 billion. The China-India bilateral trade balance is skewed in favor of China by a ratio of 4 to 1 overall. For goods, the imbalance is even worse, about six to one.
India’s government under Narendra Modi had hoped to turn such imbalances around by launching the “Make-in-India” campaign in September 2014, taking advantage of his country’s low labor costs for manufacturing: 92 cents per hour compared to China’s more than $4 per hour for workers along the eastern seaboard, where most Chinese manufacturing takes place, according to the Conference Board.

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/indiatradecontractoroct2017.png?w=640
Trade deficit in goods: India’s total trade has increased in recent years, but negative trade balances with China still linger (source: The Economic Times, India).

India’s economists scramble to explain the ballooning trade deficit, and here are seven leading factors:

Scale: Most manufacturing in China is done on a large scale—for example, an Indian producer may have three plastic injection-molding machines, whereas a Chinese counterpart has more than 70. Larger scale means that overhead and fixed costs can be spread over more units of production, thereby reducing the cost per unit.

Productivity: A McKinsey report notes that “…workers in India’s manufacturing sector are almost four and five times less productive, on average, than their counterparts in Thailand and China, respectively.” Chinese workers may be paid four times the Indian hourly wage, but if output per worker is more than five times greater compared with workers in India, then China has a competitive advantage. Analysts suggest the problem rests with management and regulations, not labor. According to the McKinsey report, Indian factories lag in automated equipment, capacity utilization, supply chains, and quality control. For example, few successful factory owners expand plants beyond 99 workers. Labor regulations are more complicated for plants with more than 100 employees where government approval is required under the Industrial Disputes Act of 1947 before laying off any employee, even if demand drops. Firms can go bankrupt, forced to pay monthly wages for years following a plant closure. Likewise, the Contract Labor Act of 1970 requires government and employee approval for simple changes in an employee’s job description or duties.

Corruption: India and China both rank 79th out of 176 countries in Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index 2016. The tie in rank masks differences. Corruption in China occurs at a higher level, with less frequency and little impact on day-to-day operations. By contrast, bribery in India is petty and frequent, impinging on everyday actions such as getting an electricity connection, changing a job description, or paying a bill. Ultimately, India’s pervasive corruption is more psychologically and economically debilitating than China’s.
The Modi government has promised to amend labor laws to reduce the number of strikes and slow-downs. With more than 16,000 distinct unions, each affiliated with a plethora of political parties, the Indian economy loses up to 23 million person-days each year from labor actions. China does not release such figures, but its unions report to the single government-controlled All-China Federation of Trade Unions.

Transport: The distance from Guangzhou in China to Mumbai is five times greater than that between Delhi to Mumbai. But cargo costs for the 7,300 kilometers by sea are roughly comparable to truck freight for the internal, 1,400 kilometers by road. Assuming 25,000 Hindu figurines per container, with ocean freight costs averaging $1,000 per container from Guangzhou to Mumbai, the transport cost per unit is around 4 US cents. Assuming two 9 ton capacity trucks needed between Delhi and Mumbai, the cost per unit is also just under 4 cents, for less than one-fifth the distance.

Electricity: Nominally speaking, electricity costs for industry are comparable in China and India at about 8 cents per kilowatt hour. But Chinese businesses enjoy a continuous supply of power whereas India suffers from chronic blackouts and shortages because demand outstrips supply. Some factories have power cut off for a few hours each day. Even worse, interruptions are often not announced in advance, causing havoc with production schedules.

Bureaucracy: The real constraint on starting a new business in India is its multiethnic, democratic, and compassionate traditions, manifested in regulatory procedures that continuously hamper business operations. For example, acquiring land is more difficult in India than in China. Both countries have populations of more than 1 billion, but India has a third of China’s total land mass. Delays and bureaucracy, as much as costs, add impediments to expanding in India. By contrast, government fiat in China is sufficient to immediately displace thousands, if needed.

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/indiatradeworldbankcontractoroct20171.png?w=640
Ease of doing business: The World Bank survey examines export/import procedures across 189 nations including costs of loading containers at port, number of forms required by each authority and approval times (Source: World Bank, 2016 data)

The World Bank compares 189 nations on “Ease of Doing Business” and shows a more benign business climate for China with fewer regulations, lower costs of compliance, shorter times for approvals, and better legal recourse. On most indicators, Chinese businesses have a much easier time than their Indian counterparts in securing permits with fewer procedures.

Subsidies: Many of the 50-odd companies in China that produce Hindu figurines attend trade fairs not only in India, but also in Frankfurt and Las Vegas. Besides Hindu deities, they produce Christian and Buddhist figures and other household decorations. Marketing expenses are tax deductible, sometimes subsidized, and a culture of international marketing savvy extends to even smaller enterprises in China.
Like many other nations, China supports its exporters. Around 45% of Chinese company output is state-owned. Favored companies can get inexpensive land, low borrowing rates, and, in some cases, subsidized power and assurances of government purchases of future output. The Wall Street Journal suggests that as much as 14% of listed, non-financial companies’ profits can be attributed to government support.
Of course, India also provides export-oriented incentives—including rebates on tariffs, land and tax incentives in free trade zones, reduced state tax levies, financial support for attendance at international trade fairs, market development grants, and low-cost loans.
All said however, subsidies and incentives represent but a small part of the explanation for China’s export success. Despite Modi’s “Make in India” campaign, India’s trade imbalance with China and the world has only worsened. Eliminating unnecessary bureaucratic interference could help to turn India into a factory for the world someday.

This piece was first published on YaleGlobal Online. We welcome your comments at ideas.india@qz.com.

GeneChing
01-18-2018, 09:43 AM
BIG TECH BACKLASH 6 hours ago
Apple supply workers describe noxious hazards, unsafe conditions at China factory (http://www.foxnews.com/tech/2018/01/18/apple-supply-workers-describe-noxious-hazards-unsafe-conditions-at-china-factory.html)
Christopher Carbone By Christopher Carbone | Fox News

http://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxnews.com/content/fox-news/tech/2018/01/18/apple-supply-workers-describe-noxious-hazards-unsafe-conditions-at-china-factory/_jcr_content/par/featured_image/media-0.img.jpg/931/524/1516217735811.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
A report by China Labor Watch alleges that working conditions at an Apple supplier factory are not safe. (Reuters)

Workers at a Chinese company that produces iPhone casings for Apple stand for up to 10 hours per day in over-heated spaces, handling noxious chemicals sometimes without proper protection.

The conditions at Catcher Technology—described in a report by the advocacy group China Labor Watch and in interviews with Bloomberg News—show the ugly side of the tech boom that has powered China’s economy and helped push global stock markets to new highs.

The CLW report also found that at least one worker had severe respiratory issues due to the factory, basic safety equipment is not always available, the factory does not specify the hazards of any chemicals that employees work with, worker dorms do not have emergency exits, the factory is polluting the environment with wastewater and the factory’s floor is covered in slippery oil.

China Labor Watch reports that noise level in the factory is about 80 decibels or more, which is average for factories. Hundreds of employees reportedly work in a space where the main door only opens 12 inches and workers who are off-duty stay in dorms without hot water or access to showers.

http://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxnews.com/content/fox-news/tech/2018/01/18/apple-supply-workers-describe-noxious-hazards-unsafe-conditions-at-china-factory/_jcr_content/article-text/article-par-5/inline_spotlight_ima/image.img.jpg/612/344/1516217808573.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
Catcher Technology, a supplier for Apple, has not kept its factory safe for workers, according to a new report. (Reuters)

“My hands turned bloodless white after a day of work,” one of the workers, who makes a little over 4,000 yuan a month (just over $2 an hour), told Bloomberg. She turned to Catcher because her husband’s home-decorating business was struggling. “I only tell good things to my family and keep the sufferings like this for myself.”

This isn’t the first time Apple has been called out regarding conditions in Chinese factories that make its highly-profitable smartphones.

The tech giant spent years upbraiding manufacturers after a rash of suicides at its main partner, Foxconn Technology Group, in 2010 provoked outrage over the harsh working environments in which its upscale gadgets were made. Eventually, Foxconn made improvements to its locations and Apple started regular audits of all its main suppliers.

However, Apple’s supply chain is so gigantic that adhering to better standards is extremely difficult. The company, which sells more than 200 million smartphones per year, outsources a good amount of its manufacturing as a way to increase profits.

An Apple spokesperson told Bloomberg that the company has its own employees at Catcher facilities, but sent an additional team to audit the complex upon hearing of the CLW’s impending report. After interviewing 150 people, the Apple team found no evidence of violations of its standards, she added. Catcher, which gets almost two-thirds of sales from Apple, said in a separate statement it too investigated but also found nothing to suggest it had breached its client’s code of conduct.

“We know our work is never done and we investigate each and every allegation that’s made. We remain dedicated to doing all we can to protect the workers in our supply chain,” the Apple spokeswoman added.

Christopher Carbone is a reporter for FoxNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @christocarbone.

thread: Apple/Mac (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?2691-Apple-Mac)
thread: China's Pollution Problem (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?67175-China-s-Pollution-problem)
thread: Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)

GeneChing
01-31-2018, 02:46 PM
The kimchi you eat outside of Korea is probably made in China (https://qz.com/1183632/the-kimchi-you-eat-outside-of-korea-is-probably-made-in-china/)
Kimchi and other food are sold at a market in Shenyang's Xita District, Liaoning province, China November 1, 2017. Picture taken November 1, 2017.

https://qzprod.files.wordpress.com/2018/01/made-in-china-kimchi-south-korea-2018-e1516335728971.jpg
Not made in its hometown. (Reuters/Sue-Lin Wong)

WRITTEN BY Echo Huang
January 19, 2018

South Korea counts the art of kimchi making as part of its unique cultural heritage. But it’s now running a nearly $50 million kimchi trade deficit. That means Koreans are eating more non-Korean kimchi than they used to—and so are you.

South Korea spent around $129 million in 2017 to purchase 275,000 metric tons foreign kimchi, more than 11 times the amount it exported, according to data released Wednesday (Jan. 17) by the Korea Customs Service. Meanwhile its exports of the spicy fermented cabbage only came to $81 million. The result? A staggering $47.3 million kimchi trade deficit, with about 99% of the imports coming from China.

South Korea’s been running kimchi deficits every year since 2006, except for 2009, according to the customs agency, which began tracking the data in 2000. That only time South Korea managed to beat the kimchi deficit was in 2009, when the country’s kimchi import value went down because of the strong performance of the Chinese currency’s strength that year, noted the International Monetary Fund.

The rest of the time, South Korean kimchi just can’t beat Chinese kimchi’s prices. As of 2016, the kimchi average export price was $3.36 per kilogram (2.2 lbs) compared with the $0.5 per kilo import price, according to the Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation, a Seoul-based multinational exporting group.

South Koreans ate some 1.85 million metric tons of kimchi a year in 2016, or nearly 80 pounds a person. At home, South Koreans may still be largely eating home-made kimchi, or domestically produced stuff. But South Korean local restaurants have opted for the cheaper fermented cabbage. In Yanji, a Chinese city that borders North Korea, Jingangshan, one of the largest local manufacturers, alone produces 20 tons (22 metric tons) of kimchi every day, and most of that will end up on dinner tables in South Korea’s restaurants.

Weak demand from South Korea’s main kimchi export destination, Japan, also made it harder for South Korean imports, noted the Agro-Fisheries & Food Trade Corporation. The firm cited reasons such as Japan’s relatively slow economic growth and its shrinking population in recent years. (Japan once accounted for more than 70% of Korea’s kimchi export market, according to one 2014 estimate. )

Isabella Steger contributed reporting.

80 pounds a person per year. :eek:

Jimbo
01-31-2018, 03:24 PM
80 pounds a person per year. :eek:

I can believe it. IIRC, kimchi is S. Korea's main staple, along with rice. I'm not a big kimchi fan. The best kimchi I ever had was when visiting a friend who was staying in Daejeon, S. Korea. The kimchi had been in a steel pot in the fridge, and it was good, but it was the HOTTEST thing I've ever eaten. This friend was actually Korean-American and she had made it herself. It was so spicy-hot I was sweating, and the weather was cold!

I'm not sure I'd want to eat much imported food from China. I wonder what the lead content is.

GeneChing
04-24-2018, 12:05 PM
How ‘Made in China 2025’ became the real threat in a trade war (http://www.latimes.com/world/asia/la-fg-china-2025-20180424-story.html)
By JESSICA MEYERS
APR 24, 2018 | 3:00 AM | BEIJING

http://www.latimes.com/resizer/z9T4q2khDm9iojD_BfBO6fwSk44=/1400x0/arc-anglerfish-arc2-prod-tronc.s3.amazonaws.com/public/H4YSY66JCZCTVMXYEKVOBP2MQY.jpgAn employee counts money at a bank in Lianyungang, in eastern China's Jiangsu province. In the event of a trade war with the United States, China could resort to devaluing its currency. (Ryan McMorrow / AFP/Getty Images)

China unveiled its plan to dominate the world's most crucial technologies with little international fanfare, another vague, guiding principle in the labyrinth of Communist Party bureaucracy.

Three years later, it's at the core of a trade dispute with Washington that threatens to upend the global economy.

Made in China 2025 is a blueprint for transforming the country from a labor-intensive economy that makes toys and clothes into one that engineers advanced products like robots and electric cars. The Trump administration views it as an attempt to steal U.S. technology and control cutting-edge industries.

Officials aimed to temper the initiative this month when they announced potential tariffs on $50 billion in goods. But Chinese leaders consider the plan key to the country's development and refuse to alter its course.

"China is trying to achieve a clear goal and America wants to stop it," said Andrew Polk, co-founder of Trivium/China, a Beijing research firm. "And that's where the competition is."

Here's what China 2025 is all about and what it means for the trade war:

What's the objective?

The plan funnels billions into 10 industries, everything from biopharmaceuticals to aerospace and telecom devices. It calls for 70% of related materials and parts to be made domestically within a decade. A separate document details China's strategy to lead in artificial intelligence by 2030.

Officials modeled Made in China after a German initiative called Industrie 4.0, which envisions greater automation in manufacturing and "intelligent factories" that operate with wireless sensors. They didn't have much choice. The world's biggest population is aging and rising wages are sending low-tech factories to other countries.

"The labor supply is decreasing," said Ashley Qian Wan, China economist for Bloomberg Economics in Beijing. "And that's going to be a big problem for China."

Why does China care about this so much?

When President Kennedy vowed in 1961 to send a man to the moon, more than 30 million people in China had just starved to death. People's Republic founder Mao Tse-tung closed universities for a decade while researchers invented the Internet in Silicon Valley. China sees itself as simply trying to catch up.

The country developed its first bullet train last year, a 248 mph vehicle named Fuxing, or rejuvenation. Engineers also built the country's first homegrown jetliner, an initial step toward filling Beijing's crowded airport with planes from China rather than America's Boeing or Europe's Airbus.

Officials portray the initiative as transparent and open to foreign companies. They dispel notions that it will monopolize domestic markets. America's dismissal of the plan reinforces a party narrative that the U.S. seeks to undermine China's resurgence.

"We have good reasons to question the legality and legitimacy of many actions taken by the U.S. on the grounds of national security, like its plan to impose high tariffs on many industries of Made in China 2025," Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying told reporters this month. "Clearly, they are targeting something else."

Why is the U.S. concerned about it?

The Trump administration frets about the way China aims to achieve its 2025 ambitions. American businesses have long complained about the sacrifices they make to operate in the world's largest market, including requirements to partner with domestic companies and hand over trade secrets.

Officials fear these techniques will make it impossible for U.S. companies to compete in the world's most critical fields. They also worry massive Chinese government subsidies will lead to a global glut of products that push down prices and hurt U.S. businesses.

"There are things China listed and said, 'We're going to take technology, spend several hundred billion dollars, and dominate the world,'" U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer told senators at a March hearing. "And these are things that if China dominates the world, it's bad for America."

A lengthy U.S. report on China's intellectual property theft — which led to the most recent potential tariffs — mentioned the plan more than 100 times. Officials are exploring multiple ways to restrict Chinese investment in key industries. The administration recently banned ZTE, China's second-largest marker of telecom equipment, from buying American technology.

"Consensus is growing in Washington that the U.S. is in a race with China for technical leadership," Arthur Kroeber, managing director of Beijing research firm Gavekal Dragonomics, said he recently told clients. And some think "economic cold war is the answer."

Is the Trump administration right?

President Xi Jinping recently told a room full of global investors that China would further open its economy. Officials last week said they would phase out rules that require car manufacturers like General Motors to find a local partner before opening factories in China. They plan to end foreign ownership requirements on electric vehicle makers this year.

This wouldn't mark the first time authorities vowed to shed their protectionist shield. The European Union Chamber of Commerce in China complained last year that foreign businesses were suffering from "promise fatigue."

The problem is China's high-tech ambitions include "plans to use instruments such as subsidized credit and market access restrictions," said David Dollar, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and former U.S. Treasury official in China. "It makes sense for the U.S. to oppose this practice."

But Chinese officials see an irony in efforts that try to maintain America's chokehold on innovation. Hua, the Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, likened the U.S. to a "bully — only it can have high tech and others cannot."
Neither side looks willing to bend. Recent talks to deescalate the trade dispute reportedly collapsed over the 2025 plan.

"China views the overall system as inherently unfair because it was created by the current dominant power," Trivium's Polk said. "America should stop complaining and start designing its own industrial policy to counter China."

Meyers is a special correspondent.
Twitter: @jessicameyers

Kemeng Fan, Gaochao Zhang, and Nicole Liu in The Times' Beijing bureau contributed to this report.

A trade war might have profound negative effects on the martial arts supply industry (http://www.martialartsmart.com/) in the U.S.

Kung Fungi
04-26-2018, 07:56 AM
A trade war might have profound negative effects on the martial arts supply industry (http://www.martialartsmart.com/) in the U.S.

Yup. It's so stupid to go to Trade War with the country which produses almost everything :D i think it would be more bad for US than to China. China has many other partners. I've never thought of it, but i suddenly googled an article about chinese-greek relationship (https://tranio.com/articles/greeces-influx-of-chinese-capital_5460/) . Many chinese now prefer to invest in greek real estate:
"According to the Bank of Greece, the total amount invested by Chinese and Hongkongers in Greece between 2005 and 2016 totalled €585.2 million, €346.3 million of which was invested in 2016. However, according to the Institute of International Economic Relations, the real transaction volume is much larger. "

GeneChing
05-17-2018, 08:28 AM
This is a cool story for this thread.


1 day ago
Shipwreck mystery solved thanks to 800-year-old 'Made in China' label (http://www.foxnews.com/science/2018/05/16/shipwreck-mystery-solved-thanks-to-800-year-old-made-in-china-label.html)
By James Rogers | Fox News

800-year-old 'Made in China' label reveals shipwreck secrets

An 800-year-old piece of pottery has helped archaeologists put together fascinating new details about a medieval ship that sank off the coast of Indonesia.

The wooden hull of the ship, which sank in the Java Sea, has long since disintegrated, but its cargo offers vital clues about the vessel.

Fishermen discovered the wreck site in the 1980s and archaeologists have spent decades analyzing objects found on the seabed. Salvage company Pacific Sea Resources recovered the artifacts in the 1990s and donated them to Chicago’s Field Museum.

The ship, which was transporting ceramics and luxury goods, is now revealing its secrets thanks to new analysis of the cargo. Experts published their findings in the Journal of Archaeological Science: Reports.

http://a57.foxnews.com/images.foxnews.com/content/fox-news/science/2018/05/16/shipwreck-mystery-solved-thanks-to-800-year-old-made-in-china-label/_jcr_content/article-text/article-par-5/inline_spotlight_ima/image.img.jpg/612/344/1526488894317.jpg?ve=1&tl=1
An inscribed piece of pottery recovered from the shipwreck site ( © The Field Museum / SWNS.com)

“Initial investigations in the 1990s dated the shipwreck to the mid- to late 13th century, but we’ve found evidence that it’s probably a century older than that,” said Lisa Niziolek, an archaeologist at the Field Museum in Chicago and the study’s lead author, in a statement. “Eight hundred years ago, someone put a label on these ceramics that essentially says ‘Made in China’ — because of the particular place mentioned, we’re able to date this shipwreck better.”

The ship’s cargo included ceramics marked with an inscription that may indicate they are from Jianning Fu, a district in China. Experts, however, note that after Mongol invasion of China around 1278, the area was reclassified as Jianning Lu.

“The slight change in the name tipped Niziolek and her colleagues off that the shipwreck may have occurred earlier than the late 1200s, as early as 1162,” they said, in the statement.

The likelihood of a ship from the Jianning Lu era carrying old pottery is slim, according to Niziolek. “There were probably about 100,000 pieces of ceramics onboard. It seems unlikely a merchant would have paid to store those for long prior to shipment — they were probably made not long before the ship sank,” she explained.

In addition to ceramics, the ship was also carrying elephant tusks, possibly for use in medicine or art. Sweet-smelling resin, which could have been used for incense or for caulking ships, was also found.

Previous carbon dating of the tusks and resin had dated the wreck to between 700 and 750 years ago. However, improved carbon dating techniques tell a different story.

"When we got the results back and learned that the resin and tusk samples were older than previously thought, we were excited,” said Niziolek. “We had suspected that based on inscriptions on the ceramics and conversations with colleagues in China and Japan, and it was great to have all these different types of data coming together to support it.”

Dating the shipwreck to 800, rather than 700 years ago is significant, according to the archaeologist. “This was a time when Chinese merchants became more active in maritime trade, more reliant upon oversea routes than on the overland Silk Road,” she said. “The shipwreck occurred at a time of important transition.”

Shipwreck sites offer a fascinating glimpse into the past. Last year, for example, experts announced the discovery of a centuries-old anchor in the Caribbean believed to be from one of Christopher Columbus’ ships.

Also in 2017, archaeologists in Japan found a cannonball that could lead to the sunken remains of a treasure-laden Spanish galleon.

In 2016 archaeologists said that they had discovered the 500-year-old wreckage of Portuguese ship off Oman. The ship, Esmeralda, was piloted by an uncle of explorer Vasco da Gama.

The Associated Press contributed to this article.

Follow James Rogers on Twitter @jamesjrogers

GeneChing
07-05-2018, 10:21 AM
It's ironic that so many US flags are made in China. You'd think US flags (http://www.martialartsmart.com/95-01s.html) made in the US would be a sell point.


As Trump targets trade, a Chinese factory says it's been hired to make flags for Trump's 2020 campaign (http://www.businessinsider.com/chinese-factory-says-its-making-flags-for-trump-2020-campaign-2018-7)
Tara Francis Chan 9h

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5b3d70a54a2627820f8b46eb-960-480.jpg
An employee making hand-held US flags at a textile factory in Jinhua in China's Zhejiang province. REUTERS/Stringer

The owner of a Chinese flag factory told an NPR podcast he was making flags for Trump's 2020 campaign.

It's unclear whether the flags were ordered by Trump's campaign or other businesses, but the factory also made flags for the 2016 election.

As the US's trade conflict with China heats up and President Donald Trump's reelection campaign gets underway, a Chinese manufacturer says his factory has been hired to create flags for Trump's 2020 bid.

The factory, which used to make red scarves for the communist Young Pioneers before China opened up its trade, now makes about 100,000 international flags a day.

"We also make flags for Trump for 2020," Li Jiang told NPR's "The Indicator" podcast. "It seems like he has another campaign going on in 2020. Isn't that right?"

https://amp.businessinsider.com/images/5b3d8d3f39a28727008b4800-750-563.jpg
Trump supporters in front of Trump Tower in New York City. Kevin Hagen/Getty Images

NPR said Li was making "blue-and-white Trump 2020 flags," though his factory and many others in the Zhejiang province in eastern China also made flags for Trump and Hillary Clinton during 2016. According to NPR, the Trump campaign was ordering so many more flags than Clinton's side that locals joked they were the first to know the businessman would become president.

The committee organizing Trump's 2020 campaign, Donald J. Trump for President Inc., last year stated a commitment to "buy American" and said it had "produced and manufactured all of our merchandise right here in America" down to the American-made stitching on its "Make America Great Again" hats.

The committee said "we put America first and take great pride in selling 100% Made in the USA products to our supporters throughout the country."

The committee's executive director, Michael Glassner, said in a statement at the time that the committee would sell American products "all the way through 2020 and beyond."

It is unclear whether the organization is the one to have ordered the flags revealed to NPR and, if it did, whether it planned to give the flags away at rallies and events rather than sell them.

Trump's campaign website advertised hats made in America as Trump railed against Chinese manufacturing on the campaign trail in 2016, though unofficial foreign-made merchandise carrying the "Make America Great Again" slogan also flooded shelves across the country.

As for a potential trade war affecting sales, Li, who said he used to make about a dime off each $1 flag he sold, told NPR he was unconcerned.

"We are not so worried because first of all, we have a big price advantage over our competitors," he said. "And our clients are very smart. They would always go to the cheapest place. If China is cheap, they go to China. If America is cheap, they go to America."

Business Insider contacted the Trump 2020 campaign to confirm whether it had contracted flags to be made in China and will update this post when it responds.

GeneChing
08-03-2018, 01:31 PM
We kinda knew this already. Anyone who does business with China knows it too.


FORGET ‘MADE IN CHINA’. SAY HELLO TO ‘MADE IN VIETNAM’ (https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/business/article/2157755/forget-made-china-say-hello-made-vietnam)
Nguyen Ba Hoi produces neither smartphones nor steel for export. Instead, he’s focusing on developing his country into a centre for innovation
BY KARIM RASLAN
3 AUG 2018

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/styles/landscape/public/images/methode/2018/08/03/9e33b722-9543-11e8-acb0-2eccab85240c_1280x720_192754.jpg?itok=SJCw4Skx

Forget “Made in China”. There’s a new global buzzphrase: “Made in Vietnam”.

Indeed, the once war-torn nation is fast-positioning itself as a key manufacturing hub. One in 10 smartphones in the world – you may be reading this article from one – are produced in Vietnam.

In 2017, Samsung products alone accounted for a quarter of the country’s US$227 billion in exports, in which steel and furniture also strongly feature.

But the Vietnamese are also adding value in a surprising way, and this is especially apparent in Da Nang.

Nguyen Ba Hoi produces neither smartphones nor steel for export. Instead, he’s focusing on developing his country into a centre for innovation.
https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/08/03/1fab801a-9543-11e8-acb0-2eccab85240c_1320x770_192754.jpg
Students from the University of Da Nang test out various techniques and gadgets for their personal and academic projects. Photo: Mai Duong

He’s spending his time in Danang’s modern and sleek “Maker Spaces”, co-ops where creatives can invent and test out new products, that are quickly popping up all over the region.

“University students come here to learn about thermal equations or build a musical instrument in two hours. We’re also developing a device to help patients who have suffered a stroke – for now, it’s just a prototype.”

Married and a father of two, Hoi shows me around the Maker Innovation Space on the University of Danang’s campus, one of two facilities he has established since 2015. It’s filled with 3D printers, laser cutters and all sorts of modern gadgets tech junkies relish.

But he hasn’t always had it easy.

“Both my parents were primary schoolteachers and part-time farmers. They raised livestock like pigs … their income was super low.”

Hoi was born in the rural village of Binh Lan Ward in Vietnam’s central Quang Nam province, with a population of more than 1.4 million. The place seems humble even today; one-lane roads and single-storey shophouses surrounded by hills overlooking unending swathes of forests.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/08/03/3f9700f2-9543-11e8-acb0-2eccab85240c_1320x770_192754.jpg
A near-empty road in the rural village of Binh Lan Ward in Vietnam’s central Quang Nam province. The place seems humble even today: one-lane roads and single-storey homes. Photo: Mai Duong

“I was born in a very poor area … I came here to Da Nang to study and worked really hard, so I could support my parents. I weighed 38kg and slept four hours a day to learn English … I wanted to go overseas to further my studies.”

After obtaining a degree in electrical and electronic engineering at the University of Da Nang, Hoi attended Thailand’s Asian Institute of Technology where he pursued a master’s in microelectronics. He then moved to Munich, where he helped develop a black box system for Mercedes-Benz.

Now an alumnus of Washington’s Catholic University of America with a PhD in biomedical engineering, the ambitious 39-year-old is happy to be back home.

“When I hear about the latest technology, it’s always someone from Germany or the UK who’s invented it. So why not someone from Vietnam this time? This is what places like Maker Space can do: give Vietnam’s young people a chance to make a name for themselves.”

Vietnam’s third-largest city of just over 1 million people, Da Nang is poised to play host to more entrepreneurial and technology-centric initiatives like Hoi’s, pushing to develop technology and innovation sectors domestically.

The country’s largest information technology company, FPT Corporation, is looking to transform the coastal metropolis into a “smart city” by 2020, investing US$658,000 on pilot projects such as real-time management of traffic signals and an electronic patient recording system in hospitals.

Innovation even permeates city management. As part of its push to become a “green city” by 2025, Da Nang has already eliminated 12,000 tonnes of carbon emissions by introducing hybrid cars and solar-powered water heaters.

https://cdn1.i-scmp.com/sites/default/files/images/methode/2018/08/03/822254f8-9543-11e8-acb0-2eccab85240c_1320x770_192754.jpg
A sign encourages university students at Maker Innovation Space in Da Nang. Photo: Mai Duong

While many of the region’s economies are slowing down – especially in light of the US-China trade war – Vietnam’s gross domestic product expanded 7.38 per cent in the first quarter of 2018.

Despite US President Donald Trump’s hostility to global trade, more than 60 American companies, from Microsoft to IBM, converged on Da Nang earlier this year to look for opportunities in the Central Key Economic Zone, comprised of seven provinces.

Yet, with only 9 per cent of the workforce holding university-level qualifications, Vietnam may face a barrier to expanding its industrial capability beyond manufacturing.

But Hoi remains optimistic.

Sitting with his parents – who are now happily retired from farming – he quips, “I love this philosophy we have at Maker Space: when you come here, you can innovate and fail very fast. But then you try again and then you succeed. Before we succeed, we must fail a lot.”

On the wall of Maker Space is a sign that simply reads: “design the future”.

If Vietnam can upskill its workforce, cut red tape and create more Hoi’s – Vietnam’s future will no doubt be an inspiring and impactful one for both its people and the rest of the region.

GeneChing
09-12-2018, 03:22 PM
Commentary: The trouble with 'Made in China' (https://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/commentary/made-in-china-us-trade-war-great-power-competition-10626054)
Amidst a trade war with the United States, China toned down its "Made in China 2025" plan.

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/image/10605056/16x9/670/377/792a659fc0abfdadb736ea6a35614f83/oK/file-photo--chinese-and-u-s--flags-are-set-up-for-a-signing-ceremony-during-a-visit-by-u-s--secretary-of-transportation-elaine-chao-at-china-s-ministry-of-transport-in-beijing--1.jpg
Chinese and US flags are set up for a signing ceremony during a visit by US Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao at China's Ministry of Transport in Beijing, China April 27, 2018. (Photo: REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo)

By Chengxin Pan
11 Sep 2018 06:15AM (Updated: 11 Sep 2018 06:20AM)

VICTORIA: While US President Donald Trump seems to be cosying up with the likes of North Korea’s Kim Jong Un and Russia’s Vladimir Putin lately, his administration wasted no time in upping the ante in its escalating trade war with China.

At the moment, no one knows how this showdown might end, but what is certain is that the trade war has a lot to do with Washington’s concern over Beijing’s Made in China 2025 plan, the real target of Trump’s punitive tariffs on Chinese imports.

This might partly explain why China has recently toned down its rhetoric on this ambitious plan.

FEAR AND ANXIETY

First unveiled by Chinese Premier Li Keqiang in 2015, this industrial policy aims to move China further up the value chain, particularly in advanced manufacturing sectors, such as next-generation information technology, artificial intelligence, aerospace, modern rail transport equipment, new-energy vehicles, new materials and biomedicine.

While widely billed to be China’s drive to gain technological supremacy at the expense of the US and other advanced economies, one must not lose sight that this Chinese strategy first came about from Beijing’s acute awareness of its position of weakness.

Despite China’s long-held title as the world’s factory, for a long time its high-tech industries have been dominated by foreign companies.

With a shrinking labour force, rising labour costs and growing environmental consequences associated with lower-end manufacturing, the Chinese economy faces the “double squeeze” from both newly emerging low-cost countries and advanced industrialised powerhouses.

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China's Premier Li Keqiang delivers a news conference with French Prime Minister Edouard Philippe (not pictured) at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China June 25, 2018. (Photo: Fred Dufour/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo)

To keep growing its economy, to continue to cater to a better educated workforce, and to avoid the so-called “middle-income trap”, turning to technological innovation and developing its advanced manufacturing sectors seem a no-brainer.

After all, China is hardly the first country to resort to industrial policy to lift its economic and technological competitiveness: Witness “Star Wars” in the US in the 1980s, and Industry 4.0 and High-Tech Strategy 2020 in Germany.

Indeed, Made in China 2025 has been inspired by Germany’s Industry 4.0.

Yet few draw inspiration from Made in China 2025. If some Western news headlines are anything to go by, the policy has sparked anxiety, fear, anger, and even hatred, in addition to the trade war.

Some of the outside fear and anxiety is justified. Given China’s track record in intellectual property protection, and widely held beliefs in Beijing’s unfair trade practice, it is not surprising that the prospect of China dominating industries of the future has set off alarm bells.

This has not been helped by a recent surge in patriotic propaganda in China (for example, the nationwide screening of the documentary Amazing China), which has been criticised by some Chinese observers as Boxer-style nationalism.

ECONOMIC NATIONALISM VERSUS GLOBALISATION

Indeed, the very term Made in China 2025 itself is probably ill-thought-out. One can discuss Industry 4.0 without ever mentioning the country behind it; not so with Made in China 2025.

And the problem goes deeper than just branding, it reflects a contradiction between economic nationalism and the reality of the globalisation of innovation, research and development.

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A man takes photos of a party flag of Communist Party of China made with flowers, which promotes the 19th National Congress of the Communist Party of China (CPC), in Shanghai, China September 30, 2017. (Photo: REUTERS/Aly Song)

Even as we accept the general rationale and imperative behind Made in China 2025 (and the rules of the World Trade Organisation don’t prohibit any country from adopting an industrial policy), Made in China cannot succeed if it is made in China alone.

Encouraging indigenous innovation is laudable and necessary (given the many complaints about China as a technology copycat), but it should not be conflated with technology nativism and protectionism. As former chief judge for the World Trade Organisation James Bacchus argues:


China isn’t going to climb the competitive ladder by discriminating against foreign goods and services (and) shutting out foreign companies.

In the past few decades, China’s rise has in large part been a result of its integration into the global production networks. Its continued development now hinges on its even deeper integration with the global innovation networks.

If it is for this reason that China has downplayed the Made in China 2025 slogan, it is a good thing.

But Trump’s wrecking-ball approach to dealing with China is the other side of the same economic nationalism coin.

For the same reason of global economic and technological interdependence, Trump’s punitive measures to stop China from upgrading its industry will not work. If anything, it could backfire.

A MISUNDERSTOOD POWER COMPETITION

Past technology bans by the US have ironically spurred China’s progress in areas such as supercomputers and aerospace.

After the US announced a seven-year ban on US companies supplying key components to the Chinese telecom company ZTE, Chinese President Xi Jinping vowed to redouble China’s efforts to develop its own core technologies.

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The logo of China's ZTE Corp is seen at the lobby of ZTE Beijing research and development centre building in Beijing, China, June 13, 2018. (Photo: REUTERS/Jason Lee/File Photo)

Caught up in the tit-for-tat trade war, and for fear of losing the lucrative Chinese market, some American companies seem ready to help China’s high-tech push. Tesla, for example, recently announced that it would build its first overseas factory in Shanghai, a move accelerated by the looming tariff war.

Trump reasoned that the US couldn’t lose in this clash because it already had a very large trade deficit with China. Wall Street wouldn’t be so sure.

Nor would noted scholars such as Arnold Toynbee and Robert Gilpin, who have observed a long-term trend of the diffusion of science, technology and economic power from advanced to less advanced states.

But such power transition is precisely what the US administration is determined to head off. On that note, the US–China trade disputes, a symptom of a larger and much-misunderstood power competition, may still have a long course to run.

Chengxin Pan is Associate Professor of International Relations in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University. This article first appeared on Lowy Institute's The Interpreter.

And now, this is quite topical. :rolleyes:

GeneChing
10-10-2018, 08:22 AM
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You buy a purse at Walmart. There’s a note inside from a “Chinese prisoner.” Now what? (https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2018/10/10/17953106/walmart-prison-note-china-factory)
Tracing a mysterious message across the world to understand how what we buy is made.
By Rossalyn A. Warren Oct 10, 2018, 8:30am EDT
Illustrations by Julia Kuo

When Christel Wallace found a piece of paper folded up at the bottom of her purse in March 2017, she threw it in the trash. She hadn’t yet used the maroon bag, made by Walmart and purchased from one of its Arizona stores months ago.

But after a few minutes, she got curious. She took the paper out of the wastebasket, unfolding the sheet to reveal a message scrawled in Mandarin Chinese.

Translated, it read: Inmates in China’s Yingshan Prison work 14 hours a day and are not allowed to rest at noon. We have to work overtime until midnight. People are beaten for not finishing their work. There’s no salt and oil in our meals. The boss pays 2,000 yuan every month for the prison to offer better food, but the food is all consumed by the prison guards. Sick inmates have to pay for their own pills. Prisons in China cannot be compared to prisons in the United States. Horse, cow, goat, pig, dog.

Christel’s daughter-in-law Laura Wallace posted a photo of the note to Facebook on April 23. The post first went viral locally, getting shared and liked several hundred times, mostly by fellow Arizonans. After a few days, local media outlets picked up the story; a week or so after that, dozens of mainstream publications like USA Today and HuffPost followed suit. One video report on the incident accumulated 2.9 million views.

Shares of the note provoked shock and outrage. Even those who were skeptical of the note’s provenance were incensed, pointing to a wider issue. “Who cares if it’s a marketing stunt?” read one comment on Facebook. “If it made five people rethink buying cheap crap, then it’s a success.”

At the time, a Walmart spokesperson told a reporter in Arizona it was unable to comment because it had “no way to verify the origin of the letter.”

You may remember this story or one like it. It follows a long line of SOS-style notes found by shoppers. They crop up a few times a year, and each story follows the same beats.

First, a shopper in the US or Europe finds a note in the pocket or on a tag of a product from a big retailer — Walmart, Saks, Zara. The note claims the product had been made using forced labor or under poor working conditions. The writer of the note also claims to be in a faraway country, usually China. The shopper takes a photo of the note and posts it to social media. It’s reported on by all sorts of publications from Reuters to Refinery29, where the articles reach millions of readers.

Then the hysteria cools, and the story falls into the viral news abyss. There’s no real attempt at verification. There’s no meaningful corporate gesture. There’s no grand reckoning with the system of global production from which this cry for help is said to have emerged.

As for Christel’s particular Walmart note, there are a number of possibilities regarding who wrote and hid it, and its contents are difficult to fact-check. A Chinese prison called Yingshan may exist, or it may not. Forced labor may be practiced there, or it may not. A prisoner in China may have written the note, or maybe a Chinese activist did, or maybe an American activist instead. The note may have been placed in the bag in a prison factory, or somewhere else along the supply chain in China, or perhaps in Arizona.

The only way to make sense of this puzzle — one with actual human stakes that can help explain how what we buy is made — is to try to trace the journey backward, from the moment a note goes viral to its potential place of origin. Which is how I find myself in rural China, outside of a local prison, 7,522 miles away from where Christel first opened her purse.

Guilin is a city in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region of southern China, and a tourist haven, renowned for the tooth-like karst peaks that rise from the banks of the Li River. Its limpid lakes and limestone caves draw tens of millions of visitors every year.

To reach Guilin, it takes me two international flights, two taxis, a one-hour bus ride through border control, and three hours on a high-speed train. I travel from London through Hong Kong on to Shenzhen and then Guilin via the Guangshen Railway. There, I meet Channing, a local reporter hired to help me find the prison.

We’re in Guilin because of the first and only concrete lead in the Walmart note: the name of the prison. The note writer says the prison is called Yingshan, and several weeks of research has led me to believe it’s located in China’s Guangxi region, home to many manufacturing factories because of the area’s cheap labor and low taxes.

The very few details I can find about Yingshan prison come from a 10-year-old report on prisons across China written by a human rights group. The report suggests the prison may be in the suburbs of east Guilin, and so the plan is to explore the neighborhood, talk to locals, and look for signs — barbed wire, security cameras, anything.

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But before we embark on our prison scouting, we have something else on the agenda: a visit to the city’s only Walmart store. It feels important, given the note was found in a Walmart, albeit one on the other side of the globe. Perhaps a Chinese Walmart close to where the note supposedly originated can provide clues, or at least context.

The Guilin Walmart is a 10-minute drive from the center of the city, spread across two floors in a shopping mall, on a road lined with scooter repair shops. Walmart is the world’s biggest retailer; it owns 11,700 retail units in 27 countries around the world, including Brazil and South Africa, under various banner names. In China, Walmart owns 389 Walmart Supercenters, in addition to 21 Sam’s Clubs and 15 Hypermarkets.

A note on Walmart’s Chinese site reads: “Walmart China firmly believes in local sourcing. We have established partnerships with more than seven thousand suppliers in China. Over 95% of the merchandise in our stores in China is sourced locally.”

The Guilin Walmart sells athletic shorts made in Vietnam, girls’ T-shirts made in Bangladesh, and sports jackets made in Cambodia. But for the most part, the store’s clothing is made in China, some of it just a few hours away. There are England football shirts and women’s purses from Guangdong, World Cup Russia sandals from Fujian, Frozen and Mickey Mouse tees from Shanghai, and baseball jerseys and Peppa Pig sun hats from Jiangxi.

Countries the world over encourage citizens to “buy local,” so why would China be any different? Still, necessarily, what is local to one place — local practice, local perspective — is foreign to all others. To those in the country, “made in China” means items produced by their fellow Chinese that contribute to the robust economy. Elsewhere in the world, particularly in the US, the phrase draws ire, conjuring images of goods mass-produced in factories with questionable conditions by workers who have supplanted their own country’s workforce.

Walmart in the US has tried and tested the homemade idea. In 1985, founder Sam Walton voiced a commitment to “made in America” products, launching a program called “Bring It Home to the USA” to buy more US-made goods. Around that time, according to reporter Bob Ortega’s book In Sam We Trust, Walton estimated 6 percent of his company’s total sales came from imports; a Frontline report found that number may have been closer to 40 percent. Bill Clinton, then the governor of Walmart’s home state of Arkansas, described “Bring It Home to the USA” as an “act of patriotism.” The program failed.

It’s easy to understand why. The “made in America” ideal comes second to finding the cheapest sources of production — this was true in the ’80s, and it’s true now. A study released in 2016 found that three in four Americans say they would like to buy US-made goods but consider those items too costly or difficult to find. When asked if they’d buy an $85 pair of pants made in the US or a $50 pair made in a different country, 67 percent chose the latter.
continued next post

GeneChing
10-10-2018, 08:23 AM
TO THOSE IN THE COUNTRY, “MADE IN CHINA” MEANS ITEMS PRODUCED BY THEIR FELLOW CHINESE THAT CONTRIBUTE TO THE ROBUST ECONOMY
Today, Walmart outsources the majority of its production around the world. According to a 2011 report in the Atlantic, Chinese suppliers are believed to account for around 70 percent of the company’s merchandise. A 2015 analysis from the Economic Institute, a progressive think tank, found that Walmart’s trade with China may have eliminated 400,000 jobs in the US between 2001 and 2013.

This is something Walmart says it’s trying to change. In its 2014 annual report, the company pledged to spend an additional $250 billion on US-made goods by 2023, saying it believes “we can drive cost savings by sourcing closer to the point of consumption.” Research from Boston Consulting Group projected this could create a million new US jobs.

At the initiative’s 2018 halfway point, though, it’s unclear how many jobs have been created or how much money has actually been spent. Additionally, in 2015, the Federal Trade Commission initiated a probe into Walmart’s mislabeling of foreign goods as “Made in the USA.” Walmart took action by removing inaccurate logos and making its disclosures more transparent, only to come under fire for deceptive “Made in the USA” labels yet again the very next year.

Forced labor is commonly practiced in the Chinese prison system, which the Chinese Communist Party first established countrywide in 1949, modeling it on Soviet gulags. The kind of crimes that land someone in the Chinese penal system range widely, from murder and bribery to saying anything remotely bad about the government. Freedom of speech isn’t a reality for Chinese citizens, who can face decades in prison for publishing articles about human rights online.

A tenet of the Chinese justice system is that labor inside prisons is good for the country. The government, as well as many of its citizens, believes it helps reform corrupted people — and China is far from the only country to use prison labor. The US legally benefits from labor in its prison system, and while not every US prison practices penal labor, hundreds of thousands of American inmates work jobs that include making furniture and fighting fires. In August of this year, prisoners from 17 states went on strike to protest being forced to work, characterizing the practice as “modern slavery.”

Peter E. Müller, a leading specialist at the Laogai Research Foundation, and his team extensively document the human rights abuses inside China’s prison system. This work includes identifying prisons and camps that employ forced labor, tracking the inmate population, and gathering personal testimony from those who have experienced forced labor.

He says prisoners in China, the US, and elsewhere are sometimes paid for their labor. (In the Walmart note, the writer describes forced labor and beatings, as well as low pay for long hours and health care deducted from payment.) The amount depends on the financial situation of the prison; the average pay in American state prisons is 20 cents an hour. Müller says the monthly salary specified in the note (2,000 yuan, or $295) is “unusually high,” but speculates that it may be because the prison “makes good money because of high-quality workers.”

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Human rights organizations, such as the Laogai Research Foundation and China Labor Watch, say the biggest problem in stopping the export of products made in prisons is that the supply lines are “almost untraceable.” Supply lines, in general, are very difficult to trace due to the enormous complexity of supplier networks, a lack of communication between actors, and a general dearth of data that can be shared in the first place. The result is a frustratingly opaque global system of production.

Li Qiang, the founder and executive director of China Labor Watch, explains that American companies that manufacture abroad place their orders directly with factories or sourcing companies, and that those factories and companies can transfer the orders to prisons without the company’s knowledge. In fact, some of these relationships are formalized to the point where prisons that use forced labor have a sister factory that coordinates the prison manufacturing.

It’s essentially a front, as sister factories will use a commercial name for outside trade, intentionally mislabeling products that are made in prisons. Prisoners are never physically sent to the sister factories; the main bulk of the production happens on prison grounds. Once nearly complete, items are then sent to the sister factories, where they are prepared and labeled for international delivery. This system isn’t easy for companies to monitor. Suppliers conceal these practices from clients, and supplier checks are not frequent, especially for large corporations like Walmart, which use a large number of suppliers and subcontractors.

Qiang says the issue can feel intractable. “Even if shoppers in the US understand that the items are being made under poor working conditions, there is nothing they can really do,” he says. “Multinational corporations will not invest in improving their supply chain if there are few laws to protect workers whose rights are being violated, and no successful lawsuits against brands, companies, or their factories for violating them.”

On a Tuesday morning in late May, Channing and I sit at a table in our hotel lobby. We browse message boards on Baidu, one of the country’s most popular search engines and social networking sites, to see if the issue of prison labor is discussed on Chinese social media, or if it’s a subject the government censors.

In a matter of seconds, Channing is able to find discussion boards filled with suppliers looking to outsource labor to prisons. The conversations are quite ordinary — there is no coded language, and full addresses and contact numbers are included in postings. We also find dozens of posts from people offering the services of prisons they work with to mass-produce items for overseas companies, including “electronic accessories, bracelets, necklace bead processing, toy assembly, and shirt processing.”

One post in Chinese reads: “Because our processing personnel are from prison, it has the following advantages. The prison personnel are centralized and stable, and they are managed by the prison. There is no need to worry about the flow of people and the shortage of labor. The processing price is low: Since the processing location is in prison, there is no need for manufacturers to provide space and accommodation; and the prison works in the principle of serving the people, so the processing price is guaranteed to be absolutely lower than the market price. If your company needs it, please contact!”

In an effort to verify not only that Yingshan prison exists but also that it’s one of many Chinese factories that use forced labor and contract with manufacturers, Channing and I drive toward the suburbs in the eastern part of Guilin.

continued next post

GeneChing
10-10-2018, 08:24 AM
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Channing asks our driver to drop us at a high school so we can remain undetected. Nearby, I’d marked a spot where I believed the prison to be according to the human rights report I’d found before arriving in China. But the prison isn’t there. In its place is a crossing, though there’s reason to believe the prison is closed — a dilapidated sign pointing left reads: Yingshan.

We walk down the road and find the area under heavy surveillance. Security cameras are hitched onto poles on every corner of the pathway. The ****her we walk, the more literal the warnings that we shouldn’t be there. Three different signs hammered into a tree read: “DO NOT APPROACH.”

Yingshan prison, described in a note found in a Walmart handbag thousands of miles away in the US, does exist — and we are standing in front of it.

Though it had been difficult to find, it actually doesn’t seem so hidden after all. It is integrated into the neighborhood, just around the corner from a driving school, near leafy streets and apartment blocks.

The prison doesn’t look like an archetypal prison you’d see in the US. If it weren’t for the two security watchtowers, Yingshan could be mistaken for a modern residential building. Thick bushes cover dark blue metal fences lined with barbed wire. The high walls are painted cream with decorative white lines demarcating each of the building’s five floors. Each window has a neat white frame, with a metal air vent attached.

Several guards in uniform are standing in the parking lot of the building next door. We don’t approach them for fear of being detained. The Chinese government treats both domestic and foreign journalists hostilely. Reporters are often banned from entering the country, and they have also been detained for their work. Our safest bet for gathering information is to speak to people in the area who may have ties to the prison.

Walking down a second pathway that runs alongside Yingshan, the village of Sanjia comes into view. Sanjia is a small village that abuts the prison grounds. In the village, crumbling homes stand alongside gated, modern ones painted gold. Locals say this is because the land is being bought out, and that the village is grappling with redevelopment.

Each person we speak to has a personal connection to the prison. They know people imprisoned, have a family member working inside, or have worked inside themselves. They tell us that guards who work in Yingshan are housed with their families in an apartment complex next to the prison. We realize this is the building with the parking lot filled with uniformed guards.

Zhenzhu, who asked that her surname not be used for fear of retribution from the government, can see the prison from her front door. A jovial woman, she has lived in the village for 14 years, moving to the area right after she was married. As we talk, we hear pigs squealing. Zhenzhu explains that those are her pigs, 100 of them, next door in a slaughterhouse she runs with her husband.

When the building of the prison commenced in 2007, Zhenzhu was three months pregnant, and her husband was employed as a construction worker on the project. By the time their daughter turned 3, the building was complete. Zhenzhu has visited the prison before, to see an inmate; Yingshan allows visits from family members under heavy security. She says its walls are buried so deep into the ground that “even if the prisoners want to break out by digging an underground tunnel, they can’t dig through.”


YINGSHAN PRISON, DESCRIBED IN A NOTE FOUND IN A WALMART HANDBAG THOUSANDS OF MILES AWAY IN THE US, DOES EXIST — AND WE ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF IT
Zhenzhu recounts much of what her husband told her about his experience at Yingshan. For years following the construction, he would visit for maintenance checks and additional building; trucks were always driving fabric in and out of the prison. The trucks, he told Zhenzhu, were from factories located in the Guangdong province. Guangdong is home to an estimated 60,000 factories, which produce around a third of the world’s shoes and much of its textiles, apparel, and toys.

Everyone we speak to, Zhenzhu included, says they’ve seen labor inside the prison or have been told about it directly by inmates. None were familiar with Walmart goods being produced there, but some could confirm that women’s fashion is manufactured inside.

To those in the village, prison labor is not just common knowledge; it’s also necessary. They consider the prisoners “bad guys” who have committed horrible crimes. In their eyes, the labor is a good thing: It helps rehabilitate inmates and gets them to understand the value of work. But that work can come at a great cost. According to local hearsay and furthered by a published account from a woman who was married to a Yingshan prison guard, inmates have been known to kill themselves because of the poor conditions and forced labor.

Zhenzhu leads us around the edge of the village, to get a side view of the prison. She points to the building we first passed and tells us that’s where the inmates eat and sleep. She then points to a building ****her in the distance on the left that looks almost exactly the same. It’s also painted cream, but with slightly larger white window frames; a yard obscured behind the prison wall separates the structures. The second building, she tells us, is for “the work.”

The Walmart note followed a tradition of hidden messages found by shoppers. In 2014, shoppers found labels stitched into several items of clothing in Primark stores across the UK. The labels, written in English, read: “forced to work exhausting hours” and “degrading sweatshop conditions.”

As the notes spread across social media, the fast-fashion company conducted an investigation and found the labels were fake. The company said the items were all made by different suppliers, in different factories, on different continents. They stressed it was impossible that the same labels, especially those written in English, would appear on all the items and that they believed the labels were part of an activist stunt carried out in the UK.

Though no one claimed credit for the labels, activist groups had been waging campaigns to protest Primark’s labor practices in the time leading up to their discovery. War on Want led a 2013 campaign against the company after more than 1,100 people died as a result of the Rana Plaza collapse. Primark, along with J.C. Penney and Joe Fresh, was among the retailers whose products were made in the Bangladeshi complex.

Almost all the messages that have been found in stores have come under public scrutiny, as they’re often suspected of being written and planted by activists. The handwriting, the language, and even the paper used for notes have pointed to activist work. For example, several notes and labels, like the Primark ones, were written in English. Many inmates and factory workers in China, as well as Bangladesh, come from poor backgrounds and are unlikely to have had the chance to learn English in school.

continued next post

GeneChing
10-10-2018, 08:24 AM
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There have been, however, at least two instances in which actual workers have claimed the notes. In 2011, a shopper bought a box of Halloween decorations at an Oregon Kmart. She found a note inside the box, allegedly from a prisoner in China explaining that he had made the item under forced labor conditions.

Two years later, Zhang — a man who asked newsrooms to only use his surname for fear of being arrested and imprisoned again — claimed to be the writer of the note. He said he planted 20 such notes during the two years he spent in prison, with hopes they would reach American stores. His handwriting and modest English language proficiency matched those of the note, but even then, it wasn’t feasible to fully corroborate his story. As the New York Times wrote, “it was impossible to know for sure whether there were perhaps other letter writers, one of whose messages might have reached Oregon.”

The second instance came in 2014, when a shopper in New York found a note in a Saks shopping bag she received when purchasing a pair of Hunter rain boots two years earlier. The note, written in English, claimed to have been written by a man in a Chinese prison; it also included his email address, photo, and name, which led to the finding of the alleged author, Tohnain Emmanuel Njong. Originally from Cameroon, he said he’d been teaching English in China when he was arrested in May 2011 and wrongly jailed for fraud charges.

In both cases, the final step of verification would be to confirm with the prisons mentioned in the notes that Zhang and Njong served sentences at their facilities and that forced labor occurs there. But since Chinese prisons refuse to provide comment on such stories, there’s little way of definitively confirming the prisoners’ accounts.

In 2017, the validity of hidden notes came into question yet again. Shoppers in Istanbul found tags inside clothing items in a Zara store that read: “I made this item you are going to buy, but I didn’t get paid for it.”

It turned out Turkish workers, who produced the clothing for Zara in an Istanbul factory, planted the notes in protest. The factory where they had been employed closed down overnight, leaving them suddenly without jobs or a source of income. The workers wrote notes urging shoppers to pressure Zara into giving them the back pay they were owed. They then went to a Zara store in the center of Istanbul and hid the notes in the pockets of clothing being sold inside.


“WHEN WE THINK WE’RE NOT GETTING MOVEMENT FROM COMPANIES, WE TURN TO CONFRONTATIONAL TACTICS LIKE THIS”
The Turkish workers didn’t come up with the idea of the notes on their own. The Clean Clothes Campaign and its alliance partner Labour Behind the Label (LBL), an organization that campaigns for garment workers’ rights, helped plan the action.

LBL and other campaign groups have organized “note droppings” like this in retail stores like Zara for many years. The notes describe how poor labor practices are behind the store’s items; LBL gathers information about these practices through its own reports and interviews.

“Dropping notes is an extension of leaving leaflets in stores,” says LBL’s director of policy Dominique Muller. “When we think we’re not getting movement from companies, we turn to confrontational tactics like this.”

LBL doesn’t worry that the notes they plant in stores could overshadow any potentially real notes found in stores. “These notes are just a drop in the ocean. They’re still new” — as an activism tool, that is — “and they will continue to have an impact.”

As of this June, the Turkish workers had only received partial payment.

Finding Yingshan brought some answers about the validity of the note. For one, the prison named in the Walmart note exists. We heard firsthand accounts from locals who said forced labor does occur inside the prison as the note described. What we were told about the work is that the hours are long, the work is done indoors, and the labor involves manufacturing fashion items, which might include bags like the purse Christel bought in Arizona.

After Walmart issued its statement about there being “no way to verify the origin of the letter,” the company launched an internal investigation. It was found that the factory that made the purse didn’t adhere to Walmart’s standards, which stress the need for “labor to be voluntary” and state that “slave, child, underage, forced, bonded, or indentured labor will not be tolerated.” As a result, the company cut ties with the supplier, a decision the company only disclosed after it was contacted for this story. Walmart declined to clarify whether the supplier in question had contracted with Yingshan prison.

In a statement to Vox, a Walmart spokesperson wrote: “Walmart has strict standards for our suppliers, and they must tell us where our products are being made. Through our investigation into this matter, we found the supplier’s factory sent purses to be made at other factories in the region that were not disclosed to us. The supplier failed to follow our standards, so we stopped doing business with them. We take allegations like this seriously, and we are committed to a responsible and transparent supply chain. There are consequences for our suppliers when our standards are not followed.”

One last question did remain unanswered. Was the note written by an actual prisoner, or by an activist with knowledge of the conditions that produced the bag? Müller of the Laogai Research Foundation believes the note is indeed real.

The description and details referenced in the note, he says, mirror much of what he’s heard in interviews with former prisoners. He says the language, the style of writing, and the use of the phrase “horse cow goat pig dog” — a common expression in China that compares the treatment of prisoners to that of animals — add to its authenticity. He believes the writer of the note certainly risked his life to send his message.

Even if the note is real, though, what’s come to light during the reporting of this story is that the Walmart note won’t end forced labor in China. The government is not going to release a public statement condemning human rights abuses inside its prisons because of stories like this one. It doesn’t see forced labor as a human rights abuse; Chinese citizens who don’t support the practices risk arrest if they speak out, and so most won’t.

The pitfall of pinning reform on awareness is expecting a bad thing to end if enough people know about it. Very rarely does mass attention on an issue result in a tangible shift in how things work. If merely sharing information were enough, the countless viral stories about forced labor recounted here would have already resulted in widespread reform.

Still, the incremental change the Walmart note led to — however impossibly small, however seemingly inconsequential — is a step. It has to be.

Additional reporting by Channing Huang.

"we found the supplier’s factory sent purses to be made at other factories in the region that were not disclosed to us." = kill with a borrowed dagger.

GeneChing
12-14-2018, 09:31 AM
Kinda dumb to get in a legal battle with a courthouse. :rolleyes:


Company removes 'Made in China' desks after contract flap (https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/company-removes-made-china-desks-contract-flap-59773429)
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
IONIA, Mich. — Dec 12, 2018, 11:04 AM ET
Email
A company has removed Chinese-made office furniture it delivered to a Michigan courthouse following a six-month legal battle with officials who wanted American-made products.

The (Greenville) Daily News reports that Custom Office Systems removed the unwanted desks — many of them faulty — on Monday from the Ionia County Courthouse. The Ionia-based company earlier this year delivered the desks in boxes clearly marked "Made in China" along with some American-made furniture.

County commissioners in April went with Custom's $41,862 bid over a rival's $33,739 offer based on the promise that the furniture would be made in the U.S. Commissioners demanded the Chinese-made furniture be replaced with American-made products and in June voted to end Custom's contract and accepted the rival's bid.

Custom apologized and blamed the mistake on an oversight with its U.S.-based supplier.

GeneChing
12-27-2018, 08:58 AM
I think most Americans are more concerned with 2020 than 2025. We're self centered that way. :o


Macroscope by Bloomberg
The world can rest easy, as there is nothing to fear from the Chinese government’s ‘Made in China 2025’ industrial plan (https://www.scmp.com/business/china-business/article/2178218/world-can-rest-easy-there-nothing-fear-chinese-governments)
China will spend US$100 billion less than budgeted for R&D in the five years ending 2020, missing the government’s target
PUBLISHED : Sunday, 16 December, 2018, 4:50pm
UPDATED : Sunday, 16 December, 2018, 4:50pm

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China’s industrial ambitions have the US on edge. But what has actually come of its plans for global technology domination?

The road map, which seeks to advance domestic production of critical technology, has been a key bone of contention in President Donald Trump’s trade war. Other reports said China may replace the programme altogether and give foreign companies more access to its market.

On the same day, though, the State Council said it had decided to boost “mechanised farming” and upgrade agricultural machinery (while also noting that farmers would be subsidised whether buying foreign or Chinese brands). And the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology said it would roll out policies to upgrade manufacturing with “cutting-edge technologies.” Both announcements were in line with “Made in China 2025” goals.

The reports make one thing clear: China isn’t going to rein in its industrial objectives any time soon. At the same time, it’s a long way from achieving those targets.

By the numbers, China increasingly doesn’t need the world’s factories. The foreign content of its exports, based on the ratio of imported components, has been dropping for the last 20 years. Most basic inputs are now made in China.

But that is also true for foreign companies. Consider ABB. The Swiss industrial giant sources locally almost 90 per cent of the parts it uses to manufacture transformers, robots and electrical equipment in China, and sells most of its output there, according to Morgan Stanley.

“Made in China 2025”, published in summer 2015, laid out how and why China would need to move up the technology ladder and close the gap with developed countries in higher-end or intelligent manufacturing.

The plan identified 10 key sectors and set out targets to raise domestic content in core components and materials. The global community has balked at the proposal, seeing it as a type of stealth import substitution policy. Its financial scale has sent shudders, with hundreds of billions of dollars in funds backed by state banks and other pools of government capital.

But Beijing doesn’t have much to show for all this. China’s research and development expenditure, while growing, remains well below the likes of the US and Japan as a percentage of GDP.

R&D intensity, a proxy for how effectively the country has spent its money, has barely budged in the past two years.

At a recent business forum, a senior official with the financial and economic affairs committee of the National People’s Congress NPC) said China was likely to miss its targets for R&D spending as a portion of GDP in the five-year plan ending 2020. The nation will effectively end up spending US$100 billion less than it had budgeted.

Speak to CEOs of German machinery makers, and they will tell you China’s expertise may have reached the second or third level, but it is nowhere close to the highest tier. Chemical companies in southern China say every local entrepreneur wants to make the compounds but when it comes to the high-end they cannot quite cut it, producing formulations that are often unstable.

In 2017, hi-tech manufacturing accounted for just under 13 per cent of total industrial value-added. More than half of China’s technology standards for smart manufacturing do not match internationally accepted ones. That might hinder foreign players, but it also impedes the nation’s own companies on the global stage.

A look at the state of the new energy vehicle, or NEV, industry suggests China is unlikely to race ahead. Domestic production is supposed to have an 80 per cent share of the NEV market by 2025. Yet for all the millions of NEVs China now churns out, it has yet to produce a global or even a domestic champion.

Instead, subsidies have led to swathes of low-quality electric cars. Several would-be “Tesla killers” have come and gone. Ultimately, China brought in Tesla itself to manufacture locally.

Despite the trade tensions and the apparent barriers, foreign investment in China has continued to pour in. In the first 11 months, it rose 1.1 per cent to more than US$120 billion and the number of newly approved foreign-invested enterprises increased by almost 78 per cent. Funds going into the high-sector climbed 30 per cent.

Clearly, foreign investors aren’t too concerned by “Made in China 2025”. After all, other countries have industrial policies. The US-Mexico-Canada trade agreement has local content rules. India has exorbitant import tariffs. And the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US now targets all of the industries China has listed in its 2025 plan.

China’s openness to foreign investment has served it well - and overseas companies such as BMW, Dow-DuPont and Apple that have profited there.

The country has a better chance of climbing the technology ladder by exposing its companies to the rigours of world-class competitors than by seeking to shut them out with rhetoric-heavy and substance-light strategy documents. There’s little to fear from “Made in China 2025”.

GeneChing
04-15-2019, 08:10 AM
The advantages of ‘Made in China’ still outweigh the risks (https://www.scmp.com/comment/insight-opinion/article/3006038/advantages-made-china-still-outweigh-risks)
While some companies have announced that they are looking elsewhere, there is little evidence of a systemic spike in the number of firms shifting production away from China in the wake of the trade dispute
Herald van der Linde
Published: 7:35pm, 13 Apr, 2019

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The “Made in China 2025” industrial modernisation programme aims to make the country a dominant player in 10 strategic industries. Photo: Reuters

Export manufacturers in China are clearly worried about the potential impact of raised US import tariffs, but the latest evidence seems to suggest that most are not yet worried enough to shift production away from the mainland.
True, some companies have announced that they are looking to set up export manufacturing capacity elsewhere. South Korean memory chip maker SK Hynix says it intends to move some output back home; Taiwan-headquartered Foxconn, which assembles the iPhone, has said it is looking at expanding in Vietnam; and officials at both Toshiba Machine Co and heavy equipment manufacturer Komatsu have told the media that they are already moving some production out of China.
Manufacturers of high-volume, low-margin products in search of cheaper labour and land have been moving capacity elsewhere in Asia for years and it is difficult to determine how much these more recent shifts have been prompted by the uncertainties of the US-China trade relationship or if they are part of the longer-term trend to diversify production prompted by rising costs in China and new opportunities elsewhere.
Whatever the motive, there is little evidence of a systemic spike in the number of companies shifting production away from China in the wake of the trade dispute. It is notable that the trade deficit in goods between the US and China reached a 10-year high of US$419 billion in 2018 despite the threat of raised tariffs. While this is at least partially a result of stockpiling ahead of any announcement, more granular data tells a similar story of business as usual.
Capital expenditure levels in the rest of Asia are actually down in 2019 year to date compared to 2018. If companies were investing significant sums in buying property or machine tools ahead of a move, they would be expected to rise. Indeed, orders from the Japan Machine Tool Builders’ Association, a useful leading indicator for investment in new manufacturing capacity, are also down from the same time last year.
These are all indicators that initial worries of a mass exodus from China in response to the trade tensions are overdone. We argue that China will be investing more in new equipment or factory extensions, suggesting that exporters have chosen to upgrade existing facilities to improve quality and productivity to allow them to raise prices to offset the negative impact of the tariffs.
It seems that although export manufacturers are looking at the prospect of raised tariffs with alarm, for most the benefits of staying put outweigh the potential downside.
Push factors such as growing protectionism and rising wages for Chinese workers are a concern, but even the problem of rising wages has a silver lining. The Chinese middle class now numbers some 400 million and we expect it to grow to 850 million by 2030. Chinese workers have more spare cash to spend.
There are other strong pull factors. The mainland has a supply chain ecosystem unrivalled anywhere else in the world. The clusters of parts-production expertise that have grown up around centres like Shenzhen and Chongqing would take years of work and billions of dollars to reproduce elsewhere in the region.
China is also years ahead of the rest of Asia in both hard and soft infrastructure. High-speed rail and air links have opened up the middle of the country with its vast resources of labour and cheaper land to manufacturers. Its education system is turning out millions of new university graduates, new intellectual property laws have given added protection to proprietary technology, and authorities are still working hard to make exporters’ lives easier: for example, the central city of Chongqing, which manufactures a third of the world’s laptops, reduced export clearance times by 98 per cent in 2018.
For most manufacturers, it seems that the continuing advantages of “Made in China” outweigh the threat of new US tariffs.
Herald van der Linde is HSBC Global Research’s head of equity strategy in Asia-Pacific

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: The advantages of ‘Made in China’ still outweigh the risks
Take it from an insider (me) - if a US/PRC tariff war really happens, the martial arts will take a huge blow. The bulk of martial arts gear - Chinese, Japanese & Korean - is manufactured in China. Uniforms, the largest moving item, can fall to clothing tariff. That'll hit the schools and anyone who buys gear right in the wallet.

GeneChing
06-20-2019, 08:05 AM
China’s robot makers are hooked on subsidies, highlighting another red line in US-China trade war (https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3015136/chinas-robot-makers-are-hooked-subsidies-highlighting-another)
Mentions of ‘Made in China 2025’ may have disappeared, but Beijing and local governments continue to subsidise emerging technologies, sparking US outrage
US President Donald Trump has long complained about China’s state subsidies, even accusing Chinese trade practises of ‘raping’ the American economy
SCMP
Orange Wang
He Huifeng
Sidney Leng
Published: 6:15am, 20 Jun, 2019

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Last year China was the world’s largest producer of industrial robots – the machines that automate production lines – for the sixth successive year, with 147,682 units made, according to date from OFweek. Photo: Handout

Prospects of China and the US securing a deal to end the trade war are dwindling. This is the fifth in a series of long reads examining the elements of any deal that Beijing would be willing to agree to, those that are considered achievable in the long run, as well as the red lines, on which Beijing is unlikely to ever budge. Part five focuses on the complex issue of state subsidies for China’s hi-tech industries.
If Beijing’s phasing out of references to “Made in China 2025”, the ambitious blueprint for the country’s industrial upgrade, was supposed to convince the United States that it had dropped the plan, then an outburst from US President Donald Trump last week showed that the move had clearly failed.
In an interview with CNBC, Trump railed against the plan, claiming that he had told his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping that it was “insulting” to America, and that it was his own threat of retaliation that led to the brand being quietly dropped.
Washington has long complained about China’s state subsidies. Trump has often directed his fury at heavy industry, railing against cheap Chinese steel flooding US markets, even accusing Chinese trade practises of “raping” the American economy. However, it is arguably Beijing’s subsidies for hi-tech industries that the US fears most, as can be showed by its pursuit of China’s technology giants, Huawei and ZTE.
Both China and the US are aware that whoever dominates in technologies such as 5G, robotics, electric vehicles and cloud computing, could gain the upper hand in both trade and military terms in the decades ahead. Furthermore, the US government can look at industries such as electric vehicles and solar cells for precedents as to how China subsidises a developing technology to the point of dominance and only then winds down government support.
In the EV sector, China is beginning to reduce subsidies, but only at a stage when it is by far the global leader. In 2017, the country produced more electric vehicles than the rest of the world combined, 579,000, compared to 200,000 in the US and 98,000 in Japan.
China views these technologies as crucial to moving its manufacturing economy up the value chain and avoiding the dreaded middle income trap, where wages stagnate, igniting the potential for domestic unrest. In that regard, subsidising new industrial sectors – as with the state support continually pumped into job-rich industries like machinery and car manufacturing – helps keep discontent among the public muted.
For these reasons, hi-tech subsidies are viewed by many as a red line for China in the talks with the US to end the trade war. Conversations with industry insiders – many of whom receive subsidies – reveal little desire to change a model which suits them well.

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In 2017, China produced more electric vehicles than the rest of the world combined, 579,000, compared to 200,000 in the US and 98,000 in Japan. Photo: AFP

In the robotics business, for instance – one of the 10 key industries named in Xi’s Made in China 2025 plan, launched in 2015 – subsidies are warmly welcomed and viewed as necessary if Chinese companies are to be competitive.
Some even think that even with the billions being pumped into the sector from government coffers, Beijing is not doing enough, even though last year China was the world’s largest producer of industrial robots – the machines that automate production lines – for the sixth successive year, with 147,682 units made, according to date from OFweek.
Sun Kai, the chief technology officer of Beijing Elite Technology, a privately-owned industrial robot maker which opened a production plant in the manufacturing hub of Suzhou near Shanghai last year, said that he “absolutely” wanted the Chinese government to grant more financial support to the industry, despite US demands to stop.
“[The subsidies for buying robots] make little sense in terms of boosting the R&D on industrial robot technologies,” Sun said.
This year, the picture has been less rosy, with tariffs and a slowdown in global demand forcing industrial robot production down by 10.2 per cent in the first four months, according to OFWeek, a data resource for China’s hi-tech industries.
But that does not mean that Beijing has stopped subsidies. Government handouts accounted for 44 per cent of net profits for 53 listed robotic companies in 2018, according to a research note by Sinolink Securities, a sharp rise from the 10 per cent recorded between 2012 and 2017. continued next post

GeneChing
06-20-2019, 08:05 AM
Big powers in manufacturing are all ratcheting up the development of intelligent manufacturing
unnamed Gree executive
Robotic industry subsidies come in different forms, but they are delivered by government authorities across China. In 2014 and 2015 alone, more than 36 Chinese cities launched a total of 77 supportive policies for the sector, according to the China Robot Industry Alliance.
This led to an influx of companies to the sector, including private start-ups like Beijing Elite Technology and major, established manufacturing players, such as Gree, a state-owned home appliance maker based in Zhuhai, which created a subsidiary in September 2015 to produce industrial robots.
“Big powers in manufacturing are all ratcheting up the development of intelligent manufacturing. China also released the action plan for Made in China 2025. Within this context, Gree dug into the research and development of intelligent equipment,” said an unnamed Gree Intelligent Equipment executive in a statement received from the company, who declined to disclose how much the company had received in subsidies.
In Suzhou, the municipal government released a two-year funding plan in 2016 for smart devices and the internet of things, whereby 500 million yuan (US$72 million) would go towards helping manufacturers upgrade their production lines with one-time rewards of between 5 million yuan (US$722,000) and 10 million yuan.
These enable companies to purchase robots from companies such as Beijing Elite Technology, but Sun said that he would prefer the government channel funds directly into research and development (R&D).
“It makes little sense not to boost the R&D on industrial robot technologies,” Sun said, adding that 10 per cent of his companies budget came from government subsidies.
“China’s robot industry is still falling behind the ones in Europe, the United States, Japan and South Korea. Most [robot] companies that target the high-end market are facing huge financial pressure, mainly from the spending on research and development.”
Zhu Sendi, a member of the National Manufacturing Strategy Advisory Committee, told the Made in China Forum in Foshan earlier this year that while China is the world’s biggest manufacturer, building better industrial robots would help it catch up with the US in terms of efficiency.
“It is urgent now for China to consider the strategy of how to transform manufacturing from big to strong. Intelligent manufacturing should be the main direction,” he said.
This is a widely-held view within the sector and one backed up by research as a study by the Chinese Academy of Engineering showed that Chinese manufacturing is 15.48 per cent less efficient than its American equivalent, up from 11.68 per cent in 2012.
Chen Hongbo, the vice-president of Jaten Robot & Automation, a robot manufacturer in Foshan in China’s Guangdong province, said that “global economic and trade trends are not conducive” to innovation in China’s hi-tech sectors, with the drag on international demand caused by the trade war making it difficult for his company to invest in R&D.
“Tech enterprises, the government and talent should support each other to tide over the difficulties to improve the productivity of robot and intelligent manufacturing and promote the transformation of robotics companies,” Chen said, adding that government subsidies could help achieve this.

Tech enterprises, the government and talent should support each other to tide over the difficulties to improve the productivity of robot and intelligent manufacturing and promote the transformation of robotics companies
Chen Hongbo
A separate Guangdong manufacturer based in Dongguan, who wished to remain anonymous, admitted that government subsidies form “about 30 per cent” of its R&D budget, which itself was up to 20 per cent of the company’s revenue.
“Government subsidies and incentives are an important boost to R&D, especially in the current economic downturn and uncertainties, which mean most Chinese companies have become more conservative with regard R&D investment than in previous years,” said the executive, whose company makes radio frequency identification equipment for controlling industrial robots.
The message from the robotics sector is clear: China should continue subsidising companies until the money is no longer needed, the technology is sufficiently developed and the companies able to sustain market forces.
“The US government thinks the monopoly of Chinese state-owned enterprises has been strengthening, so it is disgusted with China’s government subsidies. But even in mature market economies, the US or European Union, they also have government subsidies and financial support programmes in cutting-edge technology development,” said Luo Jun, chief executive of the International Robotics and Intelligent Equipment Industry Alliance, a government think tank.
Understandably, this is a point of frustration in Washington. Jeff Moon, assistant US trade representative for China during the final year of the Obama administration, cites the example of solar panels, which China subsidised to the point of domination, as well as Beijing’s plans last year to establish a 300 billion yuan (US$43.38 billion) fund to support its domestic semiconductor industry.
“I don't think that [the Trump administration] think they are going to wipe out all subsidies, but I think that putting some really outrageous number against semiconductors, then that is completely changing the entire industry,” Moon said.
“If China is claiming that it has the right to now subsidise beyond anyone's wildest expectations a company that is going to sell products below market prices, engage in predatory pricing, bankrupt companies all around the world, and that is how they are going to achieve Made in China 2025, by first capturing the Chinese market and then capturing world markets, well, then there's a reason to have a trade war and we ought to fight it.”

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China offered subsidies to solar panel manufacturers. Photo: San Jose Mercury News/MCT

In China’s electric vehicle sector, where subsidies are being reduced, companies are racing against time to innovate before they are fully exposed to market forces. Beijing’s latest policy plan showed that this year, subsidies for all electric vehicles combined would be half last year's level and are expected to be completely phased out by the end of next year.
The plan also forbids local governments from subsidising electric passenger vehicles starting from this month – subsidies for electric public transports and fuel cells are still allowed – but encourages local officials to fund more infrastructure construction, such as charging stations.
Chongqing Sokon Industry Group, a private Chongqing-based company, mainly produces low-end electric vehicles that are reliant on subsidies. According its annual report, nearly 40 per cent of its electric vehicle revenue came from government subsidies last year.
“The subsidy is only a guidance. The government eventually will let the market play a bigger role. The subsidy can only raise a lot of locusts. Any subsidy policy is not a long-term solution,” said an analyst at the company, who preferred not to be named.
Sokon has been pouring funds – 10 billion yuan (US$1.4 billion) over five years – into an advanced new model, its plug-in hybrid electric vehicle, with its self-developed engine, with a view to mass-producing later this year. The company is betting on the new model to boost revenues that have been hit by China’s sluggish vehicle market and help reduce some of its debt burden, which has risen to more than 70 per cent of its assets.
It is easy to see why China is now happy to stop propping up its electric vehicle industry as it is already miles ahead of other competing nations. Bloomberg reported earlier in June that there are already 486 electric vehicle start-ups in China, many of which are yet to introduce their first commercial products. Despite this, there were more than 1 million electric vehicle sales in China for the first time in 2018.
Other tech-related issues in the trade war, such as an end to intellectual property violations and forced technology transfer, are viewed as items China can accept and address in the medium-term. However, as it strives to be the global power in new technologies, Beijing appears less inclined to meet US demands on subsidies.

THREADS
Trade War (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71299-Trade-War)
Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)
Which Colossal Death Robot are you? (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?18982-Which-Colossal-Death-Robot-are-you)

GeneChing
06-24-2019, 08:11 AM
How China’s Feiyue sneakers, shoes of Shaolin monks, are making a comeback (https://www.scmp.com/lifestyle/fashion-beauty/article/3015522/how-chinas-feiyue-sneakers-shoes-shaolin-monks-are-making)
Traditionally the go-to footwear of Shaolin monks, Chinese Feiyue sneakers are seeing a resurgence thanks to Gen Z’s love of retro heritage brands
New stores have opened in Beijing as the Chinese brand looks to differentiate itself from separate Feiyue brands in France, the US and elsewhere
Jessica Rapp
Published: 11:15am, 23 Jun, 2019

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A Shaolin kung fu student wearing Feiyue shoes. The sneakers are making a comeback in China as younger consumers seek out ‘Made in China’ heritage brands. Photo: Alamy
Chinese sneaker brand Feiyue started out providing the go-to footwear for Shaolin monks; the shoes were lightweight, supportive and cheap.

Fast forward nearly 70 years and the martial art accessory has become a fashionable must-have – and the cause of multiple copyright disagreements. For the past year and a half, Beijing resident AJ Donnelly and his business partner Nic Doering have been working with the Shanghai-based brand to bring it back to its humble roots.
Donnelly’s story starts like that of many who encounter Feiyue in Beijing: he stumbled upon the shoes when he started his martial arts training at the Shaolin Temple in Henan province in 2015.
The shoes, which were also a staple of the martial arts performers at the 2008 Beijing Olympics, are made using recycled rubber from the Shanghai Da Fu Rubber tire factory. Their Chinese name means “to leap” or “to fly over”, though its slogan “flying forward” will be more familiar to people in the West.
In 2016, Donnelly and Doering launched a company called Cultural Keys to help foreign students in China learn about traditional Chinese culture. It included martial arts programmes conducted in partnership with the Shaolin Temple and Feiyue shoes were part of the students’ training outfits. It soon became clear, however, that they would need a greater supply.
“All of the students who were with us were saying, ‘Wow, these shoes are so cool, they’re so hip, where can we get more?’” Donnelly says.
After discovering that few sports apparel stores in Beijing actually sold Feiyues, Donnelly contacted Da Fu to determine whether they could resell the footwear in their cultural centres in Beijing.

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Shaolin Monks wearing Feiyue shoes demonstrating their skills to tourists outside their training temple. Photo: Shutterstock

“They basically said the same thing that the Shaolin Temple told us: they said, ‘We’d love to do this *[as] we don’t have easy access to orders from an international market, so if you could help us by stocking our shoes … we’d love to work with you,’” Donnelly says.
From there, Donnelly says he and his team opened a shop in Beijing called the CK Culture Boutique (now located in the Songzhuang Art District in Beijing’s Tongzhou district) where they sell the shoes, along with Chinese calligraphy, kung fu clothes and other cultural products.
Most of Donnelly’s customers are tourists who find the shop through TripAdvisor or Google. But the Feiyue shoe has also been making a comeback in the Chinese market thanks to a surge in interest in all things retro, especially among Gen Z consumers.
The company, buoyed by this interest in “Made in China” heritage brands, has expanded its range of the shoes, as well as its consumer engagement strategy.

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Modern Feiyue sneakers.

“I’ve noticed wherever I go I see more and more young Chinese people wearing them on the subway, and just going down the streets,” Donnelly says. “But I see older people as well who just pop into the shop when they’re walking past who say, ‘Oh my gosh, I was wearing these when I was 10 years old and it’s amazing to see them here now.’ It’s great to hear both sides of that.”
The increasing popularity of Feiyues can sometimes pose challenges for Donnelly’s boutique. Da Fu makes around 150 styles of the shoes, but change out styles yearly depending on Chinese tastes.

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Feiyue sneakers on display at the CK Culture Boutique in Beijing.

“The Chinese consumer likes very bright and colourful styles, even rainbow-coloured shoes, whereas we see the most popular ones [among Western shoppers] are the most basic … very simple. Grey mid tops with a black line going through them are a number-one bestseller for us, but they’re not popular with the Chinese shopper. So Feiyue will stop making them after a year.”
Sometimes the range of colourful styles on offer can be confusing for those unfamiliar with Feiyue’s complicated brand story.
In 2006, a French marketing and events manager living in Shanghai had the idea to create a hip, stylish culture around the shoe. He bought the brand registration from a manufacturer in China and trademarked the name to sell them in France. Since then, not only has the French brand given Feiyues an updated, fresh look, it has attracted Western celebrities like Orlando Bloom and Poppy Delevingne, who once told W Magazine that she “lived in” the trainers.

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CK Culture Boutique in Beijing’s Tongzhou district.

The Feiyue name has also been trademarked in Australia, New Zealand, South Korea and Taiwan – all separate entities from Shanghai Da Fu Rubber and its subsidiary Double Coin, which took over manufacturing the shoes in 1979.

We serve a very specific group of customers. And when people come to us, whether it’s for classes or martial arts programmes, or for the shoes themselves, we always try and give as much of the story that we have
AJ Donnelly
There is also a US version of the sneaker company, headed by a Florida-based footwear firm called BBC International, which bought out the French brand in late 2014, according to new magazine Footwear News. In China, countless copies of both the Chinese and French versions of the Feiyue shoe are also available as the Chinese market still grapples with the protection of intellectual property rights.
For the moment, the Chinese Feiyue is carving out its own niche and recent years have seen the introduction of branded stores in Beijing.

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Feiyue shoes drying outside the Shaolin Kung Fu school dormitory in Dengfeng city in Henan province. Photo: Alamy

Donnelly believes his company is helping ground the flying footwear brand.
“We serve a very specific group of customers,” Donnelly says, noting that his shop has one additional value for foreign travellers that they won’t find at Feiyue’s branded shops: its collection is available in extended sizes, up to a size 47. “And when people come to us, whether it’s for classes or martial arts programmes, or for the shoes themselves, we always try and give as much of the story that we have from our point of view.
“We’re not a tour company; we don’t talk about modern China and these kind of things. We always take everything back to its roots.”

This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: How a kung fu favourite gained traction

https://smhttp-ssl-73310.nexcesscdn.net/pub/media/catalog/category/tiger-claw-feiyue-shoes-6_1.gif

You know where to get your FEIYUES...MartialArtSmart.com. (https://www.martialartsmart.com/catalog/category/view/s/shoes-feiyue-shoes/id/819/)


THREADS
Tiger Claw brand Feiyue (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?41187-Tiger-Claw-brand-Feiyue)
Att Gene - FeiYue shoes (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?24507-Att-Gene-FeiYue-shoes)
Got me some Feiyue's (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?38140-Got-me-some-Feiyue-s)
Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)

EqualStage
07-25-2019, 04:05 PM
Not that I don’t trust Chinese production at all .. but I buy equipment, weapons, and accessories with quick detach mount (https://www.atncorp.com/accessoriesandkits) fasteners from another manufacturer (ATN). We are talking about hunting equipment. This is my hobby and my life.

GeneChing
09-27-2019, 10:04 AM
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Can ‘Made in China’ be cool? Yes, if the West thinks so (https://www.goldthread2.com/culture/made-in-china-guochao-hipster/article/3027942)
Jiaqi Luo
SEP 18, 2019

Guochao (国潮), literally “national hip,” is the latest buzzword in the Chinese fashion world.

The term initially referred to specific homegrown streetwear brands but now encompasses any Chinese aesthetic that counters style references from the West.

That includes heritage brands like Feiyue, Li-Ning, and Warrior, apparel makers that were once popular in the 1970s and ’80s but overtaken by foreign brands like Nike and Adidas because of their global prestige.

Now, Chinese youngsters wear guochao as a badge of pride, akin to the “Made in America” label in the United States. Call it Chinese retro.

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Feiyue, a Chinese sneaker brand, has benefited from the guochao resurgence. / Photo: Tmall

And with the ongoing political crisis in Hong Kong and the U.S.-China trade war, the youth in China desire guochao more than ever.

The Chinese media consistently portrays guochao as the result of “cultural self-confidence” (文化自信), that with economic power comes cultural might as well. China, they say, has had enough time chasing Western fashion and culture, and it’s time to embrace their own.

Ironically, much of guochao’s rise can also be attributed to the recognition of these brands in the West.

But ironically, much of guochao’s rise can also be attributed to the recognition of these brands in the West.

Feiyue, for example, became a global street fashion icon after a French entrepreneur discovered the shoes while learning martial arts in China. He bought the rights to sell them in France, and the shoes took off.

That this “Western gaze” is embedded in guochao makes it a complicated cultural trend. How Chinese millennials feel about heritage brands is a reflection of how they see their country: proud of its achievements but also aware that it still seeks validation from the West.

What is guochao?

Western media tends to portray guochao as the result of Chinese millennials looking back to their cultural heritage and generating renewed interest in Chinese culture.

But what excites millennials more about guochao is the transformation of old heritage brands into nostalgic chic. Because embedded in the story of guochao is the story of China’s rise.

One can pinpoint the start of guochao to February 2018, when Chinese sportswear brand Li-Ning showcased its Taoism-inspired Wu Dao collection at New York Fashion Week.

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Li-Ning’s fall-winter collection at New York Fashion Week 2018. / Photo: Shutterstock

The show instantly became a social media sensation in China, where Li-Ning was lauded for “making it” in New York. Online posts juxtaposed photos of old Li-Ning products alongside new ones with the caption, “This is not the Li-Ning you knew.”

The narrative? A brand as dull and basic as Li-Ning could now turn heads with a Chinese flag design in glamorous New York.

After the Fashion Week hubbub, guochao emerged. Before, the word for heritage brands like Li-Ning was 国货 (guohuo), or “national product.” Now, they were not just products; they were cool, hip, and stylish.

Before, the word for heritage brands like Li-Ning was 国货 (guohuo), or “national product.” Now, they were not just products; they were cool, hip, and stylish.

Other brands started to jump on the guochao bandwagon, reimagining their products to capitalized on the nostalgia of millennials.

Hero, whose ink pens were a staple of primary school writing classes, launched an ink-colored cocktail with liquor distiller Rio, and Pehchaolin, a facial cream popular in the 1980s, collaborated with the Palace Museum on a chic cosmetics line.

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The original Pehchaolin cream (right) and the Palace Museum collab. / Photo: Pehchaolin

White Rabbit, known for its milk candies, launched a candy-scented perfume with Scent Library and even came up with a White Rabbit-scented lip balm with cosmetics maker Maxam.

All these products were sold out overnight.

While these heritage brands sought to capitalize on their image among a domestic audience, others looked abroad.

Warrior, a shoe brand worn by Chinese schoolkids in the ’80s and ’90s, has gone through a rebranding and now sells its signature sneakers at around $90 a pair overseas. In China, the same model goes for $9.

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Warrior rebranded for the Western consumer. / Photo: Warrior

And then there’s Feiyue, the once forgotten shoe brand from Shanghai that re-emerged after Patrice Bastian started selling the sneakers in France in 2006.

The shoes quickly became a street fashion icon. Celebrities like Orlando Bloom and Poppy Delevingne were spotted in them. Collaborations with Celine, Marvel, and Swarovski soon followed.

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Orlando Bloom wearing Feiyue sneakers on the set of "New York, I Love You." / Photo: Weibo

Within China, the brand saw a revival. Millennials who once thumbed their noses at Feiyue in favor of Nike and Adidas started buying them again. Ironically, it had taken recognition from the West to raise Feiyue’s profile in its home country.

Patriotism as fashion, or why “a loser strikes back” narrative works

In Chinese classrooms, students are taught at a young age that the last 100 years was a “century of humiliation.” Events such as China’s defeat in the Opium Wars and the destruction of the Old Summer Palace by European forces remain an indelible part of history education.

Against this backdrop, China’s economic miracle is seen as the country catching up to the West. In colloquial language, it’s known as 屌丝逆袭 (diaosinixi), literally “loser strikes back.”

The usefulness of this narrative has not been lost on the government, which has called the renaissance of Chinese brands “the result of rising cultural self-confidence.”

Buying domestic brands is now a patriotic act.

Buying domestic brands is now a patriotic act, and consumers will not hesitate to boycott foreign labels that they feel have tarnished China’s image.

Dolce & Gabbana took a hammering last year after releasing an advertisement that was perceived as racist. Versace and Coach sparked outrage last month for shirts that apparently suggested Hong Kong was separate from China.

And amid the U.S.-China trade war, many former Apple users have switched to Chinese-made Huawei to show their solidarity, boosting Huawei’s smartphone sales by 16.5% in the second quarter this year, while Apple’s declined 13.8%, according to research firm Gartner.

It’s not uncommon to find reviews that say, “I support Chinese brands,” rather than comments on the product itself.

In online shopping sites, it’s not uncommon to find reviews that say, “I support Chinese brands,” rather than comments on the product itself.

And the latest development in the guochao trend is buying Chinese wear before going abroad.

“I got a bunch of Li-Ning T-shirts for my trip,” says Jack Song, a 23-year-old Guangzhou native. “I think it will make me look cool in Europe.”

Herein lies one of the great contradictions of guochao. Underlying this newly empowered Chinese identity is a desire to prove oneself. The message is not “this is how great China is” but rather “see how much China has changed.” For a generation that grew up with stories of humiliation from the West and viewing foreign brands as superior, international recognition is still important.

But there are signs that the next generation—those born after the year 2000—might see things differently. They are coming of age in a China that’s developing its own brands and technology. They’re wealthier, more independent, and they view domestic products as superior because they actually believe they’re faster, better, and more innovative.

Today’s guochao might be about the “loser striking back,” but tomorrow’s might see a different narrative.

Want to learn more about Chinese heritage brands and how they came to be? Keep swiping for our series Retro China, where we explore the stories behind some of China’s most beloved brands.


Jiaqi Luo
Jiaqi Luo is a writer based in Milan. She writes about fashion and style in contemporary China. Her work has appeared in Jing Daily, The Business of Fashion China, and The Luxury Conversation.

THREADS
Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)
Feiyue (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?41187-Tiger-Claw-brand-Feiyue)
Li-Ning (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?55860-Li-Ning-opens-in-America)
White Rabbit (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71120-Follow-the-White-Rabbit)

GeneChing
01-29-2020, 10:06 AM
‘Made in China’: how Wuhan coronavirus spread anti-Chinese racism like a disease through Asia (https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/health-environment/article/3048104/made-china-how-wuhan-coronavirus-spread-anti-chinese)
Xenophobic chatter about Chinese eating habits is going viral on the internet
Such ignorance isn’t just unpalatable – in misdiagnosing the problem, it’s dangerous, too
Kok Xinghui
Published: 8:00pm, 29 Jan, 2020

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A video by Chinese social media influencer Wang Mengyun, in which she tries bat soup has been held up by some as evidence of ‘disgusting’ Chinese eating habits – even though the video was shot in Palau. Photo: Sohu

As Singaporeans gathered over the Lunar New Year weekend, jokes were cracked about Chinese eating habits and how a propensity to eat “anything with four legs except the table and everything that flies except planes” had given rise to the Wuhan coronavirus.
One meme said there was no need to worry – the virus would not last long because it was “made in China”.
The jokes, tinged with racism, soon grew into a call for the city state to ban Chinese travellers from entering. A change.org petition started on January 26 had 118,858 signatures as of Wednesday afternoon. Among those calling for health to be prioritised over tourism dollars was Ian Ong, who wrote: “We are not rat or bat eaters and should not be made to shoulder their nonsense.”
Xenophobic chatter about mainland Chinese and their eating habits has spread across the world since the first cases of the novel coronavirus 2019 (2019 n-CoV) emerged in China’s Hubei province in December.
The virus has now infected more than 6,000 people, most of them in mainland China where at least 132 people have died. Dozens of people have been infected in the rest of Asia – including 10 in Singapore and seven in Malaysia.
Some countries, including the Philippines, have stopped issuing visas on arrival to all Chinese nationals. Papua New Guinea has gone further, shutting its air and seaports to all foreigners coming from Asia.

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Passengers arriving from Guangzhou, China, at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport in Manila. The Philippines has stopped issuing visas on arrival to all Chinese nationals. Photo: EPA

In Malaysia, there have been calls to block Chinese tourists and social media posts claiming the outbreak is “divine retribution” for China’s treatment of its Muslim Uygur population. Some mosques in Malaysia have also closed themselves off to tourists.
In Japan, a shop in a mountain town prompted an apology from tourism authorities after it posted a sign saying: “No Chinese are allowed to enter the store. I do not want to spread the virus.”
From noon on Wednesday Singapore has blocked the entry of tourists who had visited Hubei province in the past 14 days, or who hold passports issued in the province. Malaysia has also stopped issuing visas to Chinese travellers from Hubei.
The Singapore government has said the travel ban was due to global trends showing that most of the infections were in people who had been to the province and the country wanted to minimise import of the virus to Singapore.
The growing stigma has even reached European shores. Graduate student Sam Phan wrote in the British newspaper The Guardian about how a man on the bus in London had scrambled to get up as soon as Phan sat down. “This week, my ethnicity has made me feel like I was part of a threatening and diseased mass. To see me as someone who carries the virus just because of my race is, well, just racist,” he wrote.
In Canada, Toronto website BlogTO said a stigma was also attached to Chinese food, noting that a similar thing happened during the 2003 outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars), which infected 8,000 people globally and killed nearly 800. The website noted racist comments on its Instagram post about a new Chinese restaurant, which some posters urged diners to avoid because it “may have bat pieces in there or whatever else they eat”.
The comments were in part a reference to a video of a Chinese social media influencer tucking into a bowl of bat soup. Some posters have claimed the video is evidence of “disgusting” Chinese eating habits, though the video was in fact filmed three years ago in Palau, a Pacific island nation where bat soup is a delicacy.
continued next post

GeneChing
01-29-2020, 10:07 AM
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Wrongly accused? The Huanan Seafood Market in Wuhan. Photo: Simon Song

It is still unknown how the coronavirus made the jump from wildlife to humans, but early on in the outbreak the Huanan Seafood Market in the central city of Wuhan was widely assumed to be the origin of the disease. The market has a thriving wildlife trade, selling animals from foxes to wolf puppies, giant salamanders to peacocks and porcupines.
However, in recent days research has emerged suggesting the market may not be the source of the virus.
The medical journal The Lancet on January 24 said that of the first clinical cases, 13 out of 41 had no link to the market.
The first patient showed symptoms on December 1, meaning human infections must have occurred in November 2019 given the two-week incubation period. Researchers said the virus could have spread in Wuhan before the cluster within the market was discovered.
Similarly, the virus’ genome has been sequenced but researchers are not sure if it comes from bats – as Sars did – or snakes. Still, experts said it is not so much about what meat is eaten, but how thoroughly it is cooked and the hygiene precautions taken during food preparation.
“The chef is at greatest risk,” said infectious disease specialist Leong Hoe Nam, who was closely involved in Singapore’s fight against Sars, which killed 33 people and infected 238 in the city state.
Leong said anybody could catch a virus from an animal.
“It is a case of the right person meeting the wrong virus at the wrong time. It could happen to anyone studying viruses, or meeting the bats in the most inopportune time,” he said, referring to a case in Melaka, Malaysia, when a bat flew into a house and infected a 39-year-old man and his family.
Painting the coronavirus as a Chinese problem was like “dealing with the problem with a sledge hammer, implicating all Chinese nationals rather than dealing with bad food safety practices and diets”, said National University of Singapore sociologist Tan Ern Ser.
Nanyang Technological University (NTU) sociologist Laavanya Kathiravelu said xenophobic social media posts were an extension of colonial-era stereotypes.
“Chinese, in these xenophobic accounts, are seen as taking resources away from deserving local populations, and having uncouth behaviour. More broadly, this can also be seen as informed by older stereotypes of Chinese as dirty, having bad hygiene and undesirable culinary practices,” she said.
Even Singapore government ministers have spoken out.

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Singapore’s National Development Minister Lawrence Wong, pictured with Hong Kong Chief Executive Carrie Lam, has cautioned his countrymen against ‘turning xenophobic’. File photo

Minister for National Development Lawrence Wong, who co-chairs a task force set up to deal with the virus, said on Monday: “I want to assure Singaporeans that the government will do everything we can to protect Singaporeans and Singapore but this does not mean overreacting, or worse, turning xenophobic.”
Singaporean playwright Zizi Azah, who is based in New York, said it was illogical to pin the virus on a race. “Illness knows no geographical or racial boundaries and it really is the luck of the draw, isn’t it? Where something starts and where it gets to,” she said.
Mohamed Imran Mohamed Taib, director of the Centre for Interfaith Understanding, cautioned against the effects of dehumanising Chinese people as uncivilised. “It is not due to ‘Chinese-ness’; the fact that these people are Chinese is incidental, not the reason for the emergence and transmission of the virus. The virus could have emerged in any other part of the world, just as Ebola started in Congo and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome in Saudi Arabia,” he said.
Singapore’s Minister for Education Ong Ye Kung on Monday called for empathy, saying that Singaporeans would not have liked it if during the Sars outbreak other countries had asked Singaporean expatriates to leave.
“We’re an international hub, we can well be quite hard hit by such epidemics. So I’d say do not do unto others what you do not want others to do unto you. We all must tackle the problem objectively.”
In Malaysia, Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad clarified that any mosques that had closed themselves off to tourists had not done so on the government’s advice.
“This is not a government policy and it is an irresponsible act,” he said on Wednesday, warning the public against spreading fake news that could stir racial tensions.
“Even though we believe in freedom of expression, it does not mean we can be antagonistic and agitate the feelings of others.”


This article appeared in the South China Morning Post print edition as: racism aimed at chinese spreads fear and panic

THREADS
Coronavirus (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-Wuhan-Pneumonia)
Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)
Chinese Food (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?16444-Chinese-food)

GeneChing
02-04-2020, 09:12 AM
Coronavirus to test just how reliant the world is on Chinese manufacturers, with Asia braced for shock wave (https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-economy/article/3048950/coronavirus-test-just-how-reliant-world-chinese-manufacturers)
With regions of China accounting for 80 per cent of exports on lockdown, factories around Asia are being forced into looking for alternative supplies
Workers trapped in China amid travel bans, while trade watchers as far afield as California wait for boats from China to stop arriving
Finbarr Bermingham
Published: 8:00pm, 4 Feb, 2020

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The world’s second largest economy remains on lockdown, with factories in 14 provinces covering 70 per cent of China’s gross domestic product and 80 per cent of its exports ordered not to open until Monday at the earliest. Photo: Reuters

Manufacturing and logistics players reliant on China's giant economy are braced for an incoming shock wave from the spread of the novel coronavirus, which is set to test “just how reliant we have grown on Chinese manufacturers”.
The world’s second largest economy remains on lockdown, with factories in 14 provinces covering 70 per cent of China’s gross domestic product and 80 per cent of its exports ordered not to open until Monday at the earliest.
The virus has claimed over 420 lives, the vast majority in China, but has infected people throughout the region, with more than 25 countries having confirmed cases as of Tuesday. In an effort to contain the spread, authorities in the likes of the United States, Singapore and Vietnam have restricted air traffic to and from China, while the movement of Chinese people across borders is also being restricted.
“Anything that limits the free movement of goods or people is bad for shipping,” said Tim Huxley, founder of the Hong Kong container freight shipper, Mandarin Shipping. “The expected demand decline in China is already being factored into prices of commodities and shipping rates. It’s very difficult to make any decisions while we’re still unclear about how long this is going to go on for.”

Anything that limits the free movement of goods or people is bad for shipping. It’s very difficult to make any decisions while we’re still unclear about how long this is going to go on for.
Tim Huxley
Some are sceptical as to whether manufacturing will resume as normal on Monday, given the virus is still spreading, albeit at a slower rate in recent days. Huge numbers of migrant workers are trapped in parts of China that are under an official lockdown covering more than 60 million people, while many others are in areas unofficially closed off by local officials.
“Some entire factories may not reopen at all because their entire management and a good part of their operators are still blocked in Hubei province – and that is true of many factories,” said Renaud Anjoram, partner and CEO of manufacturing consultancy firm Sofeast.
Within mainland China, oil demand has dried up by 20 per cent, Bloomberg reported, amid a freeze in travel, while metal prices have plunged on consecutive days since markets reopened on Monday, a sign of expected weak demand in key industrial sectors.
All this means the optimism that followed the signing of a phase one US-China trade deal barely three weeks ago already feels like a distant memory.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l3uQYgeMyxQ
Coronavirus tally in outbreak epicentre Wuhan, China may just be ‘tip of the iceberg’

“While production remained largely normal over the Lunar New Year period, logistical disruptions could mean that metal stocks are building at producers,” wrote Wenyu Yao, senior commodities specialist at ING in a note to clients. “We’ve heard that some alumina smelters are facing the risk of fuel gas shortages.”
Nick Bartlett, director at CBIP Logistics in Hong Kong, said that the company’s fulfilment services have ground to a virtual halt since Chinese trade has dried up so severely.
“Some services remain operating at partial and controlled levels, and in some cases, specific logistic providers have come to a halt until February 9 when another review of things will be taken,” Bartlett said. “This leaves most Chinese-based logistics companies working around limited operations ensuring the safety of its people.”
A survey of businesses in the city released by the American Chamber of Commerce in Hong Kong on Tuesday found that more than 80 per cent of companies had been affected to medium or great extent by the coronavirus prevention measures recommended by the Hong Kong government, with 87 per cent having to adjust working practices for employees.
Factory operators in Southeast Asia reliant on Chinese-made materials and Chinese staff are unsure if they can obtain new components – a problem that will only get worse the longer the virus outbreak continues.
“Our components factories are all closed for another week – we do not know what’s going to happen, we have absolutely no idea,” said Larry Sloven, CEO of Capstone International, a lighting manufacturer that recently moved its production from China to Thailand, but which still imports many components from the mainland.
Vietnam, meanwhile, has been toasted as the “real winner” of the US-China trade war since it inherited much of the production capacity leaving China so companies could avoid paying US tariffs. But after the Vietnamese government put a ban on Chinese nationals entering the country last weekend, these producers face a new challenge.

The logistics have barely been affected [yet] but the biggest problem for me now is that I am banned from re-entering Vietnam
Steven Yang
“We export raw materials from China to Vietnam,” said Steven Yang, a Chinese furniture maker who relocated his factory from Foshan in Guangdong province in to Vietnam last year to avoid the escalating tariffs and who spent the Lunar New Year in his hometown. “The logistics have barely been affected [yet] but the biggest problem for me now is that I am banned from re-entering Vietnam.”
Ernie Koh is faced with a similar conundrum. His company, Koda, makes furniture in Vietnam and Malaysia for export around the world.
However, many of the parts come from China, as do many of his management staff. Furthermore, he operates a retail franchise in China – meaning his business and supply chain is heavily exposed to the fallout from the coronavirus. Having decided to wait until after the Lunar New Year holiday to replenish stock from China, Koh is now running low on some inventory lines.
“We need to look for another source and diversify our supply chain,” he said, adding that he had been forced to write a note to Vietnamese staff members assuring them that Chinese workers that returned to the country before the border was closed would be quarantined, over fears that the coronavirus could be spread through factories.
“Some of our staff and middle-management in Vietnam are Chinese and they have not been able to come back after Lunar New Year. We have had to urgently reposition some of our management from Malaysia to make up for it.”

Some of our staff and middle-management in Vietnam are Chinese and they have not been able to come back after Lunar New Year. We have had to urgently reposition some of our management from Malaysia to make up for it
Ernie Koh
Aemulus, a Malaysia-based maker of semiconductor testing equipment, said that it too was looking at contingency plans for its China suppliers, including companies in South Korea and Taiwan, amid fears that the Chinese lockdown will continue.
“We, as well as our vendors definitely have concerns over the cases,” said Sang Beng Ng, Aemulus CEO. “The starting date that vendors were due to come back to work has been delayed and there could be further delays which it's hard to tell at this point.”
The US economy was buoyed overnight by positive manufacturing data, after the Institute for Supply Management’s purchasing managers’ index – a survey of American factory owners – rose by 3.1 per cent to 50.9 per cent. This was in contrast with Asian manufacturing surveys, which performed poorly in January – even though they were conducted before the coronavirus outbreak.


Coronavirus in context
Coronavirus Fatality rate: 2.1% 20,676 427
US seasonal flu* Fatality rate: 0.07% 13,000,000 10,000
Sars Fatality rate: 9.6% 8,437 813
MERS Fatality rate: 34.4% 2,494 858
Ebola Fatality rate: 43.9% 34,453 15,158
H1N1 Fatality rate: 17.40% 1,632,258 284,500

Nonetheless, there is some concern that even the US could be hit with collateral damage.
“Here, we're waiting for the boats from China to stop showing up once Chinese [dock workers] no longer have anything to load. US importers, who normally plan for factories in China to go dark during the annual New Year celebrations, certainly would not have expected those factories not to reopen promptly after the last [cheers] of the holiday,” said Jock O’Connell, Beacon Economics' international trade adviser and a veteran watcher of Californian trade.
“Those importers with taut supply chains should soon be seeing inventory shortages. If this situation persists, we will all eventually see just how reliant we have grown on Chinese manufacturers.”
Additional reporting by Harry Pearl and Cissy Zhou

THREADS
Coronavirus (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-Wuhan-Pneumonia)
Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)

GeneChing
03-16-2020, 07:58 AM
MARCH 15, 2020 11:04PM PT
China’s Economy Heading for Historic Reverse, Reflecting Virus Impact (https://variety.com/2020/biz/asia/china-economy-historic-reverse-virus-impact-1203535186/)
By PATRICK FRATER
Asia Bureau Chief

https://pmcvariety.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/china-money.jpg?w=700&h=393&crop=1
CREDIT: REX/SHUTTERSTOCK

An historic shift into reverse gear for the Chinese economy could be one of the next consequences flowing from the spread of the novel coronavirus. That prospect threw Asian stock markets into reverse on Monday, despite economic stimulus measures in the U.S.

The U.S. Federal Reserve, on Sunday (Monday morning in Asia) announced a full percentage point cut in its benchmark interest rate, reducing it to close to zero. The Fed also promised to inject liquidity into the economic system by buying at least $500 billion of Treasury securities and at least $200 billion of mortgage-backed securities. The Hong Kong Monetary Authority followed the U.S. central bank’s example and cut its own base rates.

But financial markets were unimpressed. Australia’s ASX index crashed by more than 9% on Monday to 5,002. New Zealand’s NZX 50 index fell 3.6%. Hong Kong’s Hang Seng Index, already a bear market since Friday, was down 2.2% at the lunchtime trading break. South Korea’s KOSPI index headed for a loss of more than 1%, though Japan’s Nikkei index rose 0.7%, apparently in anticipation of stimulus measures.


Mainland Chinese markets were firmly down, with the SSE Shanghai Composite benchmark down more than 2%.

Chinese data unveiled on Monday showed that industrial production in the world’s manufacturing hub fell by 13.3% in January and February. That has never happened before in the modern era.

Other data showed Chinese retail sales down by 20.5% in the same two months, and fixed asset investment down by 24.5%.

Despite China, now seeming to get back to work after new Covid-19 infections have peaked in the country, many economists are now forecasting an historic decline in China’s GDP when data for the January-March quarter is completed.

In total, China has incurred some 81,000 coronavirus infections and over 3,100 deaths. On Monday, it reported 16 new coronavirus infections and 14 deaths, numbers that are significantly down on the past trend. Since the weekend, mainland authorities have been saying that most new cases are not local infections, but are imported with foreigners arriving in China.

That pattern may also explain the latest fall in Asian stock markets. The recent decision by Apple to close its retail stores outside Greater China hurt many of its Asian suppliers. iPhone assembler Hon Hai Precision fell 4.3% to TWD71.3 per share by mid-Monday. Sunny Optical slumped 10.6% to HK$105.9. LG Display was 2.2% lower at KRW11,050. Sharp bucked the trend with a 2.2% gain to JPY989.

The pain being incurred by Chinese businesses was reflected in additional share price losses for Alibaba and Tencent. The Hong Kong-traded units of Alibaba dropped 5% on Monday to HK$182.10, while Tencent fell 4.2% to HK$349.60.

There was no new bad news for China’s media sector. But the longer that mainland cinemas stay shut, the deeper the problems become for companies including: Wanda Film (whose shares were down 4.4% to CNY17.12); China Film Co. (down 2.4% to CNY12.96); and Huayi Brothers (down 3.5% to CNY3.77). Hong Kong-traded Imax China on Monday fell 3.5% to HK$13.94.

THREADS
Chollywood rising (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?57225-Chollywood-rising)
Made in China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)
covid-19 (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

GeneChing
09-21-2020, 09:23 AM
Sep 19, 2020,05:50am EDT
China More Dominant Than Ever In Covid-Related ‘PPE’ — And U.S. Flags (https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2020/09/19/china-more-dominant-than-ever-in-covid-related-ppe---and-us-flags/#7685ee9717f7)
Ken Roberts Contributor

https://specials-images.forbesimg.com/imageserve/5f654ee9f4ef86ea891f9479/960x0.jpg?fit=scale
One of the companies importing N-95 masks from China was 3M, which was also manufacturing in the ... [+] GETTY IMAGES

China is now accounting for more than 85% of all U.S. imports in the category dominated by N-95 respirators, disposable and non-disposable face masks, surgical drapes and surgical towels, and, oddly enough, including U.S. flags.

As the United States closes in on 200,000 American deaths attributed to the coronavirus pandemic that originated in China, the textile category for these personal protection equipment items is growing more rapidly than any of China’s other top 15 imports into the United States this year, according to the latest Census Bureau data, which runs through July.

Those top 15 imports accounted for almost 46% of U.S. imports from China.

While overall U.S. imports from China are down 14.71%, which is more than overall U.S. imports, which are off 12.04%, the increase in the category dominated by the masks was 395.47%.

The $10.8 billion total is three times the total the United States imported from the entire world in the same first seven months of 2019.

That allowed the percentage of those imports arriving from China to increase from a still-lofty 70.17% in the first seven months of 2019, before the outbreak of the coronavirus, to the current market share, 85.43%.

Even as the United States has aggressively ramped up its own manufacturing of such items, it has come to rely more heavily on China for these life-saving pieces of medical equipment than any time in at least a decade and almost certainly ever.

While dominated by masks and other PPE, it is a broad category that includes furniture movers’ pads, pillowcases and wall banners — as long as they are made of textiles — and U.S. flags.

Through there are a number of U.S. manufacturers of U.S. flags, imports from China in the first seven months of the year accounted for 98.91% of the total. The $4.28 million in U.S. flags, a trifling compared to $1.4 billion in N95 respirators, was the lowest total since 2015. The percentage, however, has been consistent for years.

Though the category is broad, it does not, of course, necessarily capture all personal protection equipment.

Looking more broadly at the leading U.S. imports from China through the first seven months of the year, 12 of the 15 fell in value.

In addition to the textile category, a category of miscellaneous plastic articles — which also includes products that could be related to the pandemic, such as pneumatic mattresses, plastic facemasks and other laboratory ware — also increased 13.22% but accounted for a record 53.72% of all U.S. imports.

Computer parts also increased, up 9.97% but China accounted for the lowest percentage of U.S. imports in more than a decade, at 28.7%. Two years earlier, that percentage was at 69.7%.

One category, furniture fell more than 37% while three categories, toys, seats and lamps and lighting fixtures, all fell more than 20%. For all four, their percentage of U.S. market share was lower than at any time in more than a decade.



Ken Roberts

I didn’t leave the womb thinking I would find my life’s work writing and speaking about trade data, trying to make it interesting and relevant. But this is where I find myself. Today, the company I founded in 1998, WorldCity, has published annual TradeNumbers publications around the country, from Seattle to Miami, Los Angeles to New York and numerous points in between. Monthly, we upload more than 10 million pages and page views of Census data at ustradenumbers.com, on hundreds of airports, seaports, countries, and export and import commodities. I serve on the Federal Reserve’s Trade and Transportation Advisory Council. In the last year or so, I have spoken about trade in Washington, D.C., Los Angeles, Laredo, Miami and Chicago. I also post a weekly Trade Matters video. I don’t expect you to fawn over it like I do, but I hope I bring a little clarity, a different perspective or some insights that are helpful.

THREADS
Made-in-China (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?66168-Made-in-China)
covid (http://www.kungfumagazine.com/forum/showthread.php?71666-Coronavirus-(COVID-19)-Wuhan-Pneumonia)

GeneChing
11-26-2021, 03:30 PM
Walmart pulls children's toy that swears and sings in Polish about doing cocaine (https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/walmart-pulls-children-s-toy-that-swears-and-sings-in-polish-about-doing-cocaine-1.5678364)

Pat Foran
CTV News Toronto Consumer Alert Videojournalist
@PatForanCTVNews Contact
Published Tuesday, November 23, 2021 6:32PM EST
Last Updated Tuesday, November 23, 2021 10:06PM EST

TORONTO -- An Ontario grandmother who bought an educational toy for her 15-month-old granddaughter was shocked when the dancing cactus started swearing and singing about doing cocaine.

"This toy uses swear words and talking about cocaine use," Ania Tanner told CTV News Toronto. "This is not what I ordered for my granddaughter."

The cactus was sold on Walmart’s website as an educational toy for about $26 and sings songs in English, Spanish and Polish.

But Tanner, who is Polish, said when she listened to the Polish lyrics, the cactus was singing about doing cocaine, drug abuse, suicide, depression and used profanities.

"It just so happens that I am Polish and when I started to listen to the songs and I heard the words," she said. "I was in shock. I thought what is this some kind of joke?"

The song is by Polish Rapper Cypis, who is reportedly unaware his song was used by the Chinese manufacturer of the children's toy.

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/polopoly_fs/1.5678408!/httpImage/image.png_gen/derivatives/landscape_960/image.png

"It's about taking five grams of cocaine and being alone … It's a very depressing song," Tanner said

This singing cactus toy was also sold in Europe through Amazon and in July 2021 other families also noticed and complained about the lyrics that many felt were inappropriate for a children’s toy.

The Polish artist said he planned to take legal action against the Chinese company for using his song without permission.

CTV News Toronto was unable to contact Cypis or the manufacturer for comment.

Tanner said she feels Walmart should not be selling the toy and wants a refund.

Walmart told CTV News Toronto they take this customer complaint concern seriously.

"These items are sold by a third-party seller on our marketplace website. We are removing the items while we look into this complaint further," a Walmart spokesperson told CTV News Toronto.

That was a relief for Tanner who said “I just don't want anybody before Christmas to think this is a great toy and go online and have the same thing happen, that happened to me."

Some families may already have the dancing cactus toy and if they don’t speak Polish, they wouldn’t know what it was saying.

Complaints with the toy go back almost five months so it’s not clear why the toy is still being sold.
I kinda want one...