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China to Be Laptop Leader
prostoalex writes "IMS Research says that by the end of the year People Republic of China might become world's biggest laptop manufacturer. The plants will be largely owned by Taiwanese manufacturers, though. Taiwan is current #1."
Frequency of stories about Chinese tech stuff certainly picked up recently. What's going on there?
The leadership we're talking about here is production only. I don't see how having more low wage workers to exploit equates to development leadership. I don't mean to use the word "exploit" too negatively though, this will probably be a good thing.
The more low-paid jobs available, the more competition for labour, and as a result, better working conditions and pay.
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
I think that we all know that mainland China manufactures a lot of stuff, but what does this prove? That cheap labor attracts business? It comes to me not as any suprise that this was eventually going to happen. A major leap forward would be that China has the most laptop users in the world or possibly that a Chinese computer company has outsold one of western counterparts, but this is really no big suprise.
I doubt Stallman would consider The People's Republic of China a TRUE socialist country. But anyways. Why does it matter that they use it? Are you saying because something can be used in a "bad" way such as you described we shouldn't do it in the first place? And about Microsoft being able to shutdown XP remotely. Would that really matter in a war? Would shutting down ALL their computers damage the millitary that much?
Sock puppets stole my sig.
And that's how it works! Eventually the amount of money China makes from the "cheap junk" (btw, I would hardly call RAM from Taiwan "cheap junk") will raise the standard of living, education and level of innovation. Suddenly, the "cheap junk" China turns out won't be cheap or junky any more. Wages will go up, and quality of goods will go up - and with it, the prices of the goods. A hole will open for another poor country to start producing the "cheap junk".
China is already on the road out of "cheapness". Did you know that a very large selection of the good "English" hi-fi equipment is now made in China? The quality of these components is quite high, too.
Taiwan is on the road to be at a Japanese-level manufacturer, and China is on the road to be a Taiwanese-level manufacturer.
And, in case you hadn't guessed by now, this is all basic economics - otherwise known as the Trickle Down Theory.
-- james
Why do you think the US is so keen on coercing the world's nations into signing onto the WTO treaty? In the case of china, who has the power? The US, who buys all those goods? Or china, who supplies all those cheap goods the people of the US depends on?
China has a large and well educated population that is increasingly moving toward High Tech items, because other countires (such as Taiwan) have traditionally dominated these markets and have kept pries rather high. Using cheaper (criminally, but that's editorializing) labor they can bring to market a cheaper product (of similar quality). Heck, even software jobs are moving to south east Asia and the Indian subcontinent, in an airing of Talk of the Nation a few weeks ago, they were discussing the high levels of education and low cost of workers for fields from mechanical engineering, to software design and tech support in foreign countries, especially since the incerasing wiredness of the world and these countries in particular makes it easier (and more cost effective) than ever.
I think that in the next few years there will be an even greater outsourcing of these sorts of projects. India and Bangladesh are typically cheaper markets then China to work in, and we can probably look forward to those countries entering into these markets.
Now for my editorial, because I have to have it (you can stop reading if you'd like). with the US job market as tight as it is right now, it is a major ethical dillema to be outsourcing High paying jobs to countires where the worker that would make $60,000 a year here, makes $5,000 over there. It puts the US economy in grave danger of collapsing in on itself as these lucrative jobs are removed and th emarket has to return to a service and agricultural based economy (the latter of which is becoming a smaller employer but larger business by the year). In all hopes this would see the rise in the standards of living for the average person in China, Micronesia, wherever, but it doesn't seem like the transition would be quick as workers there would have to get it in their heads that they deserrve that amount of money. (To sum, it's like an emerging basketball trend, American players (on the whole) have no actual proficiency with teh sport (though they have a great deal of raw physical talent), and eastern European players do. This means an increasing influx of Eastern European players until they become complacent in their position and the Americans learn to play the game (with little things like passing, and team work)).
Ideally, (and I'm being naive) there is a way to protect American jobs while increasing (or ostensibly increasing) the standard of living in foreign countries. If the US government, or the AMerican consumer, would refuse to allow the sale of (or purchase) goods that were manufactured or generated by workers who were not treated equally to their American counterparts. Of course, in teh drive for cheap stuff there are no rules. [end]