China Overtakes US as Supplier of IT Goods

Ant writes "CNET News.com is reporting that 'after almost a decade of explosive growth in its electronics sector, China has overtaken the United States as the world's biggest supplier of Information Technology goods, according to a report by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.' From the article: "The most spectacular demonstration of China's ambition to become a consumer electronics heavyweight came in May this year when Lenovo, the Chinese computer maker, paid $1.75 billion to buy IBM's personal computer unit."

Comments

I for one

[daliman]

... welcome our new chinese overlords. Better than the old ones...

How can that be?

[bit01]

China has nowhere near as many IP lawyers protecting their "valuable intellectual property" as the USA.

Hmm

[jav1231]

Frankly, after the shootings the other day in China I wish we'd stop doing business with them. Our relationship with China is nothing to be proud of.

Re:Hmm

[Narc]

Where I see your point, I don't agree with it.

You can't judge a people by their govt and their ideology, especially such an oppresive one. It's like judging America by Bush. Refusing to do business with them or have any sort of relationship with them isn't quite as simple as "I don't like that cheerleader, she's a prissy cow and ignores me". On a international level, this hurts the people already being screwed over by their govt in the long run more so.

You have to build some form of relationship, positive ones more often than not are better, regardless of your opinion of someone. Positive relations are more effective at bringing about change.

Re:Hmm

[Newton's Alchemy]

You have to build some form of relationship, positive ones more often than not are better, regardless of your opinion of someone. Positive relations are more effective at bringing about change.

Unless the country doesn't have nuclear weapons, then you're of course free to invade.

The "helping the people not the government" argument is utter bullshit. It helps US Corporations to do business in China, period. THAT's why we still do business with them and not in places like North Korea. It has NOTHING to do with helping the average Chinese.

Only the beginning

[Markvs]

JP Morgan and some other firms are now outsourcing finance positions to India for the first time. If the US doesn't wake up and go for FAIR trade, FREE trade will cut all of our collective throats.

Another sign of the US switching

[Anonymous Coward]

From a manufacturing base with huge exports of cars, military goods, computers, electronics and so on, to a services based economy.

Companies like GM, Ford, boeing are all being overtaken by European and Asian counterparts such as Airbus, Mercedes (who of course, recently took over Chrysler), Toyota and so on. Traditional industrial areas such as Arms manufacturing have been undercut by the European weapons giants FN and Heckler and koch, (the designers and makers of the next gen US army replacement rifle that will soon be replacing the M16.

IBM going to China, Chrysler going to Germany, Ford and GM opening plants in Mexico and Canada. America does not actually make that much stuff anymore (Germany remains the number one exporter in the world with China a close second).

But does that matter, is it no longer profitable for companies like IBM or GM to make product in America? Is the real money in IP, like with Microsoft, or with American Pharma giants like Pfizer? Or how does that explain companies like toyota opening up manufacturing plants in America? How does a service based economy provide the jobs necessary for 300 million people?

Re:Why this is

[capt.Hij]

Absolutely right. It is the poor, poor, executives that make the sacrifices here in the US while the over fed, over indulgent, over rich workers make out like bandits. If it were not for the unions those poor robber barrons would have kept our standard of living comparable to China's where it belongs.

</irony>

The great red planet???

[dbleoslow]

When I was growing up in the 80's, there was a big anti-communist thing going on (Most notibly, the great war epic Red Dawn). There was also a big "buy American" movement due to a strong Japanese economy. Now we have a communist economic powerhouse and noone seems to be raising a stink. Why is that? My only thought on this is that with China, US executives are still making money. The Japanese kept everything from manufacturing to management in-house. China just does the manufacturing and leaves the US management to their big salaries. I think you will only see the "Made in China" issue come to the forefront when they start managing everything, thereby screwing the US upper management.

Services moving overseas, too

[EmagGeek]

I've read a lot of posts about how the US is becoming a services-based economy. I have news for you, the services are being offshored as well. I went to my doctor for my annual physical last month, and while there was a nurse in the office performing the physical, the doctor was on an LCD screen from his office in, you guessed it, India.

Did you also know that there are law schools in India now that teach AMERICAN law and not Indian law? I'm guessing that paralegals and other support functions in Law will shortly be available for cheap offshoring.

I used to think that Medicine and Law would be the last things to go, but it seems I was wrong about that. As I scramble to find a safer profession than Engineering, I'm not even sure where to go. I thought of teaching, and then realized that there are movements afoot to move this overseas, too, with a cheap security guard in the classroom to maintain order and a cheap teacher overseas in front of a camera.

So, while it's not so untrue that America is becoming a services based economy, I think it would be more accurate to say that it is becoming an UNSKILLED or lesser-skilled services economy.