It’s because the people importing the cheap Chinese stuff are importing cheap stuff from China because they want to make as much profit as possible. China’s been the world’s factory for 50 years now, don’t think they haven’t figured out how to do things on their own?
FFS almost their whole population was lifted out of poverty and were racing them to have the best chip manufacturing process. They have a space station.
Turns out there is a long-term effect to giving all your factory tech and IP to another country: it becomes institutional knowledge, and eventually they start seeing improvements on their own, and they garner enough expertise to not only strike out on their own but compete.
The capitalists sold your future for yachts. Like, literally.
I mean yes, they’ve stolen a lot of IP. Much of it was not transferred legally. They have a state run industrial and commercial spying program and have for decades - just like Russia.
What OP is actually referring to is the lack of industrial oversight and the Chinese penchant for using substandard material like steel and lying about it to charge a higher price while providing an inferior good.
Look up ‘tofu dreg’ construction.
It’s not western capitalists getting rich off this, it’s unscrupulous Chinese factory owners and industry magnates.
Chinese manufacturers are quite flexible on pricing and quality - all the stuff is not the cheapest lowest quality stuff. One big problem they have though is that a lot of companies that farm out manufacturing to china do it to lower costs - and so opt for the cheapest things they can, then wonder why what they get back is a pile of crap and sell it on anyway.
If you are willing to pay more then the quality can actually be very good. At lot of things things you think of as good quality are still made in china or at least parts of it are.
I don’t worry about Chinese manufacturing capabilities… they’re doing great.
I do worry greatly about the Chinese political system causing preventable (nuclear) accidents through lack of transparency and accountability.
If their reaction to the COVID breakout is symptomatic of systemic issues (I firmly believe it is), then I don’t see how anyone can trust the Chinese government to act in the interest of safety.
Those micro-cracks and corrosion issues that caused months of downtime on Belgian and French reactors respectively, that would have caused rolling blackouts in both instances if those winters had been cold? Pretty sure in China that’d be “carry on comrade”.
EDIT: Oh and I forgot about the 3 gorges dam. In case anyone still doubts that the Chinese government does not factor in safety, at all.
Mainland China still struggles with ultra-high precision engineering to this day. They still can’t make a turbofan engine that matches the efficiency and power/weight ratio of either Russian or Western designs, despite the fact that many of their “indigenous” designs are simply reverse-engineered copies. Hell, they only recently started successfully mass-producing good-quality ballpoint pens (which are actually deceptively difficult to manufacture at scale).
Edit: Not to mention, trying to capture and use at least some of Taiwan’s semiconductor foundries is very definitely one of the unstated justifications they have for claiming sovereignty over Taiwan, and for making plans to invade and fully subjugate the island.
Considering that the CCP seems to lean HARD into the Soviet idea of saving face at all costs just to try to look good, I would not be terribly surprised if some sort of Chernobyl- thing happens at some point, because that’s the exact mentality that led to Chernobyl and the RBMK reactor design becoming a problem in the first place.
Even if it built with the same disregard as the Chernobyl plant, and there’s “an occasional meltdown”… it’s still actually better than building coal power plant in terms of lives lost per TWh of power generated.
I see a lot of chinese made machinery that doesn’t meet Australian standards and are often built so poorly they don’t last.
I hope the people building these have better quality control.
Ahh, this old chestnut.
It’s because the people importing the cheap Chinese stuff are importing cheap stuff from China because they want to make as much profit as possible. China’s been the world’s factory for 50 years now, don’t think they haven’t figured out how to do things on their own?
FFS almost their whole population was lifted out of poverty and were racing them to have the best chip manufacturing process. They have a space station.
Turns out there is a long-term effect to giving all your factory tech and IP to another country: it becomes institutional knowledge, and eventually they start seeing improvements on their own, and they garner enough expertise to not only strike out on their own but compete.
The capitalists sold your future for yachts. Like, literally.
I mean yes, they’ve stolen a lot of IP. Much of it was not transferred legally. They have a state run industrial and commercial spying program and have for decades - just like Russia.
What OP is actually referring to is the lack of industrial oversight and the Chinese penchant for using substandard material like steel and lying about it to charge a higher price while providing an inferior good.
Look up ‘tofu dreg’ construction.
It’s not western capitalists getting rich off this, it’s unscrupulous Chinese factory owners and industry magnates.
It’s also not just an export problem.
And also corruption. It’s so rampant in China. So even if there are laws or standards, they can be ineffective due to bribery.
Chinese manufacturers are quite flexible on pricing and quality - all the stuff is not the cheapest lowest quality stuff. One big problem they have though is that a lot of companies that farm out manufacturing to china do it to lower costs - and so opt for the cheapest things they can, then wonder why what they get back is a pile of crap and sell it on anyway.
If you are willing to pay more then the quality can actually be very good. At lot of things things you think of as good quality are still made in china or at least parts of it are.
I don’t worry about Chinese manufacturing capabilities… they’re doing great.
I do worry greatly about the Chinese political system causing preventable (nuclear) accidents through lack of transparency and accountability.
If their reaction to the COVID breakout is symptomatic of systemic issues (I firmly believe it is), then I don’t see how anyone can trust the Chinese government to act in the interest of safety.
Those micro-cracks and corrosion issues that caused months of downtime on Belgian and French reactors respectively, that would have caused rolling blackouts in both instances if those winters had been cold? Pretty sure in China that’d be “carry on comrade”.
EDIT: Oh and I forgot about the 3 gorges dam. In case anyone still doubts that the Chinese government does not factor in safety, at all.
Mainland China still struggles with ultra-high precision engineering to this day. They still can’t make a turbofan engine that matches the efficiency and power/weight ratio of either Russian or Western designs, despite the fact that many of their “indigenous” designs are simply reverse-engineered copies. Hell, they only recently started successfully mass-producing good-quality ballpoint pens (which are actually deceptively difficult to manufacture at scale).
Edit: Not to mention, trying to capture and use at least some of Taiwan’s semiconductor foundries is very definitely one of the unstated justifications they have for claiming sovereignty over Taiwan, and for making plans to invade and fully subjugate the island.
Considering that the CCP seems to lean HARD into the Soviet idea of saving face at all costs just to try to look good, I would not be terribly surprised if some sort of Chernobyl- thing happens at some point, because that’s the exact mentality that led to Chernobyl and the RBMK reactor design becoming a problem in the first place.
Tofu dreg nuclear reactors. I did not have that on my Bingo card.
Oh but of course! What could possibly go wrong?
Even if it built with the same disregard as the Chernobyl plant, and there’s “an occasional meltdown”… it’s still actually better than building coal power plant in terms of lives lost per TWh of power generated.