China becomes world's top high-tech

MSNBC / Reuters ^ | Dec. 12, 2005

[Lorianne]

China trumped the United States in 2004 as the world’s leading exporter of high-tech goods like laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday.

Official data from the Paris-based OECD highlighted how fast the country, still Communist Party-controlled, has emerged as an economic power that the United States and other long-industrialized countries can no longer ignore.

China exported $180 billion worth of ICT (information and communication technology) goods in 2004, compared with U.S. exports of $149 billion, the OECD, a free-market organization whose 30-country membership does not include China, said.

[Termite_Commander]

Stupid commies.

[Windsong]

What a joke. China couldn't find its ass if it was handed to them.

[Mr. Rational]

I don't know which is worse - the confusion between high tech and the value of shipments (and ownership of intellectual content of those shipments), or the slant/bias of the article " a China that the US can no longer ignore" - WTF? Have we ignored China in 70 years?

[demlosers]

China trumped the United States in 2004 as the world’s leading exporter of high-tech goods like laptop computers, mobile phones and digital cameras, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development said on Monday.

Uh, you mean that companies from foreign countries use Chinese labor to assemble electronic goods for export. China does not develop most high tech systems - that comes from the West. Furthermore, the profits do not stay in China from these Trans national companies much of it goes back to their respective home countries.

Trade deficits and trade surpluses by country is an obsolete metric to track wealth in a global economy.

[Antoninus]

Just more @ss kissing of the Chinese by our Commie-lovin' press.

[Tuba Guy]

Thanks to the Clintoons, Red China has 40 spy satellites orbiting the earth and has all of our pulse (electronic) weapon technology.

Thank you B.J. and Hillareah

[peyton randolph]

Unfortunately, their computer keyboards are equipped with no L but an extra R instead. :-)

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Would someone please explain how the Chi-coms, whose only experience had been great leaps upon the backs of tens of millions of Chinese killing them, could suddenly explode into a roaring free market-oriented economy? Yes, I know Deng had a plan.

There's no way they could have done it mostly in the 1990's and later without the free tradin' transfer of technology, wealth (FDI), and production.

I think the way was opened for the Chi-coms in the afternoon of Jan. 20th, 1993, about tea time, in a big house on Pennsylvania Ave.

It seems everyone thinks of corporate personnel just doing that economic thing, fact is New Democrat Third Way "progressives" are behind globalization -- with their "rules" -- and corporations were invited along. Lenin didn't call 'em useful idiots for nothing. Deng thanks you. The PLA thanks you. The princelings thank you. . . .

[WilliamofCarmichael]

RE: "the profits do not stay in China from these Trans national companies much of it goes back to their respective home countries."

Getting funds out of China is not always easy from what I've read..

Also there's the tax on repatriated funds.

It took the American Jobs Creation Act of 2004 which gave companies one year to bring home earnings at a 5.25% tax rate, versus the normal 32% rate.

Companies left their earnings parked off shore while they tried for years to get this deal. The Act is suppose to limit how the corporations use the funds, hence the phrase "jobs creation" in the title of this ruse.. er, I mean law.

[TheCrusader]

"What a joke. China couldn't find its ass if it was handed to them."

Times have changed. China is handing our ass to us in the trade realm.

[Triggerhippie]

Stupid commies.

Say what you want, but the bravest individuals on this planet are from China. You couldn't get ME into a Chinese-made rocket with promises, threats, or medication!

[globalheater]

Well these guys are underestimated - especially in this thread.

There's an inhumane regime that's true - but there's a lot of exile Chinese people that stick together like rice.
Their ancestors invented the compass, black powder and the nowadays Chinese are famous for their instincts in business around the world.

Who build Hongkong ? It's the trade hub of the southern hemisphere.

It's a bunch of people we have to have on the agenda and we have to deal with them. Especially the regimes sometimes exaggerated cruel attitude to people and the gigantic environmental issues their economic supernova is giving birth to.

If you had a look on who graduates from Harvard today and how many of these graduates are going back to their home country you will see the answer on who's going to develop high-tech in the future (and present).

Young US folks that really have the brains will nowadays most likely be a banker or lawyer. If you hold you head into research labs e.g. syngenta crop science in san diego - you will see a good 40% of the people celebrating new year on another day. Not many of them will stay forever.

China is not going to be a No1. they already are - if you don't look on where they are but which direction they are going.

[Glenn]

you will see the answer on who's going to develop high-tech in the future

I know from a personal experience that China is hiring the brightest minds it can find in eastern Europe and Russia and investing huge sums in teaching them fluency in Chinese language, after which they are being installed in universities and industrial concerns. China is serious about being #1.

Competing against them will be fun, if we have the balls to.

[endthematrix]

"Trade deficits and trade surpluses by country is an obsolete metric to track wealth in a global economy. "

Increasingly, so are borders and sovereignty...

[DieHard the Hunter]

> China couldn't find its ass if it was handed to them.

I respectfully disagree, mate. China is going to dominate by stealth. They are gearing up their industries to do it.

I'll give you an example or two, though admittedly somewhat lo-tech. Here in NZ we get used as a "marketing target" -- we are a small country, easily measured and relatively representative. So we get to see their goods long before you do.


I have a new drill-press, made in China. It is bolt-hole-for-bolt-hole identical to the same model Ryobi. It runs dead-true, no wobble, no noise. It cost me NZ$99 -- less than half-price. You'd swear they used the same cast-iron molds as Ryobi: it is *that* identical. The table finish wasn't quite as good: the Ryobi's table is polished. But it was milled flat to within a thou's tolerance -- good enough for me.

I have a bench grinder, also made in China. Two stones, virtually identical to a similar model marketed by Black & Decker. I swear, you could swap the parts. Except the Chinese have used steel where B&D have used plastic. NZ$89 -- again, less than half-price.

Cordless drill. Made in China 1.44 amps. At least as good as any Ryobi. NZ&49 on sale. Came with a spare battery.

Laser level. NZ$100. Indistinguishable from its German counterpart, except for price.

Sure, they produce some cheap sh*t, just like Japan used to do. Remember the "Jap Crap" jokes? Sadly, the joke was on us back in the '70's and we didn't see it coming.

My wife has a music student, whose father lives in China, not far from HK. He runs a factory that manufactures PCs. They have built a small city around his factory. The workers live, eat, drink, sleep, and breathe within a stone's throw of his factory. Thousands of them. And they buy their groceries from the company store. And (so far) they are servicing only the domestic market. That will change someday, real soon.

No, mate. It is the West who will not be able to find our ass when its handed to us. These Chinese jokers are in the game and I suspect they intend to play for keeps.

[WilliamofCarmichael]

Speaking of the Chinese people I'm more interested in the 800 million outside of the special economic zones.

All we hear are raves about the government-owned enterprises and how they're kicking ass. I guess so. To do business in China don't you have to hand over your technology -- may as well. They'll just steal it anyway.

Did GM ever get their case against China's Chery Automobile Company settled? Stole the whole damn car, I read.

[opocno]

Hong Kong is in the northern hemisphere, as are its major trading partners (China, Japan, India, Europe, US and Canada). Only Australia is a southern hemisphere nation of any major economic value to HK.

[endthematrix]

"I think the way was opened for the Chi-coms in the afternoon of Jan. 20th, 1993, about tea time, in a big house on Pennsylvania Ave."

Kerry has plans for China too.

How to tech transfers:

In Nov. 2001, the Bush administration imposed one of the largest civil penalties ever in an export-control case over a 5-axis machine sent to China. The Commerce Department fined McDonnell Douglas Corp. $2.1 million for selling China aerospace equipment that wound up inside a military jet fighter manufacturing plant.

The fine ended a six-year investigation into McDonnell Douglas, which deceived the government and broke federal export-control laws when it sold an array of sophisticated machining tools to China in 1994.

[DieHard the Hunter]

> Only Australia is a southern hemisphere nation of any major economic value to HK.

Mate, I mean you no disrespect, but you need to look at the globe.

You forget entirely about the African continent, most of which is in the Southern Hemisphere. Plenty of untapped wealth there: more money than even Croesus would want or need. Just ask de Beers. Or check out Nigeria. Oil, oil and more oil.

Or South America, for that matter. They are swimming in marketing potential. An entire continent flush with natural resource waiting to be exploited. As damaging as its current economic developments have been, South America has yet to plunder its potential.

Indonesia is no joke, either: plenty of wealth there. And a huge marketplace.

Understand also that the Southern Hemisphere trades together in ways that the Northern Hemisphere would scarce suspect. The only thing separating us is oceans. And the Chinese are here, thick as thieves, boots and all.