China’s strength, speed and ability to manufacturer products and infrastructure has been a frequent topic of discussion on many of the business and news podcast I listen to.
Often the speaker will gloss over China’s dictatorship, government control of business, slavery/poverty wages, and dissent crushing tactics saying something like, “…although China is a dictatorship that doesn’t offer freedom of dissent” or “…acknowledging the persecution of the Uyghurs” or “…they do pay lower wages but are able to generate much more efficiency from their workforce“”.
Then they will wax poetic about how China has a 100-year outlook for business. They’ll slavishly praise China for building high-tech manufacturing facilities in months when the US takes years. They’ll talk about success of Temu, TikTok and Huawei.
They’ll barely mention the quality of life, abysmal environmental concerns and the brutal working conditions for many employees.
Instead they’ll contrast the best parts of Chinese manufacturing (capabilities, efficiency, low costs, focus) with the worst parts of American manufacturing (labor costs, inefficiency, poorly regulated, short term profit focus).
Here’s the rub – you cannot separate the good parts of Chinese manufacturing & economic progress from the bad: dictatorship, dissent crushing, low wages, human right violations and government-centric controls are all part of what makes China such a manufacturing stronghold.
It’s similar to how slavery enabled the US to become a dominant agricultural center, Industrial Age barons created wealth on the backs of low wage laborers, and feudal lords exploited peasantry for their riches.
You can’t have one without the other.
A friend of mine says, “If you are envious of what someone else has, you must be willing to take everything that they have – the good and the bad plus everything they had to do to get to where they are today.”
Usually there’s more to the story than the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.