NYT: Next Wave From China: Exporting Cars to the West

[DeepModem Mom]

Next Wave From China: Exporting Cars to the West
By KEITH BRADSHER
Published: June 25, 2005


XINSHA, China, June 24 - Honda Motor began loading cars onto a ship here on Friday for export to Europe in China's debut as a volume exporter of cars to the industrialized world.

The shipment follows DaimlerChrysler's disclosure two months ago at the Shanghai Auto Show that it was negotiating to build a factory near Beijing to make small cars for export to North America. It comes at the end of a week when the Haier Group's bid for Maytag and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation's bid for Unocal have fed Western concerns about China's rapid economic rise.

Automakers from around the globe, including General Motors, Ford Motor and Toyota Motor, are racing to build factories in China even as the rest of the world faces severe overcapacity in car manufacturing, raising the prospect that more factories may someday have to close in Western countries as Chinese exports grow.

China's swift development has already alarmed leaders of the United Automobile Workers and other Western labor unions, who say their members cannot compete with workers earning $100 a month in coastal Chinese provinces and who would earn half that at auto factories being built in inland provinces.

Following a path already blazed by Korea and Japan, China has built a large auto industry with increasingly high quality over the last decade while protecting its home market behind steep trade barriers. China still imposes a tariff of close to 30 percent on imported family vehicles, compared with American tariffs of 2.5 percent on imported cars, minivans and sport utility vehicles and 25 percent on pickup trucks....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/06/25/business/worldbusiness/25honda.html

[ckramer]

1. Maybe we should welcome this news

A new non-luxurious car today sells for way over 20,000 dollars. I think that's ridiculous. What most working people need is just a car that can go from point A to point B.

Everything in America is artificially overpriced.

[lovuian]

2. China is going to be ruling the world soon!!! or will it???

Can American Japaneese and European Workers all stand by and have their jobs taken away and who will buy these cars when they are out of a job and oil is $3 bucks a gallon!!!

[idlisambar]

3. This is mostly our problem, not Japan's

For one, Japan's population is set to start decreasing in a couple of years, so the issue of jobs is not as big a concern overall. In fact, Japan's heavy investment in robotics is motivated partly by this demographic shift they are about to face.

Second, as their record trade surplus in history of $180 billion last year indicates, Japanese manufacturing is doing just fine. The Hondas may be assembled in China, but in terms of value-added, most of the parts, components, materials, and equipment will be made in Japan. So on balance, moving some processes to China could be a win for them if by reducing costs for the finished product they are able to gain market share in China and third-party markets (like the US).

[ConcernedCanuk]

4. Western Economy and wages have been way out of line for decades

.
.
.

Including Canada - workers are paid, and have been getting increasing paid ridiculously high wages for unskilled labour for over 50 years.

As an apprentice mechanic in the 70's, it amazed me that one could make more money in a factory doing a simple single function over and over again, that usually took anywhere from an hour to a week to "perfect", than I could dream of making after a five year apprenticeship to learn the trade to diagnose and repair vehicles.

I went through an engine plant in Oshawa, and watched as the people on the line did a function that was anywhere from a few seconds, to a minute or so - like how long would it take to learn that?

I've heard that they are getting paid so much for the "boredom".

Well, looks like in a few decades or less, the West is gonna learn that boredom ain't really worth that much wage-wise - Unions or not - when the factories close or move overseas - that's that.

And the Unemployment and Soup kitchen lines will blossom like the great depression

A crash is coming to the Western World, and you betcha it's the USA that is gonna hurt the worst

That's my Canuk Opinion anyhoo - -

[Conservativesux]

5. Payback time for Detroit auto workers who put out the worst workmanship

in assembling cars in the known world from the 1970's to the early ninties. The defects were so pronounced that many people still wont touch US cars to this day, and the Japanese have made billions.

Hate to say it because we only drive US steel in my home, but its still the truth.

How do you pronounce GM and Ford in Chinese again? <bg>

[bpilgrim]

11. the workers fought hard to EARN their salary and if they didn't get it the

corp would.

it is simply a race to a bottom fueled by the greed of corporations.

peace

[daleo]

6. Can the Chinese afford their own cars?

If this is predicated on exports, which then demolish highly paid industries in the west, it is not sustainable. It was one thing when a few Asian tigers were whittling away at the industrial infrastructure, but China is huge. Once the "rich world" is brought low, who does China sell to?

In the long run the neo-liberal world trading economy is unsustainable. Perhaps the end of cheap oil will take care of the entire matter, and the world will return to smaller, localized economies and trading blocs.

[Conservativesux]

7. China will sell to its largest asset: The former United States of America

and Canada, of course.

Oil wont make much of a dent on China, when they get all the new pebble-bed nuclear power plants up and running, and they all ride bikes for personal transportation now, just like we will be.

Welcome to the People's Province of North America, comrade!

[daleo]

9. I hope I get a flying pigeon.

Those babies are retro.

[burrowowl]

8. Since they are buying oil companies

they can sell you the car and the gas.

[Gregorian]

10. Prediction: They'll sell us the cars we refused to make.

Those that don't use internal combustion engines.

Let's put it this way- when my dad was working for Applied Materials, decades ago, they approached the company looking for someone to manufacture special chips to control their electric automotive motor systems.

By twisting arms, we got cheap fuel. Now it's check mate. Oil is no longer cheap. But they have the manufacturing, and they have the designs.

Hell, we couldn't even adopt the metric system. We're going to get what's coming. And it's not all bad.

[bpilgrim]

12. wonder how expensive it will be to ship all that stuff after peak oil?

at a $100 a month salary they might break even :shrug:

peace