It has been almost two years since my first trip to China, where I spent three weeks visiting manufacturing sites, talking with perspective manufacturing partners, covering a variety of subjects ranging from quality and inspection processes, pricing, lead-times, specifications, etc. for our private labeled architectural door hardware company and the i.2 series of product, along with attempting to start a business relationships in a very short amount of time in multiple locations. These locations covered Beijing, Guangzhou, Zhongshan, Dongguan, Shanghai, Suzhou, Taipei and Hong Kong. As difficult a travel schedule as I had ever arranged, aside from all the business introductions and discussions, the attempt to assimilate a culture 5,000 years old with unheard of economic impact just over the past 20 years, was equally as difficult.
As I've stated in previous blog writings, Volume 28-29-and 30 of The 2am Talk Radio Show blog series, I didn't witness an emerging market, I witnessed a country that already has emerged. I witnessed a nation that has been undergoing a huge commercial and creative upheaval, entering the world market. I witnessed a country emerged in a spirit of entrepreneurship that reminded me of what the United States was before we paid workers to sit on their 'butts' without working. I witnessed a 'pay as you go society'; if you couldn't pay, you worked until you were able to (purchase).
I witnessed construction cranes that worked seven days a week, in the creation of breathtakingly spectacular skylines that rival New York, Chicago, Miami and Los Angeles. Construction involving high rise office buildings, apartments, airports, hospitals, malls, and Hotels. The creation of jobs for millions of people that earn them a spending power they have never known and are eager to exercise.
I also witnessed terrible air pollution, driving conditions that makes the '10' and '405' in Southern California look like sensible highways. I also saw many small motorcycles, occasionally with three people on one vehicle. President Bush is absolutely correct by stating earlier this week at the G8 summit that without China and India making resolutions to help with the environmental impact, it won't make much of a difference what the G8 determines without those two industrial nations. But I also saw people working in factories that smiled when you made eye contact, no dirt floors, no armed guards, and none of the 'TV' conditioned 'Chinese factory.'
I've even written that economic prosperity/doctrines is more important than a democratic form of government; and that economics, and economic doctrines/principles determine the level of living standards, the degree of educational process, the laws of a land, and the future existence of people, rather than a form of government or politics. Is it not true that democracies have a life span of less than 300 years? As you can already tell from everything that I've written thus far today, and in the past regarding Emerging nations as China (Asia), and Economies in general, as well as subjects as Globalization, I'm not always well accepted by even close friends of mine. Therefore, the point of this Blog: Starting this evening on the Discovery Channel there is a four-series starting at 10 p.m. EST hosted by Ted Koppel that "shows changes in China."
The advertisements regarding this series state:
"What's going on in China will make a big difference in the U.S."
"We're going to be competitive with these people, and whether that competition is resolved by collaboration or confrontation is really the big question for the next 20 years."
"More Buicks were sold in China last year than in the U.S., and Ford increased its sales in China last year by 30 percent."
"The mistake that some people make, I think, is that they assume capitalism is a political doctrine," Koppel said. "It's not. It's an economic theory. You can have a totally capitalistic society, which China is rapidly becoming, and still not be one step closer to democracy."
Hopefully, this 4-part series does both our countries justice as to Fact, not Fiction.
