MADE IN CHINA 

There was a time in Canada and the USA when we made things like furniture, clothing, toys, tools, radios, tvs, electronic gear, household supplies,socks,jeans, etc. etc. in addition to growing food and producing natural resources. Everyone who wanted to work had a job and times were good.

Recently, the Canadian Minister of Finance warned Canadians that we would never return to "the glory days" when manufacturing was 17% of the Canadian economy and that the best we could look forward to was 14%. When I heard this I was outraged and so should you because to provide a good employment base we don't need 14% we need at least 40% of the population engaged in making things not the 86% of our population now that consists of latte sucking yuppie wimps that sit at computers and make nothing all day. There is a certain pride at the end of the work day when you look across the shop floor and see a thousand quality made products all manufactured and ready to ship. The average Canadian no longer sees that. Because now 86% of us make nothing every day. Zero. Zip. We buy all our stuff from other countries such as China.

Now most of the worlds manufactured goods and a lot of our food is made in China. Why? If you think that everything made in China is of poor quality you are subscribing to a load of ....bullshit. It's time to drop any racial bias towards the North American or European worker because it just isn't true anymore. China is an ancient land filled with hard working, intelligent people that works on a different set of rules than those in the west. As a result -they now have the largest balance of payments surplus in the world and are the world's most powerful economy and manufacturer.

 

We buy from China because its cheaper and the quality is good. Its cheaper because labour costs in China are a fraction of what they are in North America and Europe. The average labour rate is approximately $1 per hour in larger cities and much less than that in smaller areas.  China takes raw materials from places like Canada, adds cheap labour and sells back manufactured goods. This is resulting in huge trade imbalances as the manufactured goods are worth much more than the raw materials required to make them. In the case of Canada, we export about 3.5 billion to them but then turn around and purchase 30 billion in manufactured goods. In the past those manufactured goods were often made in Canada by Canadian workers. 

If you are really interested in why products made in China are cheaper I suggest that you to read Pat Choate' Book DANGEROUS BUSINESS where he explains the eight main reasons some of them not too pretty why they are beating the world on price and what is happening as a result. 

 

Yes I regularly buy Chinese products. I find many tools are quite serviceable and offer excellent value for the price.   I marvel at the work ethic of the Chinese worker and how far they have come in just a few years. The Chinese invented gunpowder, paper, moveable type and the compass and how many other nations can say that?

Update August 12/2008 There is a huge amount of bullshit associated with China and I have been pondering should I reveal it or not? I mean there are dangers. First you need to be aware of Canada's Sidewinder Project and a little bit about how China operates. It will shock you. 

Sidewinder -Peter Worthington report

Sidewinder and CITIC the Chretien connection and Power Corp

YOUR VERY FIRST BILLION Marcie M. Farsea -read pages 203-205 on Reverse Engineering and China and guochanhua and industrial espionage on page 107-108

Canadian Coalition for Democracies a pro democracy group championing national security in Canada. Watched a very educational talk by Alastair Gordon and  Brian McAdam on CPAC about China

China Blue  This is one of the best documentaries I have ever watched on China and it takes you into a Blue Jean factory in Southern China showing how teenage workers produce those jeans you buy in the store. It's heartbreaking and you come away with an entirely new view of the Chinese worker and the price they pay to produce our products. It looks a lot like slavery to me and we support it every time we buy a product made in China. 

Massive Chinese Spy Network Penetrates Canada

Chinese Spying Worries Canada

3500 Chinese Spy Companies identified in Canada and the USA

Canada China Business Council - here is an excellent example of how China is gaining access to our policy makers and business leaders to maximize their access to and control over Canada. Others may spin it another way. Take a look for yourself and you decide!

Basically, China is heavily into industrial espionage in Canada and the USA with thousands of agents. They are buying Chinese newspapers in Canada to control the content and orchestrating pro China anti Tibet student demonstrations in Canada. They are desperate to ensure the flow of raw materials from Canada and have entered into long term business deals with Canada's elite including senior Canadian Politicians and their families and Canadian corporations such as Power Corp. Canadians simply do not have an understanding of what is going on.

Updated July 30/2010

Perhaps you may not realize that China is obtaining the cooperation of powerful Canadians via three basic methods -outright gifts including travel, bribes and the use of the absolutely fantastic business deal which is simply a bribe that is more difficult to prove in court and which can accommodate larger amounts. A well connected Canadian citizen who supports the objectives of China is a valuable ally worth paying good money for.  China has two objectives in mind - securing a long term source of cheap raw materials and establishing market share for it's workers. To do this they must establish a level of control over Canada and that's exactly what they have done and are doing every day. We have been warning Canadians about this for over two years on this website. And more recently the head of CSIS and a Tory MP Rob Anders have confirmed the seriousness of the problem. 

Unfortunately, Canada is controlled by left leaning media outlets such as the CBC and they have been loathe to report on these events which they consider to be in Canada's interests or at least in the interests of a few very well connected senior politicians and some selected business people who then support the political positions of China in Canadian foreign  policy. (Example Taiwan and Canada's failure to support this thriving democracy)  

There for some of you I have opened a type of Pandora's box on China. The Good the bad and the ugly. The most worrisome thing about China is the virtual impunity with which their agents apparently operate in Canada while our side is completely under funded, under equipped and completely unable to meet the threat and nobody seems to care. And the billions of dollars select business people and the very powerful in Canadian politics have made from this very comfortable arrangement. And how the media is leaving this issue alone like the hot potato they know it is. Very interesting... 

It certainly appears that today, Canadian Foreign policy is under the control of China via links to well connected Canadian politicians and select business people who have been for many years effectively acting as surrogates for Chinese interests in this area. All of these activities have been going over the heads of average Canadians because the Canadian media has not been actively reporting the facts of the situation. Sounds like a conspiracy eh? Actually it is. (You decide!)

For example, did you know that the RCMP estimates that 13 billion dollars of counterfeit goods are sold in Canada EVERY YEAR. Most of that product is made in China and they are responsible for most of the 200 billion dollars of counterfeit goods sold in the world. This is big news. In practical terms it means that those batteries that you paid the premium price for because you thought they were a name brand and made here were actually fakes. It means that the electrical wires that you thought were CSA approved were actually substandard and dangerous. And there are no estimates on copyright violations where China simply copies a Canadian or other product and sells it for less money in this market. We can be assured that represents several billion more dollars. 

Canada has no effective method of protecting it's consumers against counterfeit goods and copyright infringements and the world knows it and we have become a target market. In fact Canada is so lenient on crime we have become a magnet for international criminals looking for a safe haven and a location to operate from. Our retailers are implicated in it because they are profiting from this activity and it's supporting Canadian retail jobs. It's a huge problem that our governments have failed to act on. In fact as unbelievable as this may sound some very powerful people in Canada including ex politicians are profiting from trade with China which includes these products. 

What should we do about it? First we need to know the facts and I present some good links here to get you up to speed or at least headed in the right direction. Next we ensure that we have Canadian values in our Foreign policy. Third, we actively investigate the intelligence threat from China and start kicking their agents out of Canada and start charging Chinese companies that steal Canadian industrial information. We hold the cards here because we have the resources they need. Right now they are in control and we are looking like a bunch of bush league players in intelligence and world diplomacy and in the protection of Canadian values. China is a very powerful country with not so well hidden agendas and its about time we started to smarten up. 

Update September 25/2008 There is a growing food safety problem related to the widespread Chinese use of melamine in milk to  raise the apparent protein level of the product. Over 50,000 Chinese babies have been poisoned but that is the tip of the iceberg. The real problem to Canada is the fact that Chinese products with dairy components have been shipped all across Canada and our food inspection agency is completely unable to verify the safety of these products. The other part of this problem is that it is general practice to import bulk quantities of Chinese food products and then re package them in Canada to make it appear to consumers that they are buying a Canadian product. There are likely countless tons of contaminated product which is now being consumed in the Canadian food distribution network. There is an estimate that over 4000 family pets died because of the melamine contamination of pet food. And anyone that has ever had a pet know that they are truly a part of the family. 

There has been a complete breakdown of our food inspection agency and its ability to insure the safety of our food. Its all about the money. We buy products from China because they can make them at lower cost than we can make them here. They do that by paying slave labour pay scales, lax standards, huge production scales and questionable ethics that allow them to do anything to make a buck. 

You might think well I will just stop buying food from China but good luck in finding out where that food you are buying comes from. 

Update December 23/08. I recently received an offer from a Chinese manufacturing company. It illustrates part of the problem with China and the methods they use so I will mention it here without mentioning the name of the company. They offered to make any product I send them and "re engineer it" What that means is that they would take a product protected by patents and registered industrial designs and simply copy it. If we tried to do something like this in Canada, the USA or Europe the police and lawyers would be knocking on the door pretty fast. You might say who cares or what's the damage but the problem here is that your neighbours or family or friends or fellow citizens worked to produce that design. They paid taxes on it and fees and followed all the rules and spent millions on R&D to bring the product to market and then they followed all the rules in producing the product. Now some joker sends it over to China where they reproduce it, produce it at lower cost and then ship it back to your market and compete against your product. That's the problem. 

Some will say that I am being anti-China. Not true. I have deep respect for what they have accomplished and the abilities and productivity of the people. My only point is that if they wish to participate in world markets certain basic rules of behaviour need to be followed. It's no good shipping toys to the west with unsafe levels of lead in them, or shipping dog food that kills our pets, or copying our industrial designs, or spying on our companies and stealing designs or dumping product to obtain market share or hiding behind brand names that infer the product was made someplace else, or producing items using virtual slave labour with no worker benefits or no environmental controls or putting melamine into dairy products. That's the problem. 

The solution is going to be a tough one because so many retail outlets and consumers are now completely dependent on products made in China that if we reverted to other sources our standard of living would be reduced. And there are decisions to be made. If China brings their under $10,000 vehicles into the North American market our auto industry is completely screwed and with it hundreds of thousands of jobs. The low priced Chinese products are much like drugs and our economy is hooked on them. It will be very difficult or even impossible for us to get off them. But when you hear of people touting "free trade" think hard about it. It might not be as free as you think. We might end up paying a very very high price. 

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