Made in China--Not Just Cheap Clothes and Toys Anymore

Made in China--Not Just Cheap Clothes and Toys Anymore
Feb 23, 2017 By eChinacities.com

Editors Note: Chinese manufactured goods are slowly improving in global stature--at the same time, theyre also improving at home. The past ten years have seen a boom in Chinas technologically oriented manufacturing sectors and many Chinese are now opting to buy Chinese rather than imports. This article crunches the numbers to give readers a better idea of the scale and direction of this huge shift.


Source: panda.cn

A Technology Boom

A recent survey regarding reputational improvement of Chinese brands indicates that many citizens of this rising power believe that Chinese brand names are moving up in the world. The online poll, orchestrated by China Youth Daily, asked two thousand respondants about the quality and integrity of Chinese manufacturing. 61.5% of those asked said that they believed that there has been a huge improvement over the last ten years. Now the most recognized Chinese goods among those interviewes were mobile phone and communications technology (65.1%), aerospace and aviation technologies (55.4%) and high-speed rail and transportation technology (54.1%).

Of those surveyed, 41.4 percent expressed faith in Chinese manufacturing, 49.2 percent indicated that their degree of recognition was just average, 7.2% that they didn’t have much trust in Chinese goods and just 1.3 percent answered that they didn’t have any faith in Chinese manufactured goods.

These numbers reflect the tumultuous shift that Chinese manufacturing and its image have undergone in the last ten years--especially among Chinese. Polls such as these further reflect a blooming national confidence among many Chinese citizens both in the future of their country and its economy. Only 6.1 percent of respondents expressed that they did not believe there had been much of or any changed in Chinese manufacturing over the past decade, before which Chinese-made goods consisted mostly of toys, clothing, lighters, industrial parts and components.

Satisfied Consumers

Qinghua University doctoral student Wu Zhen believes that the biggest change as far as Chinese manufacturing is concerned is that Chinese goods have shaken off their cheap reputation and are starting to have real technological credibility. In his mind, ten years ago toys and various sundries were certainly the biggest representatives of Chinese manufactured goods. Now, the first thing that comes to his mind at the mention of Chinese manufacturing are electronics and appliances like Huawei, OPPO mobile phones and Lenovo computers. He uses a Chinese made phone now and says that in his opinion its of good quality and its part function perfectly together.

Another person, Sun Yu says that on one hand the quality of Chinese goods is really improving, on the other hand, the prices are still cheaper than foreign products of similar quality. “A Huawei phone with pretty hight quality components will run you about 4,000 RMB while an iPhone 7 is about 7,000 RMB. You do the math. You can buy a whole other phone with that money.

Over half of those surveyed had similar sentiments. 52.3 percent of respondents indicated that the prices of Chinese-made products were relatively low while 53.7 percent indicated the quality of these products was up to par. This illustrates one of the reasons why many Chinese citizens these days are not so quick to head to the Apple store when they need a new phone. A strong belief and trust in Chinese technology is building.

Wu Zhen, on the other hand, says that before he made the switch to a Chinese-made phone he used an imported one. After comparing the two he found that while the quality of Chinese-made phones had made rapid improvements, there were still some shortcomings. “The hardware is all up-to-date, but its the little details that are lacking. The buttons on my Chinese phone don’t work all that well, and sometimes it takes a lot of force just to push a button. It really impacts the user experience.”

The Road to Improvement
In his view, improving the global standing of Chinese manufacturing needs to start from two places. “As far as attitude is concerned, we need to pursue the spirit of craftsmanship--look at electronic products as pieces of art and create such products with this in mind. We need to perfect the details. As for hardware, we need to increase competitiveness, encourage innovation and strengthen intellectual protection of intellectual property.”

A whopping 69.5 percent of those who answered the survey indicated that they too believed China should better protect intellectual property rights and make technological development a priority. 54.4 percent said that innovation needs to be encouraged in order to infuse more vitality into the field of Chinese manufacturing. 53.7 percent answered that they believed junky manufacturing should be abandoned wholesale and that manufacturers should seek continued improvement. 30.6 percent reflected the belief that the application of scientific research in manufacturing should be expanded.

Chinese citizens understandbly would like to see the stature of their locally made goods improve both globally and at home. Many also believe that in spite of the reputation of Chinese goods in recent history, circumstances are and will continue to improv and Chinese goods will be better recognized in the future.

Source: QQ News

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Keywords: Survey China manufacturing

7 Comments

All comments are subject to moderation by eChinacities.com staff. Because we wish to encourage healthy and productive dialogue we ask that all comments remain polite, free of profanity or name calling, and relevant to the original post and subsequent discussion. Comments will not be deleted because of the viewpoints they express, only if the mode of expression itself is inappropriate.

tanbank34

made in china helps Africa to get technology

Mar 20, 2017 16:50 Report Abuse

Anton91

Modern chinese phones are great!

Mar 05, 2017 14:16 Report Abuse

Guest14274740

Try washing dishes with 'lap bai', their locally made brandname detergent !!! Little things tell, a lot........

Mar 05, 2017 10:49 Report Abuse

isy90

Even though sometimes chinese copy out i personally think they are innovative, they have a creative mind. They see great what others trivialize. They may be better tomorrow, despite the growing number of people who have no faith in the chinese product at all.

Feb 24, 2017 23:28 Report Abuse

ambivalentmace

i have seen 30 year old taxis in Africa, Toyotos, that still work everyday, when you make a Chinese car that works after 10 years get back to me, anybody can copy, but durability is for professionals to make, like the Japanese.

Feb 26, 2017 10:44 Report Abuse

Robk

That is true, China places a luxury tax on "foreign" goods (although iPhones are made in China) that increase the costs by 20-30%. All the jobs to make these phones are in China (many factories are moving out now that China doesn't play ball)... so the Chinese government made out like bandits. Pretty much goes something like this: 1) All the jobs went to Chinese from abroad 2) Steal the technology and start domestic markets 3) If foreign brands want to stay, tax them to death until the domestic copies are ready to roll out 4) Roll out domestic products from stolen plans at half the price of foreign competitors 5) Laugh at the foolish foreign companies that you just exploited 6) Laugh at the foolish foreign leaders that stood by and did nothing (including NOT taxing your exports)

Feb 24, 2017 22:12 Report Abuse

Englteachted

How about giving the full details of the survey instead of cherry picked items? How about giving me some solid facts instead of 'in my mind' (how many times have you argued facts against a Chinese person's 'in my mind'). How about cleaning up the chinglish (my experience, Chinese make more mistakes when they're outright lying).

Feb 24, 2017 07:13 Report Abuse