"tianli" wrote in message
...
.I hate
to say it or even think about it but someday perhaps China will
take
over selling autos/trucks/vans in America.
cuhulin


Mercedes Benz is also starting up in China. I beleive they also
layed off
German engineers and hired foreign engineers.

Benz and the other German carmakers (owned by GM, Ford
or whomever) have enough problems with quality. They
are now the bottom scrapers in the automotive food chain,
as far as auto quality is concerned.

Its one thing to say that a new competitor enters with inovative
products
that competes with well known proven names such as Sony for example.
But to
produce a product that offers no significant technological
improvment and is
simply meant to copy and undercut the competition through cheap
labour and
by keeping your currency significantly undervalued relative to the
Japanese
Yen, well. The end result can only be - there goes the
neighborhood.
Excellence in product will no longer be available unless your
willing to pay
a fortune. There will only be low end consumer junk or very high
end
military/commercial gems.

Just remember that the old transistor radios of the 50s and
60s were the old junk pile stuff, and those companies grew
up to be the big Japanese companies that are here now.
I think that it would be presumptuous of us to guess that
Made in China will always denote crap, when even in our
lifetimes, Made in Japan and Made in Taiwan went from
crap to pretty damn good.

I only hope that the likes of Icom, Kenwood and JRC can weather the
currency
wars and remain in the amateur/swl business.
The Chinese consumers are certainly not buying (can't afford)
foreign
products at the current low value of the Yuan .

If the US$ (which the value of the Chinese Yuan is currently pegged
to)
continues its decline the Drake R8B will be looking mighty cheap to
foreign
buyers. But so will cheap Chinese made radios if the currency peg
remains
in place.

It all hinges on the currency exchange and cost of labour -
economics.

I look at it this way. In the late 80's/early 90's, Japan's
economic might looked like it was going to take over
top dog within 10 years. Then the bubble burst. Same
thing happened to the Asian Tigers of the late 90's.
Nothing has convinced me that China will avoid the
same fate of ups and downs.

--Mike L.