English magazine advertise mostly Asian-made hardware such as
Samsung, LG, Toshiba, Hitachi, Sony, panasonic, etc. Where is the
English company? ZERO!
Those are Japanese companies. The Japanese have gone a long way towards
the western way of thinking. However, in doing so, they have just about
priced themselves out of the market. The Japanese are now offshoring
their manufacturing, just like all the western companies are doing, to
the cheapest bidder.
Imagine all the hardware stuff they advertised are non-English made.
They are virtually all designed and produced in Asia. Why is that?
They are all designed in western countries and manufactured in Asia.
That is because Asian people are willing to do the hack work for
peanuts. If you bring Chinese wages up to the European standard, you
might well see an exodus of manufacturing to another country like India.
Actually, I think that may already be happening.
Japan once had the labour cost advantage, then that moved to Korea and
Taiwan. In turn, the cost advantage moved to Thailand, Malaysia and
others. Currently China is the favoured country in this regard but China
will need to watch India for they are next. The ONLY advantage China
currently has is government control of wages and an oversupply of
workers. Workers in China are so downtrodden that they prefer to jump
from tall buildings rather than demand fair and equitable wages and
better working conditions.
As for designing hardware, I think you need a reality check. Chinese
manufacturers, those that aren't western owned or controlled, prefer to
steal designs and copy what the western world is making. I have seen no
better example in recent times than the commercial vehicle touted as the
Great Wall. Apart from an absolute suck of a name, the design has been
filched entirely from Japanese made utility vehicles. The Chinese seem
to have a few things wrong because the driving and handling of one
example I recently had the displeasure of driving was absolutely woeful.
On a straight sealed road it was barely adequate with a tendency to
wander. On winding sealed roads it had a tendency to bounce all over the
place. On gravel surfaces it was dangerous. I'm not surprised the owner
was trying to sell it at a mere 30,000 kilometres. As far as I'm
concerned, you can stick your Great Wall where the sun nay shines!
They'll set you straight.