China Bashing

[RobN]

But on a positive note would it not be great to get this country back to supplying the world with quality products/parts etc?
After this Covid 19 pandemic the world does seem to be a very different place and we should take advantage and grab these opportunities.
In regards to parts being more expensive here then, an example I have just experienced is when buying a rear hub motor kit made in China.
The Kit cost me £839.
I then got a customs charge of £42.50 and when I queried this with my UK kit supplier he said yes that's right, they (the kit supplier, paid the £150 import charge. Well no they didn't , im sure they took it out of the price I paid for the kit) and I was then responsible for any import duties in this country.
So my point is my kit was already nealy £200 dearer just because it came from China.
Surely we have engineering shops that could knock these out and get it some where near the China manufacture /plus import price.
I guess we may have to stop sending all our metal supplies to China first so we have resources to make the stuff..!
Anyway I think we are in a time of great opportunity .

 

[Bonzo Banana]

But on a positive note would it not be great to get this country back to supplying the world with quality products/parts etc?
After this Covid 19 pandemic the world does seem to be a very different place and we should take advantage and grab these opportunities.
In regards to parts being more expensive here then, an example I have just experienced is when buying a rear hub motor kit made in China.
The Kit cost me £839.
I then got a customs charge of £42.50 and when I queried this with my UK kit supplier he said yes that's right, they (the kit supplier, paid the £150 import charge. Well no they didn't , im sure they took it out of the price I paid for the kit) and I was then responsible for any import duties in this country.
So my point is my kit was already nealy £200 dearer just because it came from China.
Surely we have engineering shops that could knock these out and get it some where near the China manufacture /plus import price.
I guess we may have to stop sending all our metal supplies to China first so we have resources to make the stuff..!
Anyway I think we are n a time of great opportunity .

The way its going, we are leaving the eu with probably 40 years of extreme debt to pay back and we now have all the covid 19 costs and leaving the EU will not be an instant cure we will have to find out feet outside the EU, the economy will likely tank, people will be much poorer and the £ will drop in value but from that perhaps we can build on.

If the government hadn't started borrowing huge sums back in the 80s to compensate for collapsing industry, the cost of EU membership and the trade inbalance we would have got a lot poorer sooner and left the EU much sooner because of it but like many EU countries; Italy, Greece, Portugal, Spain we resorted to borrowing, quantitative easing and selling assets instead. It was mad idealism that caused us to join the EU but it never made any sense at all financially. Maybe we hoped we would compete well in the EU single market but with an inflated £ value we haven't we have been one of the main victims of it.

However the UK could certainly get back to a trade surplus and start manufacturing to a much greater scale. We will need to be fully out of the EU single market and require competent politicians with the right priorities and consumer spending will need to be more controlled, i.e. more sales tax on purchases that are more damaging to our economy. There is absolutely nothing preventing us from running our economy well except ourselves. China has got to where it is by operating in its national interests only making sure its currency is undervalued and still has many tariffs and complex procedures that prevent imports. There are many countries with lower wages now than China but you don't see China swamped with Vietnamese or Cambodian goods. If the UK economy was a place where a cafe cappuccino was only a £1 but an imported car that previously was £40k is now £60k you would start changing purchase habits. I honestly don't see any problem sorting out the UK economy the only issue is it will control to a far greater degree what people can spend their money on and more products will be out of reach of more people which actually may be a very good thing for the environment.

 

[Nealh]

But on a positive note would it not be great to get this country back to supplying the world with quality products/parts etc?
After this Covid 19 pandemic the world does seem to be a very different place and we should take advantage and grab these opportunities.
In regards to parts being more expensive here then, an example I have just experienced is when buying a rear hub motor kit made in China.
The Kit cost me £839.
I then got a customs charge of £42.50 and when I queried this with my UK kit supplier he said yes that's right, they (the kit supplier, paid the £150 import charge. Well no they didn't , im sure they took it out of the price I paid for the kit) and I was then responsible for any import duties in this country.
So my point is my kit was already nealy £200 dearer just because it came from China.
Surely we have engineering shops that could knock these out and get it some where near the China manufacture /plus import price.
I guess we may have to stop sending all our metal supplies to China first so we have resources to make the stuff..!
Anyway I think we are n a time of great opportunity .

What kit ?

 

[RossG]

If you get right back to basics for a minute and take wages for example, there're not as low in China as people would imagine but still lower than ours. In the UK if you want to buy a new car you can put in overtime and save all that extra cash you earn for your motor, AFAIK it doesn't work like that in China. Factory's work around the clock anyway so there is no overtime just another workforce to take over and production continues.
That happens here of course but you get a little more for a night shift, in China you wouldn't. Unless we were to adopt their work ethic (which we never would) we'll never have an economy like theirs.
He's another thing I haven't see mentioned anywhere, China is full of Hi-Tech because they copied everyone else's initially so why don't we grab all that Huawei gear that will need to be removed and copy it in return if it's "world beating" play them at their own game.

 

[Woosh]

He's another thing I haven't see mentioned anywhere, China is full of Hi-Tech because they copied everyone else's initially so why don't we grab all that Huawei gear that will need to be removed and copy it in return if it's "world beating" play them at their own game.

it's difficult for us to compete against China (and a few others) because our children don't work as hard at schools, they prefer 'soft' subjects, not sciences, not foreign languages. When they become adults, they only want desk jobs, not manufacturing jobs. Most of our capital is locked into our houses with inflated valuation.
Brexit helps keeping the exchange rate competitive but at the same time, deters immigration of high skilled labour. Without immigrants stoking up demand for housing, the housing bubble will burst in a few years.

 

[Bonzo Banana]

If you get right back to basics for a minute and take wages for example, there're not as low in China as people would imagine but still lower than ours. In the UK if you want to buy a new car you can put in overtime and save all that extra cash you earn for your motor, AFAIK it doesn't work like that in China. Factory's work around the clock anyway so there is no overtime just another workforce to take over and production continues.
That happens here of course but you get a little more for a night shift, in China you wouldn't. Unless we were to adopt their work ethic (which we never would) we'll never have an economy like theirs.
He's another thing I haven't see mentioned anywhere, China is full of Hi-Tech because they copied everyone else's initially so why don't we grab all that Huawei gear that will need to be removed and copy it in return if it's "world beating" play them at their own game.

Lots of factories in the UK are very efficient, Nissan in Sunderland is praised as being one of the best car factories in the world for productivity. I've seen Chinese factories reported with suicide nets to stop workers jumping out from the top of buildings and killing themselves. Other Chinese factories can be quite laid back and its normal for there to be a 2 hour lunch break in China, enough time to eat and have a small nap before going back to work. The UK can certainly make products that are cheaper that are sold here than those exported by China to the UK. It costs a lot to export products, which is why the EU has anti-dumping protection where China exports products that are likely below their own costs in order to get foreign currency and damage competitors in Europe. A car made in the UK should be cheaper than a car imported under normal WTO tariffs as long as costs in the UK aren't excessive. The UK government can move more tax away from manufacturing companies and more onto consumers or products in general.

If you tax a factory far less but create sales tax that is equal to all companies in that sector you make the UK factory far more viable. You are basically re-directing the tax burden to improve the UK economy but no loss of money to the exchequer.

 

[vfr400]

Every thing will turn out fine.

 

[RossG]

Thank God for vfr, he puts my mind at rest in this hurly-burly world

 

[RobN]

What kit ?

Kirbebike 1500w rear hub and battery

 

[PP100]

Every thing will turn out fine.

 

[Bobajob]

Anybody who believes they can exist without Chinese manufacturing is living in a bubble. Almost all tech is produced there and a good part of everyday items are made in China. If you get rid of Chinese made products in your life you will have a very spartan house

true but would it really matter that we didn’t have all these gismos?
Our grand kids would be playing instead of a mini zombies staring at a screen, disengaged from communication of any kind other than a grunt etc.
luckily mine are not allowed all the trappings of modern electronic wizardry.

 

[Bobajob]

I met a German industrialist about 10 years ago and in discussions he confided in me that his workforce were diligent, hard working, creative on fault finding, able to manage themselves, engaged with work etc etc.
This man right at the end said I only employ British people not German.
His take on our problem was not with the workforce but with the management and pay scales. If you pay a good wage and respect and protect your workforce they reward you with their loyalty which the Brits do in abundance.

 

[Bobajob]

We listen to the press too much I believe, they love hitting the ordinary common worker.

 

[WheezyRider]

Every thing will turn out fine.

"Always look at the bright side of life..."

 

[WheezyRider]

My granddad's last words to me before he died at 99 years old, were, "Come over here my son. Never trust a Chinaman". They're not as sinister as they seem. When he was younger, he used to tell legthy stories about his adventures in China. they had all sorts of twists and turns, but the moral at the end was always the same. Over the years, as his memory went, the stories got shorter and shorter, but the ending was always the same, until all that was left was the ending.

Those words have haunted me ever since, and I've often wondered why they were so important to him, or whether there was anything more spiritual in them.

Whatever happens, the likes of you and me can't do much about it. Follow the last order and do what seems right at the time.

I think what we have to remember in all this, it's not the Chinese people, it's the Chinese Communist Party and Xi's dictatorship of that. That's the problem.

 

[WheezyRider]

I would love to be able to buy a UK made e-bike motor. I'm sure it could be done here, and could be made a lot better than the ones we import.

The question is price. To be able to compete, a 250W motor would have to retail at around £100 per unit. Could it be done? The magnets alone would be hard to source.

Investment needs to be made by the government in the UK on developing technologies to extract "rare" earths from domestically available ores, which are currently impractical.

 

[sjpt]

Investment needs to be made by the government in the UK on developing technologies to extract "rare" earths from domestically available ores, which are currently impractical.

I agree. There is some mining starting again in Cornwall; mainly for lithium I think.
I haven't looked enough into it to decide whether I think it is a good idea or not, though.

Cornish Mining | Cornish Metals Inc.

www.strongbowexploration.com

 

[WheezyRider]

I met a German industrialist about 10 years ago and in discussions he confided in me that his workforce were diligent, hard working, creative on fault finding, able to manage themselves, engaged with work etc etc.
This man right at the end said I only employ British people not German.
His take on our problem was not with the workforce but with the management and pay scales. If you pay a good wage and respect and protect your workforce they reward you with their loyalty which the Brits do in abundance.

In my experience, more often than not we seem to create managers who are clueless, unable to inspire, take their employees for granted, are short sighted and without realising it, do everything possible to upset and demotivate their work force. This is something I wish we could export to other countries!

 

[Woosh]

I would love to be able to buy a UK made e-bike motor. I'm sure it could be done here, and could be made a lot better than the ones we import.

The question is price. To be able to compete, a 250W motor would have to retail at around £100 per unit. Could it be done? The magnets alone would be hard to source.

Investment needs to be made by the government in the UK on developing technologies to extract "rare" earths from domestically available ores, which are currently impractical.

it could be made here but not sure about better quality.
the materials like laminations, magnets, case moldings, ballbearings, copper wires, PCB, Hall sensors, gearboxes are mostly sourced from China.
There isn't anything obvious we could improve on.
Back then in the 70s, this country led the world in computers. That was the reason I moved from France to here. Now, we still lead the world in a few niche markets but not in electric motors.

 

[Bobajob]

it could be made here but not sure about better quality.
the materials like laminations, magnets, case moldings, ballbearings, copper wires, PCB, Hall sensors, gearboxes are mostly sourced from China.
There isn't anything obvious we could improve on.
Back then in the 70s, this country led the world in computers. That was the reason I moved from France to here. Now, we still lead the world in a few niche markets but not in electric motors.

if we source d it from China for our manufacturing then we can specify the quality?
British made would be far better in my opinion. We can copy the Chinese technology and improve on it.
meet must start manufacturing again or our country will sink.