globalloon wrote:
it ain’t China’s “thirst” that is using up all the resources; it is EU and USA. We want it, we want it cheap and we don’t want the pollution in our own back yard. Hence China produce it cheap (as they are a poor country, with shit standard of living, so cheap wages) and dirty (the pollution per capita is far lower than EU and USA), we buy it cheap, throw it in the bin
and blame China
there was a big meeting in Singapore about this issue
the Chinese said they were fed up with getting a reputation for making cheap shit and having bad working conditions but pointed out it was the ruthlessness of global competition – if consumers worldwide would pay more for quality they would build better stuff
I know of Chinese engineers who take great pride in their work (particularly with open source hardware and software) and do stuff like help make a telephone system that is affordable for all even poor villages where they never had telephones before, they work with Westerners and Indians to build this kit..
Incidentally in Malaysia they think its fairly ludicrous that there is an entire factory building electric heating elements to ship back to Norfolk (the local factory outside Norwich having been closed) because its cheaper to make them in the Far East. (the winter temperature at night is 20 degrees celsius) – but the workers in Asia aren’t going to turn down a chance to feed their families..
