3 ms·

What is China speed? Are the Chinese known for fast manufacturing?

nos4A2 5y ago
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-s-coronavirus-hospital-built-10-days-opens-its-doors-n1128531 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-s-coronavirus-hospi... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-20/beijing-replaces-a-huge-highway-overpass-in-only-43-hours https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-20/beijing-r...
xvf22 5y ago
I mean, they built the world's largest high speed rail network pretty damn quickly.
- cdstyh 5y ago
  That had always been the advantage of communism and dictatorships. When something needs to be done, you can just force people to do it.
  - DashAnimal 5y ago
    Who was forced to work on the high speed rail? Do you have a source?
    - neartheplain 5y ago
      Maybe GP meant forced in the sense of giving right-of-way, which is arguably the biggest impediment to long distance rail construction. As of this January, California's High Speed Rail project still did not have all necessary right-of-ways [0]. [0] https://www.city-journal.org/high-costs-construction-delays-plague-ca-high-speed-rail https://www.city-journal.org/high-costs-construction-delays-...
yokoprime 5y ago
Yes
zbrozek 5y ago
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-u-s-can-learn-from-chinas-infatuation-with-infrastructure-11617442201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-u-s-can-learn-from-chi...
hamburgerwah 5y ago
In the sense that if you abandon all concern for safety, engineering, the environment, human rights, money and use concentration camp slaves for labor you can achieve massive scale public works very quickly. Yes I think Nazi China is known for it's speed.
keewee7 5y ago
China's dominance in manufacturing comes from speed and agility. Cheap cost of labor is a distant third benefit of manufacturing in China.
- dangus 5y ago
  To me, "speed and agility" are code words for a culture that tolerates long work weeks and hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system With a society that had been dealing with famine, poverty, and labor opportunities consisting of subsistence farming in living memory, working 72 hours a week to receive a steady paycheck and a full belly seems like a pretty decent trade. When you look at the history of the Industrial Revolution and the Western labor movement, I have to have doubts that this "speed and agility" will last. People who are prosperous start to have higher standards, especially as new generations enter the labor market. There is already significant pushback against the 996 system. It's not hard to out-produce when the average person is working almost double the Western standard. I thought the documentary "American Factory" was an interesting window into the lives of Chinese and American factory workers. My own analysis/opinion: the factory workers in China were indeed shown to be working quickly, obediently, and working long hours. The Americans looked lazy at times. I thought the reasoning for this difference was that American workers used to union protections already had generations of knowledge about why they should not become wage slaves risking their health and safety for their capitalist employers, despite having few other options in a town where most of the factory jobs left. I personally wonder when the typical Chinese worker will wake up to that same reality: that speed, agility, and fast innovation aren't really worth selling your weekends and joints and tendons away just so that the boss can buy a third vacation home.
- nyokodo 5y ago
  > Cheap cost of labor is a distant third benefit of manufacturing in China. Increasingly distant as labor costs continue to soar in China that their demographic crisis will only exacerbate. China speed now is only possible due to a never ending debt stream that gets eternally refinanced.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-s-coronavirus-hospital-built-10-days-opens-its-doors-n1128531 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/china-s-coronavirus-hospi... https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-20/beijing-replaces-a-huge-highway-overpass-in-only-43-hours https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-11-20/beijing-r...

xvf22 5y ago

I mean, they built the world's largest high speed rail network pretty damn quickly.

cdstyh 5y ago
That had always been the advantage of communism and dictatorships. When something needs to be done, you can just force people to do it.
- DashAnimal 5y ago
  Who was forced to work on the high speed rail? Do you have a source?
  - neartheplain 5y ago
    Maybe GP meant forced in the sense of giving right-of-way, which is arguably the biggest impediment to long distance rail construction. As of this January, California's High Speed Rail project still did not have all necessary right-of-ways [0]. [0] https://www.city-journal.org/high-costs-construction-delays-plague-ca-high-speed-rail https://www.city-journal.org/high-costs-construction-delays-...

yokoprime 5y ago

Yes

zbrozek 5y ago

https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-u-s-can-learn-from-chinas-infatuation-with-infrastructure-11617442201 https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-the-u-s-can-learn-from-chi...

hamburgerwah 5y ago

In the sense that if you abandon all concern for safety, engineering, the environment, human rights, money and use concentration camp slaves for labor you can achieve massive scale public works very quickly. Yes I think Nazi China is known for it's speed.

keewee7 5y ago

China's dominance in manufacturing comes from speed and agility. Cheap cost of labor is a distant third benefit of manufacturing in China.

dangus 5y ago
To me, "speed and agility" are code words for a culture that tolerates long work weeks and hours: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system With a society that had been dealing with famine, poverty, and labor opportunities consisting of subsistence farming in living memory, working 72 hours a week to receive a steady paycheck and a full belly seems like a pretty decent trade. When you look at the history of the Industrial Revolution and the Western labor movement, I have to have doubts that this "speed and agility" will last. People who are prosperous start to have higher standards, especially as new generations enter the labor market. There is already significant pushback against the 996 system. It's not hard to out-produce when the average person is working almost double the Western standard. I thought the documentary "American Factory" was an interesting window into the lives of Chinese and American factory workers. My own analysis/opinion: the factory workers in China were indeed shown to be working quickly, obediently, and working long hours. The Americans looked lazy at times. I thought the reasoning for this difference was that American workers used to union protections already had generations of knowledge about why they should not become wage slaves risking their health and safety for their capitalist employers, despite having few other options in a town where most of the factory jobs left. I personally wonder when the typical Chinese worker will wake up to that same reality: that speed, agility, and fast innovation aren't really worth selling your weekends and joints and tendons away just so that the boss can buy a third vacation home.
nyokodo 5y ago
> Cheap cost of labor is a distant third benefit of manufacturing in China. Increasingly distant as labor costs continue to soar in China that their demographic crisis will only exacerbate. China speed now is only possible due to a never ending debt stream that gets eternally refinanced.