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Consider the humble ball point pen and the difficulty of making it in China. Finally, China manufactures a ballpoint pen all by itself - https://wapo.st/3ySmw
by shagie 4y ago
Consider the humble ball point pen and the difficulty of making it in China.
Finally, China manufactures a ballpoint pen all by itself - https://wapo.st/3ySmwlG https://wapo.st/3ySmwlG
And when you get into it...
> The tip of a ballpoint pen is what makes it a ballpoint pen. At the tip, a freely rotating ball is held in a small socket which connects it to an ink reservoir that allows the pen to write or draw lines. Manufacturing a ballpoint pen tip that can write comfortably for a long period of time requires high-precision machinery and precisely thin steel, but for years China was unable to match those crafted by foreign companies.
It isn't unreasonable to believe that there are other, more specialized tools, that have similar difficulties in manufacturing without the proper equipment and expertise. Some of them are just not common enough to dedicate significant resources to try to build inhouse.
(and after pulling that up, I see that a recent cousin comment in another thread brings the same article and point)
- conductr 4y ago> It isn't unreasonable to believe that there are other, more specialized tools, that have similar difficulties in manufacturing without the proper equipment and expertise. Some of them are just not common enough to dedicate significant resources to try to build inhouse In the middle of fighting a war no less, time is a factor.
- dirtyid 4y ago>common enough to dedicate significant resources to try to build inhouse. Basically. Especially relevant for the ballpoint pen anecdote which wasn't about how hard it was to make ball point tips, but some products were not economically worth pursuing over existing off the shelf solutions, but STILL important to develop indigenously due to gaining knowledge/capabilities that knockon/support ther strategic / critical sectors. The TLDR is Premier LiKeQiang politicized importance of precision manufacturing for national security, using rough PRC ball-point tips quality as example, and 2 years later PRC industry developed tungsten carbide manufacturing capabilities for advanced munitions. There was no economically sensible reason for domestic ballpoint tip manufacturing, the entire market dominated by Japanese and Swiss was only worth 20M. Zero rationale for Chinese industry to coordinate tons of resources for this project outside of national security. An related apocryphal annedote I read was the steel for tips made in JP/CHE were made in small batches (because tips are tiny), ditto with early half assed PRC efforts. But for ball point pen project, a state steelwork (high volume, billion dollar operation) had to stop the lines to make an industrial sized batch with correct metallurgy at a financial loss. 100+ billion of domestic PRC ballpoint tips made in the past 5 years have barely chipped away at that batch.