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While its a great book, its really just a tour of the tactics used by Chinese manufacturers to gain the upper hand. It does not definitely prove that Chinese ma

While its a great book, its really just a tour of the tactics used by Chinese manufacturers to gain the upper hand. It does not definitely prove that Chinese manufacturing capability is inferior, just that they have a mindset of squeezing every last drop of blood out of you and have many strategies to do so. And to be fair, Bernie was really squeezing what he wanted from his manufacturer. Overall the whole business relationship was miserable on both sides and probably shouldn't have happened but how else do you expect Chinese companies to get the business in the first place? Its clearly backfiring these days since now some of the largest markets(US, & EU) are taking their ball and going home.

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matheusmoreira 3y ago
> they have a mindset of squeezing every last drop of blood out of you and have many strategies to do so Yeah. Even leaving the untrustworthiness aside, among those strategies is quality manipulation. Steel, for example: first batches are good, then they'll gradually tamper with the chemistry without anyone noticing, pocket the money, pass the risk along to the westerners and nobody knows or cares until somebody dies because a scaffolding collapsed or something. There's a steel industry in my city, it doesn't do stuff like this and it can't compete with chinese steel even with import taxes.
- saturn8601 3y ago
  I wonder if this occurs less often if you are providing a good deal to the Chinese side. Like I mentioned, the main character in the book: Bernie really seemed like he was squeezing his Chinese supplier hard. I gathered that they were making no margins on his deal but took his business so that they could get him into China and then make up the margin with these tricks. Would this have happened if he had just considered the other side's POV?
  - matheusmoreira 3y ago
    Hard squeezing is the only reason those chinese manufacturers got western business to begin with. The whole point of it was to replace expensive western operations with cheap chinese ones. He talks at length about their "zero profit" strategy: they'd sell at negligible margins to westerners to get them to hand over their intellectual property on a silver platter. Then they'd make up for it in several ways such as by selling counterfeits in markets westerners couldn't care less about like most of Asia and South America. There's numerous "cheap chinese products" stores within 10 minutes of my home, I have no doubt they're the byproducts of that strategy. He also talks about the general chinese culture. You get what you pay for, if you pay too little you'll get scrap. Happens even though the manufacturer technically agreed to your contract and specifications: instead of refusing the contract outright, they accept it and manipulate quality without telling the customer about it. They accepted being squeezed and then squeezed right back in ways their customers could not have imagined. The ruthlessness is actually pretty impressive.

deleted 3y ago

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matheusmoreira 3y ago

> they have a mindset of squeezing every last drop of blood out of you and have many strategies to do so Yeah. Even leaving the untrustworthiness aside, among those strategies is quality manipulation. Steel, for example: first batches are good, then they'll gradually tamper with the chemistry without anyone noticing, pocket the money, pass the risk along to the westerners and nobody knows or cares until somebody dies because a scaffolding collapsed or something. There's a steel industry in my city, it doesn't do stuff like this and it can't compete with chinese steel even with import taxes.

saturn8601 3y ago
I wonder if this occurs less often if you are providing a good deal to the Chinese side. Like I mentioned, the main character in the book: Bernie really seemed like he was squeezing his Chinese supplier hard. I gathered that they were making no margins on his deal but took his business so that they could get him into China and then make up the margin with these tricks. Would this have happened if he had just considered the other side's POV?
- matheusmoreira 3y ago
  Hard squeezing is the only reason those chinese manufacturers got western business to begin with. The whole point of it was to replace expensive western operations with cheap chinese ones. He talks at length about their "zero profit" strategy: they'd sell at negligible margins to westerners to get them to hand over their intellectual property on a silver platter. Then they'd make up for it in several ways such as by selling counterfeits in markets westerners couldn't care less about like most of Asia and South America. There's numerous "cheap chinese products" stores within 10 minutes of my home, I have no doubt they're the byproducts of that strategy. He also talks about the general chinese culture. You get what you pay for, if you pay too little you'll get scrap. Happens even though the manufacturer technically agreed to your contract and specifications: instead of refusing the contract outright, they accept it and manipulate quality without telling the customer about it. They accepted being squeezed and then squeezed right back in ways their customers could not have imagined. The ruthlessness is actually pretty impressive.