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Thread: China's prowess has been overrated?

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[quote=ICEBERG,272430]With rapid economic growth in recent years, China has been regarded as one of the most powerful countries in the world. Some people even claim that China will surpass US in 20 years. However, some people don't think so. Here is an interesting report from FT.

MANUFACTURER SLAMS CHINA'S INDUSTRIAL GLOBAL  PROWESS

By Peter Marsh in London
Wednesday, February 27, 2008
                                 
China's prowess as a global economic power has been severely overrated by the west, according to a leading US-based industrialist, who says that many Chinese companies are over-reliant on copying rivals' products and have employees who do not work hard enough.
                                
Martin Richenhagen, chairman and chief executive of Atlanta-based Agco, the world's third-biggest maker of tractors, also says corruption “remains a big burden” in China while the country suffers from opaque laws and having an over-protectionist government that hinders technological progress.

“I'm not aware of a single world-class product that has been developed in China, apart perhaps from in the textiles industry,” Mr Richenhagen told the Financial Times.

He added that Beijing should do more to allow overseas companies to take majority stakes in domestic companies, if they wanted to avoid  these businesses being left behind technologically.

“It is not possible to be an important exporter to other places but close your borders to others [taking controlling stakes in Chinese companies],” said Mr Richenhagen, whose company had sales last year of $6.8bn, with just 22 percent of this figure coming from North America.
                                
Mr Richenhagen has grown frustrated over the past 18 months with Beijing's refusal to allow  Agco to take a majority stake in First Tractor, 
a state-controlled company that is the country's biggest tractor maker.
                                
“A lot of Chinese are not hardworking at all,”Mr Richenhagen said, while, frequently, their employers were obsessed with copying other companies' parts and products instead of leading innovation themselves.

“This has been the practice in the past and it's not getting any better,” Mr Richenhagen said,  who added that many Chinese companies went down this route since copying was “cheaper and easier” than developing new products and also did not require them to hire the most talented engineers.
                                
Mr Richenhagen, a German executive with a background in the steel, lifts and flooring industries, said he based these views on about 30 visits made to the country over the past quarter- century.
                                
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