It has not been long that China entered the free market when the world succumbed to a global financial crisis. It enjoyed some years in lucrative world trade, but now it has to contend swimming in the uncertain seas of economic meltdown. Nonetheless, it has already established itself as a hegemony in the Asian region – what with all the ‘made in China’ products that have been flooding the world. Today, China has to deal with its own share of dwindling economic statistics.
China has been riding on the crest of two vital factors that have propped up its economic status and earned a hegemonic repute in the region. The country is a source of cheap labor and cheap products. Many multinational corporations have outsourced their manufacturing operations in China because the Chinese have actually been willing to work for a dollar a day. Also, China has been spewing tons of volumes of cheap products onto the world so much so that the planet is practically ‘made in China.’ Of course, it cannot be denied that these products, though may be ridiculously cheap, are also inferior in quality and ultimately obsolescent.
No matter. The Asian hegemon can very well swim in the tides of the global economic meltdown. After all, it also supplies fighter planes and AK-47s to military dictatorships around the globe.
China may have done it right, economically, even doing it swiftly. But it has been too expedient for its own good. Selling arms never earns good rep. Selling defective products does not give one a beneficent image over the long haul. Selling the brawn capacity of your human resources at a dollar a day ultimately makes you a country to be taken advantage of down the line. In this time of economic crisis where people can not purchase as much as they want to and production may have to slow down, expediency cannot do any good.
Via TIME
