My visit to China

[Bob at AM]

In April 2007, I visited China for the first time. On the eve of the Olympics, I thought I'd share my impressions.

The following posts are from a blog that I wrote at another forum site at the time I was traveling. with permission, I've imported that blog here. However, I didn't feel that it quite right to include all of the comments from people who aren't members here (yet?). So you'll only see my own writing and, where necessary, an occasional reference to questions/comments posted by others.

[Bob at AM]

I’m at Ground Zero in the manufacturing revolution: Beijing.

It’s my first trip to China. The excuse for coming here is the China International Machine Tool Show – the world’s third-largest machine tool show, if I have my trade-show trivia correct. The real reason, though, is to gain some ground-level understanding of this country, its people, and the incredible success they’ve had in overhauling the worldwide economics of making stuff.

The trip began in Hong Kong, where I spent two days to meet with our Asian publishing partners and to apply for the $200 entrance visa to the mainland.

For those of you who haven’t brushed up on Asian history, Hong Kong was still part of the British Empire until 10 years ago, when it was turned over to China. And while it’s part of China today, it is clearly not China.

Hong Kong is consumerism on steroids – a vibrant city and outlying territory where “upscale Gallerias” serve the same purpose as coffee shops in Seattle: They provide something to occupy every corner. Chicago’s Magnificent Mile is Amish by comparison.

Once the visa came through on Tuesday at precisely 5 p.m. as scheduled, I took the express train to the airport for my 3-and-a-half-hour flight to Beijing. Somewhere, though, I think the pilot must have taken a wrong turn, landing instead at the Department of Motor Vehicles.

Let’s see. How can I be polite. In the first 25 minutes I learned that the inmates are running the asylum. On one hand it’s lawless; under the eyes of guards assigned to bring order to the taxi queue, rogue drivers pluck unsuspecting tourists (me) out of the line and shove them into unmetered cabs for highly inflated prices (to my credit, I got out of the cab before he left the airport and refused to pay anything – and then got right into another unmetered cab and still got scammed, but for half as much).

On the other hand, anyone who wears a militaristic uniform – the doorman at my hotel is dressed like the Wehrmacht – wields absolute domain for as far as his whistle can be heard.

It’s just like the pictures: crowded and chaotic, kind of gray and I don’t believe I’ve seen anybody smile yet. They aren’t into “excuse me” either. It doesn’t matter if you’re in a car, on a bike or walking: the people here set a course and rely on others to get out of the way.

Now, I’ve got to recognize that it’s a land with the longest recorded history of any country on Earth, and I’ve spent less than 24 hours here traversing no more than a few square miles. So I don’t know how much of what I’ve seen is the Chinese culture or a function of living in a really, really big city. Take my observations in that spirit.

But I do know that what I’ve seen so far doesn’t come close to explaining the amazing success China has had in joining the world economy. In fact, for all the fast-moving bustle, nobody seems to be busy at anything. They have the same four shovel-bearing workers staring at a hole in the street that we have in Cleveland. In four out of four cab rides, my driver got lost. (And I don’t for a minute believe they were lost; I think they were running up the meter, sometimes by as much as 10 yuan; which is really unfuriating until you remember that it amounts to an extra $1.25.)

Even flashing lights on a police car are viewed with apathy – if they’re noticed at all. In my last cab adventure of the evening, the driver followed up a wrong turn by doing a three-point U turn – unconcerned that the police car with flashing lights behind us had to wait while he completed the maneuver.

All of these impressions are consistent with my first day on the show floor at CIMT, too. This show is not about innovation and new technology. It’s about availability and volume.

For every 5-axis machining center you’ve heard of, there are a dozen others with names you can’t pronounce. And three-axis horizontal mills are more likely to be at the front of a large booth than the machining centers anyway.

It’s a large show, occupying at least eight buildings (I seem to have lost my show map; I’ll fill in the precise number tomorrow); I found an entire hall filled with motors, ballscrews and other components from Chinese companies that don’t even bother to provide an English translation of their name. My favorite moment of the day came when I stopped to take a picture (I’ll post it when I get home) of a 30-foot ballscrew – the longest I’ve ever seen. It alarmed representatives at the booth. “You’re not supposed to take pictures,” my companion told me.

“I refuse to care,” I replied. “Like they don’t do exactly the same thing every time they come to a show in America.” Nonetheless, they put a security guard on my tail. Dressed in an olive-drab jumpsuit, a white crossing-guard belt and a large, green hat – he stayed one step behind me until I left for a different exhibition hall.

Americans tend to feel like we’ve been victimized by the Chinese. I’m telling you: Don’t take it personally. This isn’t a case of the Chinese coming after us; it’s a case of the Chinese coming after everyone.

Tongtai Industries of Taiwan is showing a new, 24-tool double-turret lathe – the most sophisticated lathe the company has yet produced. “I would guess you do well with that in the United States,” I said. “Yes,” their representative replied. “But where it’s really selling is Taiwan.”

I asked why. Because, he told me, independent machine shops in Taiwan are losing so much low-end production work to China, that they only way they can stay in business is to buy more advanced equipment that allows them to produce high-value, complex parts.

I just love irony.

[Bob at AM]

It was raining this morning in Beijing, and the traffic – always astounding – was now wet, slow and astounding. The taxi line in front of the hotel was depleted, and as I anticipated another long drive in a cab that smelled like stale cigarettes, I hoped for Beijing to show me some sign of redemption.

It came in the form of Ou Yangkai, vice president of Sichuan West Tools Manufacturing Co. Ltd.; he too was waiting for a cab, and when he noticed my convention badge he offered to share the ride with me. It was a relief; with a Chinese native in the back seat with me, I anticipated my first ride in which the driver didn’t dare to get lost.

Yesterday, it seemed that I only saw the downside of the Chinese culture, which has embraced all of the inherent flaws of Communism: bureaucracy, sluggishness and an aggravating tendency to do no more or less than the day before – because nobody said to do otherwise.

It left me wondering how these guys are kicking the *** of the entire global economy.

Yangkai is the new China – the one that will make whatever the world will buy, and do so at the lowest possible price, at whatever level of quality the customer desires. That’s right: I’ve come to appreciate the fact that if the Chinese make crap, it’s because their customers want crap, because THEIR customers (that’s us) will BUY crap, so long as it looks a lot like the more expensive non-crap.

Yangkai’s company has two lines of products – tooling, and power handtools. He bought a Blackberry in the U.S., and pays Cingular $150 a month so he can get e-mail anywhere in the world. “You can’t do that with a Chinese service,” he said. “But I don’t use the phone, because it would be an American phone number.”

He feels the same way about his Blackberry that I do. “It’s very useful. I like being able to get e-mail any time. But it’s not always so good. When I used to wake up at night, I would reach for my wife,” he said. “Now I reach for my Blackberry.”

I didn’t know how companies here behave about such tools, so I asked whether he had to pay for the service himself. He laughed. “My company pays for it. Of course. I don’t want these e-mails.”

Yangkai’s English is excellent, with a pretty good accent and a large vocabulary. He didn’t go overseas for his education; his engineering degree and his English are products of the Chinese schools. He is proud of his company and its fast-growing sales. He is energetic. He knows what’s going on the world. His favorite business destination is Italy.

At an event like the Chinese International Machine Tool Show, you can meet representatives of Chinese companies that are strictly domestic – making tooling and components and workholding, etc. to serve just the Chinese market. These people don’t travel to shows like IMTS and EMO, so you can’t meet them unless you come here. They are completely unaware that many Americans feel threatened by China, and blame China for usurping our manufacturing base. Their products failed to impress me, and they are part of what put me in a dark mood yesterday.

But Yangkai is more like the Chinese executives you’d meet in America and Europe. He is well aware of the resentment; unapologetic, but not unsympathetic. “Our turn will come too,” he said. “Today, the economies of America and Europe only grow slowly. Someday, we will feel the same way.”

But not quite yet. As the cab ride was ending, he told me that his largest customer in the United States spends $2 million a year with him. It’s Harborfreight, so now you know a little bit about the “Made in China” tools that people like to gripe about.

And his business with Lowe’s and Home Depot is growing nicely.

I really enjoyed the 45 minutes we spent in the car together. Yangkai is energetic and well-spoken and simply very nice. I’d like the idea of building a friendship with him.

But some things are bigger than friendship; which is why this American let the Chinese guy pay for the cab.

[Bob at AM]

A couple cultural notes:

At home, we say "salt and pepper." I don't know if they actually say "pepper and salt" here but the spicy stuff is clearly favored. Unlike home, the pepper will always be in the shaker with more and/or bigger holes; the salt will always be in the one if fewer/smaller holes.
________

I like noticing what cars people drive. There are three or four Chinese brands whose logos I don't recognize; these are the most common cars -- all small and many of them really cute. I don't know if they're any good, though I hope so because if Chrysler survives, it's planning to bring China's Cheri to showrooms in Detroit and Peoria.

After that, you see lots of Hyundais; the favored German brand here is Volkswagen. Many of the older taxis are late-model Jettas, but you also see lots of privately owned Passats and Golfs. Everywhere I've traveled in Asia, you see very few American cars -- but usually Fords if anything. Here, I've seen one Jeep Grand Cherokee and more Buicks than I recall ever seeing at home. I don't know why, but the Chinese like Buick.

[Bob at AM]

Just a thought. Buick = Tiger Woods

Great point. It never occurred to me; and I didn't know the fact you offered -- that there is a Buick plant here. Way to go GM. (Don't know the last time I got to say that!)

It raises a competitive point: Japanese automakers got a foothold in the American market back in the 80s by scratching an itch the Big Three refused to recognize at the time: that people wanted a better, more reliable car.
But as soon as they had enough success to justify taking the risk, they started building cars in the States rather than importing them, and their upward sales curve only got steeper. Today, people don't buy Toyotas because they want a car from Japan; they buy Toyotas because they want a Toyota. If the people in China are buying Buicks, it's not because they want an American car; it's because they want the car that Buick has come here to provide.

If my business travel over the past two years -- the first international travel I've ever done -- has taught me anything, it's that the United States, collectively, doesn't recognize that its world view (over-generalization alert) is obsolete. If we ever WERE the center of the world, it's not true today.

My FIRST trip to Asia and Europe, frankly, was at Epcot Center in Disneyworld. Of course, I knew that I hadn't really seen Japan; I'd seen a Japanese department store selling the stuff that people in America - whose judgment was temporarily skewed by being on vacation -- would buy.

Similarly, while the Chinese and Japanese and Taiwanese youth seem to follow every trend in American culture, they don't line up to buy American stuff. They line up to buy stuff that is American-like. They don't really care where it was made.

You see bluejeans everywhere here -- a quintessential American product. But the only classic Levis 501s I've noticed are the pair that's still waiting to come out of my suitcase this weekend, when I cease to be a tradeshow delegate and start being a tourist.

Everyone else is wearing highly styled bluejeans from heaven-knows-where.

In the nightlife district where I went the other night, the facade of one building had a jumbo screen showing Hip Hop vides. In the two bars I visited, while the band members wore the hop-hop style baseball cap and bling, they sang unfamiliar songs with Chinese lyrics.

American pop culture may be our most successful export right now, but it's a mistake to assume that it is equivalent to doting admiration and loyalty to us, our products or our place in the world.

To the people I meet in my travel -- whether they are international executives or workaday people -- the United States is just another place on the globe. A big, noisy, bright, captivating place for sure. But really just another splash of color in a much larger, more compelling world.

Maybe Buick does well here because Buick has bothered to make itself a Chinese iteration of Buick.

[Bob at AM]

So, Bob, how is the air? How many blocks can you see? What color is the air? I got a nasty respiratory infection every time I went to Beijing.

It's always hazy here; my hotel room is on the 15th floor, and despite sparkling cool weather, the haze takes over at about five miles. I'm told this has been an unusually clear period of time in Beijing; it's usually much smoggier.

But I haven't felt any respiratory discomfort, and it doesn't seem to be as bad as I was led to expect. I've also noticed many references to the government's effort to reduce pollution. Judging by the traffic, they've got a long way to go.

[Bob at AM]

Also, if the Taiwanese (the outsource "destination of choice" only a few decades ago) are already looking to survive through quality rather than quantity, how long until the boom-boom Chinese are backed into the same corner we are?

I agree. It seems to be an inevitable cycle: first a country or region inches its way out of povery by becoming a low-cost producer; then as the standard of living increases, so do the desires of the people -- leading to higher costs and an opportunity for the next low-cost producer to step in.

China may be the biggest and most discussed, but it is not alone at its current level in world manufacturing. Poland and the former Czechoslovakia are countries that seem to be in the same position -- based on their thirst for machine tools, which is my reference point these days.

Next up: India and Vietnam keep coming up, followed by Turkey and Indonesia.

[Bob at AM]

I wrote a couple days ago that the China Industrial Machine Tool Show is less about innovation than about volume and availability. I spent my last day at the show walking the 10 exhibition halls to back up that statement.

Automation was all but non-existent. I saw two smallish robot arms. There were some bar feeders too. But if there were any pallet-changers, gantries or any other kind of material handling solutions on exhibit, I didn’t see them.

I also seem to have missed the software providers that occupy a meaningful section of any U.S. or European trade show. I can’t believe they weren’t there, but I couldn’t find them.

Precision machines were in attendance, but they were a sideshow. At one point, I walked into a new hall and saw case after case of tiny, finely machined parts. At a show where the halls are organized by nationality, this one, naturally, belonged to the Swiss.

Size mattered – but in China it’s not about the small stuff. I’ve never seen so much monster equipment on display at a single show. The biggest might have been the CWT 130 x 145 turning and machining center, produced by China’s Quiqihar Heavy CNC Equipment Corp. Ltd. It can handle a workpiece 48 feet long and more than 13 feet in diameter. I couldn’t find a photo angle that would provide a sense for the mass of the machine and the crankshaft (for a 5000 hp freighter engine) mounted on it. I’ll post what I got when I get home.

The HTM mill/turn center, produced by Shenyang No. 1 Machine Tool Works was small by comparison – but big enough that you could put all the contents of my hotel room inside and still have room for a few friends and a keg of beer.

There were several giant horizontal mills and an abundance of bridge mills – the kind of stuff nobody bothers shipping to show in the United States.

At work, I hear all the time that the Chinese are becoming increasingly sophisticated in their machining; that they are buying ever-more-sophisticated equipment and that it’s only a matter of time before we can’t beat them on precision any more than we can beat them on price.

It may happen, but judging by the brute power that was on display in China this week, I wouldn’t say it’s imminent.

[Bob at AM]

Yesterday I took a pedicab through the Hutong that lies sandwiched between the Forbidden City on the east, Behai Park on the west, and the new Olmpic Football (Soccer) Dome, on the north. They were demolishing the Hutong even as I went through it -- it will be gone before the Olympics.

Then, pissed off at being taken by yet another cab driver (this one had an unofficial meter that ran too fast) I got out of the cab half-way back to my hotel, and found myself in a great little commercial district (more on this in my next post) -- immediately south of the Drum Tower/Bell Tower complex. So quite by accident, I then found myself walking through that Hutong as well. I hope they don't tear it down. It was far more lively than the half-dead one that I saw earlier.
There were shops and traffic and two or three little bars that were calling to me to come in. One looked like it was just out of a movie; dark, with bright patches of sun from the door and windows. Bamboo and rattan all over, just about 5 tables, and a sign out front that said (in English):

"Have beer whiskey
Today special: Gintonic"

The Chinese seem to have a different sense of what's inviting than I do; every upscale or "businessman's" restaurant or bar that I've been in has been large and brightly lit. Quite the opposite, say, of Morton's. Me? Give me small, quiet and cozy.

Of course, I sometimes have trouble being a spontaneous tourist; I was too busy worrying about my quickly declining pile of RMB (the Chinese currency) and I was definitely tired of being worked by cabbies, would-be tour guides, postcard vendors, phototakers and everyone else in the tourist area who wanted a piece of my wallet. (It's an onslought -- aggravating, overwhelming and simply part of the experience).

So I didn't let myself stop in the one part of the city where nobody had bothered me. I will have time on Sunday, and this Hutong is a healthy walk from my hotel; I think I'll revisit it then with a better mindset.

[Bob at AM]

Tiananmen Square is the biggest public plaza I have ever seen. It’s half-a-mile long by a third of a mile wide. Words won’t describe it; photos can’t capture it. My quick math tells me you could fit 88 football fields into it; the square’s width would fit three of them end-to-end.

The south end of the square is defined by two imperial-era gates – the Jianlou and Quianmen gates – standing six stories tall – which protected the entrance to ancient Beijing. Then there is the Chairman Mao Memorial, where his body lays for near-daily viewing. It’s a massive building that looks like many pillared memorials around the world. My guidebook says it was built in 1977 with volunteer labor – though I’ve got to wonder whether people actually stepped forward on their own. I’ve been reticent to ask questions of the few English-speaking Chinese that I’ve been able to talk to about their feelings for Mao. While be brought order to China after an era of upheaval, he was also a central part of that upheaval and his reign wasn’t exactly marked by benign acts of grace.

So I don’t know people here revere Mao as much the official, omnipresent public references to him would seem to indicate. But I do know many ordinary people are making a capitalist living by selling $3 wristwatches, book bags, snow globes and T-shirts (couldn’t resist one for myself) that bear his likeness. Spoken references to him seem now to hold the kind of patina that comes with old memories, made pleasant by time passed. The people are optimistic here. They have seen endless change that is making many of them wealthier and more independent; perhaps they see Mao as the navigator who set the course for the good times they are living today. It’s just a guess.

I couldn’t visit the mausoleum because it’s closed for renovations before next summer’s Olympics, and is well-guarded by serious, stiff-shouldered soldiers.

Tiananmen Square was built in the 1950s as a place for official rallies and gatherings. But it was built on the same place where such gatherings had taken place for at least a couple-hundred years – just outside the Tiananmen Gate (Gate of the Heavenly Peace), where imperial pronouncements were made. In 1949, this is where people gathered to be told that China was now a People’s Republic.

Today, large light poles mark off the Square in grids; each pole bristles with powerful lamps, large loudspeakers, and security cameras pointed in multiple directions. When I visited, it was being used like a large, paved park; people were picnicking, and flying kites. But it strikes me as a place the government built in the 1950s as a place for people to come when called and to fall in line.

A few long hail-Mary passes north of the mausoleum is the Monument to the People’s Heroes. It’s a large and beautiful column built in a traditional Chinese form. It’s off-limits to everyone except the soldiers who guard the low barrier fence built around its perimeter. According to my guidebook, the monument remembers “those who struggled for the country’s independence.” It was closed to the public to prevent the laying of wreaths – a practice that at least twice caused riots when the government removed remembrances for liberal politicians, the guidebook says. The second of those was in 1989, though book only implies the immediate connection to the well-known massacre that followed. Even Fodor’s is careful here.

The Square is bounded on the East by the Museum of Chinese History/Museum of the Chinese Revolution, also closed for renovation. It’s enough for now to say the façade is massive. On the other side, even more massive, is the Great Hall of the People – the Parliament building where government convenes. It’s all very cleverly assembled to draw you into the middle and make you feel absolutely insignificant. It’s awesome and powerful and, on the day I visited, non-threatening. But there is no question, when in Tiananmen Square, that you are not in charge.

Perhaps the only structure more impressive, more awe inducing, more daunting, is across the broad avenue at the north end of the Square: The Tiananmen Gate that marks the entrance to the Forbidden City – the palace complex of the emperors and so named because commoners were forbidden to enter on penalty of death.

I’ll visit that today. But I already know from seeing its outside that the Forbidden City – no matter how impressive or beautiful it proves itself to be – is simply a different path to the same destination. While Tiananmen Square invites you in and surrounds you at every level with reminders of the common man’s insignificance, the Forbidden City conveys the same message by locking you out.