Monday, September 18, 2006

U.S. - China Contrast

Alex Taylor III, writing in Fortune magazine, compares a factory in China with one in the United States. An excerpt:

China can be scary.


One reason is people like Pu Chaunming. He and his wife make exhaust systems in an industrial park outside Shanghai. They each earn about $1.56 an hour, commute to work by bicycle, and live in a small one-bedroom rental apartment. Because of their long working hours and lack of day care, their 4-year-old son lives with Pu's parents, 240 miles away. Pu and his wife talk with him every night on the telephone and visit him occasionally. Pu is philosophical about the separation, which he believes is a necessary investment in his child's future. "My son is having a better education," he says. "I believe he will have a better life than me."


For many people in high-wage countries like the U.S., Pu exemplifies the China threat - a hard worker making a tenth of U.S. wages. Who can compete with that? In 2005, China exported $202 billion more to America than it imported, accounting for more than a quarter of the U.S. trade deficit. There is no question that, thanks to the labor of tens of millions of people like Pu, China has become a genuinely fearsome economic competitor.

Read it all here.

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