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Poorly Made in China
by Paul Midler
Reviewed by Peter Gordon
If you, like me, could never figure out the difference between shampoo and shower gel, that's because American companies like one of Paul Midler's clients put the same stuff into (at least) two different bottles. And if there's neither milk nor aloe in a something called "Milk & Aloe", that's because neither ingredient was actually included in the product spec.
Books, like other products, need clear specs and some correlation between packaging and contents. Poorly Made in China attempts to be both, in the words of the author, "a narrative adventure, a quick romp through China's manufacturing sector" as well as, according to the subtitle, the not entirely compatible "insider's account of the tactics behind China's production game".
Whether you find Poorly Made in China a "romp" may depend on whether you need to get out more, but as a series of extended anecdotes, complete with (undoubtedly reconstructed) dialogue, the book succeeds as a pleasant, fast and sometimes smile-inducing read. Furthermore, Midler identifies patterns of behavior which almost anyone doing business in China will surely have experienced and which serve as useful admonitions not to project Western interpretations of situations and events onto a country in which conditions are very different.
However, the intended audience probably doesn't have much time for romping, and is looking, one imagines, for specific insights.
The premise of the analytical side of Poorly Made in China is that the so-called Chinese manufacturing miracle is based to a very large extent on Chinese firms cheating their American customers and business partners, either through bait and switch tactics, "quality fade" (a process of cutting corners and substituting cheaper components once the original order is won), siphoning margin from joint ventures, etc.
We are expected, it seems, to be shocked, shocked, to find such practices going on.
More enlightening is author Paul Midler's explanation about why such situations are not self-correcting: after all, you'd think that the American importer would switch suppliers once such practices had been uncovered or a bad shipment had been received. Apparently importers, at least those Midler was consulting for, find it more convenient to single-source their manufacturing, so the Chinese end up having their captive customers over a barrel.
Midler's American clients, one is forced to conclude, aren't very bright.
None of this is to minimize the serious issue of product safety or the danger of lead-tainted toys or melamine-laced dairy products. But surely the American companies using, purchasing and/or distributing such products have the ultimate responsibility for them. What ever happened to incoming QC (quality control)? It's not that the complaints about China and Chinese manufacturers are without validity, but they seem at least partially misplaced: at least the Chinese manufacturers are selling to people who, considering themselves professionals, are supposed to know -- and behave -- better.
Midler ends Poorly Made in China with a statement that the decision to "fling open wide the doors of trade with China" via, for example, approval of Most Favored Nation status for China, "before" -- he says - "we were ready, before China was ready" was a great error: "the one thing related to China that was truly poorly made."
The implication is that these problems are somehow unique to China (Midler's experience is seemingly limited to China and never demonstrates that importing from India, Thailand or Turkey is free of product quality problems) rather than as being inherent in a loss of control that results from outsourcing. In any event, free trade does not itself compel American companies to single-source, ditch quality-control procedures, and buy shoddy merchandise. Nor does free trade require the United States to gut its product health and safety regulation regime.
Poorly Made in China was written before America's imports and China's exports fell off a cliff: it is far from clear that when consumption rebounds, it will return to the previous pattern of buying ever-increasing amounts of low-cost, low-quality "stuff". Quality might once again command a premium. And a world of greater health and safety regulation is probably coming -- at a cost, of course, a cost which is likely to change the "China price" equation.
If Midler's clients won't impose constraints on their Chinese subcontractors, the American economy finally might.
--
Peter Gordon is editor of The Asian Review of Books.
by Paul Midler
Reviewed by Peter Gordon
If you, like me, could never figure out the difference between shampoo and shower gel, that's because American companies like one of Paul Midler's clients put the same stuff into (at least) two different bottles. And if there's neither milk nor aloe in a something called "Milk & Aloe", that's because neither ingredient was actually included in the product spec.
Books, like other products, need clear specs and some correlation between packaging and contents. Poorly Made in China attempts to be both, in the words of the author, "a narrative adventure, a quick romp through China's manufacturing sector" as well as, according to the subtitle, the not entirely compatible "insider's account of the tactics behind China's production game".
Whether you find Poorly Made in China a "romp" may depend on whether you need to get out more, but as a series of extended anecdotes, complete with (undoubtedly reconstructed) dialogue, the book succeeds as a pleasant, fast and sometimes smile-inducing read. Furthermore, Midler identifies patterns of behavior which almost anyone doing business in China will surely have experienced and which serve as useful admonitions not to project Western interpretations of situations and events onto a country in which conditions are very different.
However, the intended audience probably doesn't have much time for romping, and is looking, one imagines, for specific insights.
The premise of the analytical side of Poorly Made in China is that the so-called Chinese manufacturing miracle is based to a very large extent on Chinese firms cheating their American customers and business partners, either through bait and switch tactics, "quality fade" (a process of cutting corners and substituting cheaper components once the original order is won), siphoning margin from joint ventures, etc.
We are expected, it seems, to be shocked, shocked, to find such practices going on.
More enlightening is author Paul Midler's explanation about why such situations are not self-correcting: after all, you'd think that the American importer would switch suppliers once such practices had been uncovered or a bad shipment had been received. Apparently importers, at least those Midler was consulting for, find it more convenient to single-source their manufacturing, so the Chinese end up having their captive customers over a barrel.
Midler's American clients, one is forced to conclude, aren't very bright.
None of this is to minimize the serious issue of product safety or the danger of lead-tainted toys or melamine-laced dairy products. But surely the American companies using, purchasing and/or distributing such products have the ultimate responsibility for them. What ever happened to incoming QC (quality control)? It's not that the complaints about China and Chinese manufacturers are without validity, but they seem at least partially misplaced: at least the Chinese manufacturers are selling to people who, considering themselves professionals, are supposed to know -- and behave -- better.
Midler ends Poorly Made in China with a statement that the decision to "fling open wide the doors of trade with China" via, for example, approval of Most Favored Nation status for China, "before" -- he says - "we were ready, before China was ready" was a great error: "the one thing related to China that was truly poorly made."
The implication is that these problems are somehow unique to China (Midler's experience is seemingly limited to China and never demonstrates that importing from India, Thailand or Turkey is free of product quality problems) rather than as being inherent in a loss of control that results from outsourcing. In any event, free trade does not itself compel American companies to single-source, ditch quality-control procedures, and buy shoddy merchandise. Nor does free trade require the United States to gut its product health and safety regulation regime.
Poorly Made in China was written before America's imports and China's exports fell off a cliff: it is far from clear that when consumption rebounds, it will return to the previous pattern of buying ever-increasing amounts of low-cost, low-quality "stuff". Quality might once again command a premium. And a world of greater health and safety regulation is probably coming -- at a cost, of course, a cost which is likely to change the "China price" equation.
If Midler's clients won't impose constraints on their Chinese subcontractors, the American economy finally might.
--
Peter Gordon is editor of The Asian Review of Books.
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