Model Forum / General / Models / June 2006

I think the bottom line here is the Wasan Plastic Co. which seems to be
the "leashholder" for most of the Chinese (state owned) model
companies. That covers Lee, Trumpter, and several others, but right now
they are hell-bent-for-leather making Trumpeter world class whereas the
others get handoff or hand-me-down molds.

They all got their start like most other Oriental modeling companies --
buy someone else's kit and copy it, then undersell them. The Chinese
are notorious for this, and the biggest and grossest example I ever saw
was a 1/1 scale BJ-213 (AKA Jeep Cherokee) that sold for less than half
of what the factory original Jeep did two blocks down the street.

But after getting body slammed -- and also making the kits in nearly
unbuildable ABS like plastic, Trumpeter decided to clean up its act and
go after the world market. Some of the others have come along, but then
again they also have migrated molds (e.g. Hobbycraft of Canada had some
of them not long ago.)

Would be interesting to see the entire "Wiring Diagram" of Wasan
Plastic.

Cookie Sewell

Multiple factors. As I posted before, the normal growth in an industry
includes lots of companies sprouting from older companies; the
engineering outfits that came out of Hewlett Packard, or the
proliferation of American car companies in the early days of the
industry as the Dodge Brothers expanded from providing parts for Fords
to making whole cars, for instance.

Next: as you say, the expectation in the US of ever increasing standard
of living requires continually dropping of costs and/or increase of
wages. The obvious easy answer is foreign labor. If you can't ship the
worker to the job (see "illegal immigrants") then you ship the job to
the worker.

The last factor is rewards for bad management; good management always
has involved preventing either your customers or your suppliers from
becoming your competitors. See "eliminating the middleman". But given
the now usual short-term periods considered when rewarding management,
and the now usual 3-5 year tenure of management before jumping to the
next job, there is no penalty for turning a company into a burning
wreck for high short term profits and jumping ship before the slow
process of sinking is serious. Whereas digging in for the long haul and
playing it conservative is, ironically, certain to meet with death both
for your career and for your company's stock prices.

And most ironic of all, the driver demanding short term profitability
is the big shareholders who have to show immediate profit out of owning
company stocks and bonds and move their money around on a daily basis
to get it; these shareholders are, of course, to a great degree the big
pension and mutual fund companies, which have to keep their
shareholders happy by showing big returns so they don't jump ship on a
quarterly basis; said shareholders being the workers who are demanding
these big returns from their investments because their jobs aren't
secure. Which takes us back to square one. The mind boggles.

Aha.  If your are really interested in this subject there is an
excellent three part technical paper by Henry C K Liu

Go to the main link at http://www.atimes.com/atimes/others/Henry.html

Be forewarned.  Its very heavy going on international finance and
economics.  But it will address pretty much a all the simplistic ideas
you have about how to fix America's economic problems.  As I said
earlier most of you guys still haven't caught on to what is happening
in the real world.

THE WAGES OF NEO-LIBERALISM
PART 1: Core contradictions
Despite all evidence, the US in particular continues to delude itself
that fair exchange rates, especially for the Chinese yuan, would solve
economic ills. But Western exchange-rate policies have long been part
of the problem; what economies worldwide should be floating is wages,
not exchange rates. (Mar 21, '06)

THE WAGES OF NEO-LIBERALISM
PART 2: The US-China trade imbalance
A rising US trade deficit with China has generated much heat but
little light about unfair Chinese trade practices. The real danger to
the US economy is that the US sovereign debt rating is now dependent
on the soundness of Chinese sovereign debt - in other words, on
China's credit rating. (Mar 31, '06)

THE WAGES OF NEO-LIBERALISM
PART 3: China's internal debt problem
China's fiscal policy has begun a gradual shift from "proactive" to
"prudent". Beijing now urgently needs to deal with pressing economic
and social problems that have been created by its transition from a
socialist planned economy to a "socialist" market economy. One key
factor is how to handle the national debt in a system dominated by US
dollar hegemony. - Henry C K Liu (May 26, '06)

If China let its currency float, then its investment in the Bush
Memorial Deficit would sink like a stone. If the US hopes to keep
borrowing like a crack addict with a Platinum American Express card,
it's got to keep the lenders happy and that means keeping the dollar
artificially up and the yuan artificially low. Otherwise the Chinese
will, not being idiots, pull out and the house of cards will collapse,
with probably negative implications worldwide.

There is a large population of Muslims living in China since Tang
times circa 650 AD.  They had generally lived in peace for over 1500
years.  Even the 100 million Muslims today pales in comparison to over
1 billion Han Chinese.  Most of these Muslims anyway are Han Chinese,
not the national minorities who number some 20 millions.  In other
words China can live with the miniscule separatist movements among her
western autonomous regions.   They are no threat.  Geography alone
(vast deserts and mountains)  would defeat any non Chinese Islamic
threat.

Islam in China
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Great Mosque of Xi'an, China's largest mosqueChina is home to a
large population of adherents of Islam. Sources, including the BBC,
suggest that there may be as many as 20 million Muslims in China, up
to 2 percent of the country's 1.3 billion population. Other sources
suggest Muslims in China may number up to 40 million, with new rumors
saying there are 10 million more hiding.[1]. Many believe there are
over 100 million Muslims in China. This is based on the census
undertaken by the Kuomintang in the 1940's which placed the figure at
45 million. In addition the China year book of 1950 placed the number
at 50 million. The figure of 100 million is derived from the
population of China doubling since 1950.

The largest of the ten Muslim ethnic groups in China are the Hui. The
other nine, in descending order of size, are Uyghur, Kazakh,
Dongxiang, Kirghiz, Salar, Tajik, Uzbek, Bonan, and Tatar. Xinjiang
has the largest number of Muslims; many are also concentrated in the
Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region.

(snip)

Hui Muslim near courtyard of Daqingzhen SiDuring the Tang Dynasty,
China was highly tolerant of new religions and Chinese contact with
foreign envoys flourished. Islam was introduced to China via the silk
road by Arabs. Although some believe that Islam may have arrived in
China during the Sui Dynasty, the first official record of Islam's
arrival in China occurred during the Tang Dynasty.

Tang dynasty
Uthman ibn Affan, the third Caliph of Islam, sent the first official
Muslim envoy to China in 650. The envoy, headed by Sa`d ibn Abi
Waqqas, arrived in the Tang capital, Chang'an, in 651 via the overseas
route. Huis generally consider this date to be the official founding
of Islam in China. The Ancient Record of the Tang Dynasty recorded the
historic meeting, where the envoy greeted Emperor Gaozong of Tang
China and tried to convert him to Islam. Although the envoy failed to
convince the Emperor to embrace Islam, the Emperor allowed the envoy
to prosthelyze in China and ordered the establishment of the first
Chinese mosque in the capital to show his respect for the religion.

Arab people are first noted in Chinese written records, under the name
Da shi in the annals of the Tang dynasty (618-907). Records dating
from 713 speak of the arrival of a Da shi ambassador. It is recorded
that in 758, a large Muslim settlement in Guangzhou erupted in unrest
and fled. The community had constructed a large mosque (Huaisheng Si),
destroyed by fire in 1314, and constructed in 1349-51; only ruins of a
tower remain from the first building.

During the Tang Dynasty, a steady stream of Arab and Persian traders
arrived in China through the silk road and the overseas route through
the port of Quanzhou. Not all of the immigrants were Muslims, but many
of those who stayed formed the basis of the Chinese Muslim population
and the Hui ethnic group. The Persian immigrants introduced polo,
their cuisine, their musical instruments, and their knowledge of
medicine to China.
(more).