How are American businessmen fighting "Made in China"?

China Coatings network
: The Financial Times website published an article entitled "Competition with "Made in China". Most business people have experienced stories about how China has changed their industry, upended supply chains and grabbed huge market share over the past 30 years, the article said. But few have a "Chinese story" like John Bassett III.
is the third-generation head of a Virginia furniture manufacturer. One day in November 2002, Basit met a businessman in China and found out that he wanted to squeeze him out of the industry.
that the businessman had obvious ambitions, and he was forth right: his company would soon become the world's largest furniture maker, and resistance was futile. Basit should close his plant in the U.S. and outsource production to a Chinese plant. Only then will Basit's company survive.
"He's not aggressive, but talking to him is like talking to a judge," Bassett told Beth Macy. "Factory Man, wrote by Maisie, tells the story of Basit's difficult experience of saving his business and confronting China head-on.
article, Basit took the opposite approach. In just one year, he mobilized many manufacturers in the U.S. furniture industry and hired a top lawyer to file a trade lawsuit against Chinese manufacturers for dumping bedroom furniture below cost in the U.S. market. Much of the reason why Basit's furniture business survived today is because Basit won the battle.
, books on China's rise and the truly international supply chain that have led to factory closures and job losses have been filled with people's eyes. For anyone who wants to think about the dynamics of today's globalization and its political significance, "Factory Man" is worth reading, the article says. Whether you agree with the assumptions in the book or the economic principles it expounds, it is an important book.
critics point out that Basit's story smells like Don Quixote. "Factory Man" tells the story of a man who fights to save a sunset industry and the southern American town that depends on it for its survival.
book is also about a larger theme: America's competitiveness and concerns about job losses in manufacturing. The subject has been at the heart of the trade debate since Bill Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993.
the figures are staggering, according to the report. When China joined the World Trade Organization in 2001, cheap Chinese-made furniture began to flood the U.S. market, and just two years after many U.S. furniture factories closed, nearly a million jobs were lost. Many of the closed furniture factories are located in "companytowns" in rural Virginia and North Carolina, which became the center of the North American furniture industry in the last century.
In fact, Macy's acknowledges that China's impact on these southern US towns, like those they did decades ago in Grand Rapids, Michigan, has been a low-wage, shameless copy of popular furniture and cheap piracy to grab market share.
that the U.S. furniture industry itself has its own problems, there is an anachronistic arrogance. Its business culture is full of alcohol, and Marcy describes the industry's heyday: "They're like 'advertisers' living in the mountains, except they're not drinking martinis, they're illegally made spirits." But
book is a good account of how some successful American companies have learned to adapt to the times, compete with China, and begin to "return" production to their home countries. Basit insisted on buying new machinery and equipment for his plant and decided to beat Chinese competitors with product quality and service, rather than just price. The revelation is that the way to deal with China is not just to hire lawyers, but also to innovate.
is also clear that the fight against globalization is futile. After punitive anti-dumping duties imposed by U.S. authorities, the production of bedroom furniture did not return to Virginia as Brassett had wished, but instead moved to Vietnam. And the cost of the fight is high: one economist estimates that the end result of the battle is $800,000 for every job saved.
, but Basit is still a very interesting person, and his point of view is very convincing.
near the end of his book, he won the anti-dumping battle and retired at the age of nearly 75. He offered a straight-faced account of why it was important to keep American manufacturing.
"Everyone thinks all great ideas come from MIT, but let me tell you, a lot of innovation comes from the factory floor," he told Macy. We want to invest in the United States, not in derivatives. That
has been a big appetite for Americans for some time now, he said in an article.