2005年NPR美国国家公共电台十二月-American vs. Chinese Manufacturing: Whic

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Lu Guanqiu owns and runs Wan¹ Xiang. He is known as one of China's richest men, a self-made billionaire, who has come a long way from the days he ran a one-man bicycle repair shop.

"Yes, very long, very long and it is a(n) endless road."

Lu has none of the bravado², typical of American CEOs. I told him I planned to compare his company to an American one.

"The companies in the States, in terms of company's scale, in terms of technology development, I think it definitely will be much stronger than my company."

He says American companies are better at customer relations, Americans are better innovators, but the biggest difference is the productivity³ on the factory floor.

"The quality of the workers in the States' companies are much better than our(s) worker(s). American companies' workers, they usually really respect the job. This kind of spirit, um, is really what we need here."

"On a scale of zero to a hundred, if one hundred is the most advanced American company, and zero is where WanXiang started with, with, er, no experience, no training. Where are you now?"
"I think maybe around sixty. For Chinese people, sixty means you just pass the examination. So, for me, my company just passes the examination now."

At Affinia, Rick Pisaric doesn't take much comfort in that just passing grade.

"That rating⁴ (is) now 60 to 100, I would not be surprised that even three years ago that rating might have been 25 to 100. So, they are making progress very, very quickly."

Not long ago, Chinese auto⁵ parts weren't good enough for the US market, now they are quite common. Even Affinia is importing parts from China for its low end line. Pisaric says no Chinese factory is competitive⁶ on higher end parts, at least not yet.

"They are trying to get better, because they wanna be like us, they wanna be that hundred."

Back in China, Wan Xiang's manager seems genuinely confused that anyone in the US could be scared of Chinese manufacturers, but many are. When Affinia's managers look at China, they see lower quality products, sure, but for much less money.

Rick Pisaric: their quality level is gonna get better and better. And we are gonna have to continue to, er, improve our quality if we are gonna be able to compete, to always stay a little bit ahead of them.

This is why there are such a rapid change in manufacturing these days. US manufacturers have to constantly innovate⁷ to stay ahead, knowing that there are Chinese manufacturers working just as hard to catch up.

Adam Davidson, NPR News.

Tomorrow the growing consumerism in China. This is morning edition from NPR News, I'm Renee Montagne and I'm Steve Inskeep.