Go to contents

'Made in China' products expected to emerge as premium brands

'Made in China' products expected to emerge as premium brands

Posted December. 31, 2016 07:13,   

Updated December. 31, 2016 07:30

한국어
As China rose to one of the “Group of Two (G2)” after continuous developments, many Westerners began to churn out negative articles and reports such as the “Chinese threat.” The recent assault of “China money” led many in discomfort, describing as “a mutant destroying the transfer ecosystem” as Chinese teams are snatching world’s best soccer players by paying huge amount of transfer fee.

However, there are several experts on China who define these Western perspectives as exaggerated and terrified, arguing for a more subjective view on the recent rise and trend in China. Among the co-authors who studied China for decades, a surprising number of “Norwegians” are frequently spotted. Still, readers will put more faith into these authors once they understand more about Norway, which are easily swayed by global economy trends as the world’s fifth largest crude oil exporter, and also a nation which do not show any political interest with both the U.S. and China.

The Norwegian co-authors contradict with the Westernized stigma on China with factual data. For instance, the authors refuted with R&D costs of world’s major nations on criticisms from one western scholar who argue that China “sucks up all the technology like a vampire.” The data was aimed to emphasize that China is also investing heavily just like the U.S. in terms of innovation and academic research. The authors forecast that the current brand image of “Made in China” will soon change, just as “Made in Japan” brands transformed into a poor-quality to premium brands.

Nevertheless, the co-authors never hesitate to criticize China. They are cold-headed and shake their heads when it comes to the argument that China will surpass the U.S. and become the world’s superpower. Their negative stance is backed by the fact that China still lacks soft power which encourages other nations to “voluntarily create their own needs.” Forty-nine analysis on their views on China share ups and downs of the new dominating nation in this book.



Bae-Jung Kim wanted@donga.com