Quote:
Originally Posted by 25 V8 IS
Here's a question for everyone posting in here: Have any of you ever even BEEN to China?
Show of hands please. I went in 2023 and what I witnessed was a society that is far more advanced, cleaner, safer, etc. than it is here in the US.
Am I moving to China? No, I am not. I love the US. But let's stop acting like China is this horrible enemy trying to destroy the US from within.
Actually, when WAS the last time China started a war? I'll wait.
|
You have no idea, story #1
Two of my close friends created/built a business teaching English to Chinese in China. They worked out of Hong Kong and went all over China setting up schools. They had to work with Chinese businessmen and local governments. They built or modified existing buildings to create the school, then hired teachers and trained everyone. They built quite a few and made a lot of money.
When there were problems, there were no legal solutions as they have no court system. One day after talking to a contractor not doing the work he was paid for, my friend got up, through his chair across the room and walked out. The next day he went back to the worksite and that contractor was doing the work. My friend made note of the situation, he is a big man but violence is not how he wanted to run his business. He talked to a local government official about what he should do next time a contractor was failing to honor his contract, and was told to call the official.
Of course this happened a number of times and the solution of calling the government contact worked as a good solution each time. Till the day he found out why. The government would send someone to threaten the contractors whole family. When they found that out, my friends shut down the business and left.
You have no idea, story #2
I worked for Borden/Hexion Chemicals for 40 years. We primarily make resins/glue for the forest industry. These are formaldehyde(HCHO) based so we also make HCHO. A number of years back when looking for places to expand our business, most or all of the new growth was in China. We decided to find a Chinese partner and build a manufacturing plant of our own in China. A 50/50 partnership using our engineering, our processes, our money and Chinese labor and materials supplied by the partner.
Because of story #1. I knew this was a bad idea, but I was not nearly high enough up the corporate ladder to be listened to. Those of us who knew better were told to shut up and make it work.
There were plenty of early signs of trouble if you cared to look. Materials were often sub standard(eg. High pressure steam valves being reused from retired ships), building practices had no regard for safety. Finally the plant was ready to be commissioned, a close coworker of mine who was one of our engineers on the project had told a couple of the Chinese friends he had made to not open one particular 8” steam valve because it was so old it probably would not stay together. ( he had tried to get it replaced but was overruled by the Chinese partner) That valve blew apart on start up, no one was killed but the valve stem/handle hit the roof of the building 5 stories high. The plant did get up and running and shortly after that our Chinese partner broke the contract, kicked us out of the building, kept everything including our tech, engineering, processes and money. The Chinese government sided with the partner and Hexion got nothing.
Regarding the war question, what do you think happened with Hong Kong?