• @TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      The secret is heavy subsidy, very little worker protections/safety, very little environmental protection, and slave labour from a demographic they’re currently genociding.

      • @WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.world
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        422 months ago

        Don’t forget the hundreds of billions that global capitalism funneled into China by “outsourcing” absolutely everything they possibly could over the last 30-40 years — devaluing developed world labour markets and environmental regulations, and winding back the clock to an unregulated slave labour market is what made it so attractive.

      • @Lysergid@lemmy.ml
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        212 months ago

        That was my first thought, but is that much different for say Tesla. They get tax breaks and pay as low as they can. Don’t get me wrong I not protecting China’s way, I’m rather against both. But it would be interesting to see numbers from both sides

        • @TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Yes it’s very different. Tesla certainly overworks their employees by basically expecting them to do overtime, and engages in anti-union shadiness, but that pales in comparison to utilising slave labour from a religious minority group they subjugate and have even been known to sterilise, as well as harm family members of those who aren’t behaving as the CCP wants them to.

          Tesla still has to abide by US environmental regulations, which while not as strict as you’d find in Europe, are a hell of a lot stricter than China.

          Tesla still has to follow construction and safety laws that, again while not super strict like in much of Europe, is a hell of a lot stricter than China.

          The US also doesn’t subsidise exported Teslas in a move to exterminate foreign car companies before ramping up prices.

        • @IsThisAnAI@lemmy.world
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          162 months ago

          Did you just seriously try to compare China factories to Tesla? This place really is just an absurd bubble.

          For reference in Mexico they are making 5k a year vs 50k. I’m sure it’s rainbows and kittens over at byd.

      • @SkunkWorkz@lemmy.world
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        12 months ago

        Not just subsidies the CCP decides how much the car makers have to produce. They are overproducing and the Chinese market is saturated, there are graveyards full of unused EVs because nobody wants to buy last year’s lower range versions. And now they dumping that over production onto the rest of the world.

        • @TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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          322 months ago

          I don’t see what this has to do with the fact that China utilises slave labour from a religious minority group they are currently genociding to aid in their construction and manufacturing sector.

          To my knowledge, you go to prison in the US when you commit a crime, as opposed to a labour camp where you are sterilised then made to build Fords under threat of death.

          • @erenkoylu@lemmy.ml
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            142 months ago

            America also uses slave prison labour

            And America has more incarcerated people than China, despite China having way more people.

            • @SupraMario@lemmy.world
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              192 months ago

              No…just no. China’s prison population is not counted correctly, just from their forced reeducation camps, its estimated they have 1-2 million people in them. The usa has around 1.2 million in prison. So no china does not have less prisoners. I don’t know where this bullshit lie showed up but it’s been repeated way to long.

              Does the USA have a problem with incarcerating people for non-violent offenses, hell yes, but that’s a whole different argument.

              • @erenkoylu@lemmy.ml
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                122 months ago

                China is also much larger than US. Even with your fantasy numbers US has more prisoners per capita.

                America is a authoritarian nation. You guys just killed a guy and several bystanders over a 2.9 dollar fare ffs.

                • @SupraMario@lemmy.world
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                  132 months ago

                  Lol @ fantasy numbers…only a tankie would think that.

                  Yea we have problems, but acting like china is better is hilariously wrong.

            • @TheGrandNagus@lemmy.world
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              2 months ago

              Ok, putting aside for a moment China’s totally honest and not at all fudged number of incarcerated people…

              The US allowing prison labour is something I’m disgusted by.

              But it’s still a far cry from abducting people based on their religion, sometimes sterilising them so they can’t have kids, threatening them with their life, threatening their family, and forcing them to work in factories or in construction, then using that slave labour to undercut and kill foreign competition.

              Don’t try to twist this into a “you’re complaining about China therefore you think the US is great”. I’m saying China is far worse. Because they are, and only a complete muppet would think otherwise.

              Maybe you’re ok with what China does (slavery and genocide), but I am not.

              • @erenkoylu@lemmy.ml
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                42 months ago

                Everything you accuse China of, the US is guilty of the same or worse. How many people in the US are in jail for the crime of being black?

                I never said China is great. They are horrible. The US is just worse.

        • @LouNeko@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          There’s no way in Hell a country with a population in the billions has lower incarnation numbers than one with a few hundred million. That is just statistically impossible. It all comes down to what you count as incarnated. This is like the US “solving” its unemployment crisis by not counting people who think about maybe looking for work sometime as not unemployed. These numbers are self reported, so they should be taken with a big grain of salt.

        • @InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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          2 months ago

          Because China executes at a rate 100x the US, that we know of, believed to be 1000x.

          No person, no prisoner. --Stalin

          Also, Tibet and Xinjiang.

    • Lord Wiggle
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      272 months ago

      You mean cheaper and worse, there are little to no regulations and if there are any, inspectors are paid off as China is corrupt AF. and the cheaper part is because the general factory workers are kept extremity poor to uphold the cheap labor, next to the Uyghurs in concentration camps who are forced to work for free. There are no rights or regulations for factory workers, so no protective clothing or gear, no safe work environment, while working with extremity toxic materials as those are cheaper then the safer alternatives. Working 12 to 16 hours per day, as young as 8 years old, 6 to 7 days a week, no sick days, no holidays. There is no quality control. There is media control, so every online post of a spontaneously combusted EV, which are maaaaany, is removed.

      So you confuse quality with quantity. Yeah, it’s cheaper. But at what cost. Not just the lives of the Chinese workers, those toxins are also in the products we use.

      • @exanime@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        Not necessarily. China makes all the fancy stuff Americans are super proud of.

        If safety were a real issue, the gov wouldn’t have attempted to ban them based on tariffs

        Ps: your entire first paragraph could have been about American meat processors and I wouldn’t have noticed

        • the post of tom joad
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          92 months ago

          Lol their entire comment reads like a mishmash fever-dream of state department prop. I can’t even in this thread mannn ill leave these folks to to you.

        • Lord Wiggle
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          42 months ago

          If safety wouldn’t be a real issue those products wouldn’t be banned in the EU. Regulations in the US are often very weird, loose and corrupt as well.

          Nice Americans are proud of stuff. That doesn’t make it safe. Remember, there are Americans proud of Trump, guns, the cybertruck, racism, etc. “Proud” isn’t a safety standard.

          Ps: Nice American meat processors are fucked up as well. The entire country is fucked up. Nice. Let’s be proud of it and everything becomes safe again

          • @exanime@lemmy.world
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            52 months ago

            Ok without devolving to ridicule every message, the point it that just because stuff is made in China, it is not necessarily cheap (as in crappy, low quality or unsafe).

            I’d like to know what is unsafe about these cars and whether or not this is a real consideration. So far, all I seem to get is protectionism and platitudes.

            • Lord Wiggle
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              52 months ago

              This is a nice video which sums it up pretty well, concerning EV’s. Many are coming to the US and EU market too, like BYD is doing now for example. They are growing faster then Tesla, threatening to surpass Tesla sales soon.

              There are many articles about Chinese EV’s spontaneously combusting or exploding. And that’s just the EV’s.

              There are many products containing extremity toxic materials which are imported anmass through Chinese digital market places like alibaba etc, but also as parts for American produced products. Products like cheap 3D printer filament, children toys, car parts, metals, food (with pesticides), etc. It’s hard to check everything, it’s hard to regulate everything, especially when loads of it is produced in a country where there is little to no regulations but instead loads of corruption. It’s imported by hundreds of thousands of shipping containers per day. Sure, some products are fine. But there are many which are toxic and sometimes deadly and we often find out about it way too late. Regulating takes time. China finds loopholes. It’s standard operating procedures.

              • @Krauerking@lemy.lol
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                22 months ago

                Yea I agree with so much of what you are saying, China gets a pass to distribute cheap dangerous crap cause at least it was cheaper for the middle man selling it.
                But also:

                anmass

                Enmasse its another French loan word.

              • @exanime@lemmy.world
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                12 months ago

                But then, how tariffs make all those dangers OK?

                PS: sorry but the video is just some Vlogger rant with no evidence presented.

                • Lord Wiggle
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                  2 months ago

                  Tariffs don’t make them ok, but invisible. For instance, phones are produced in China for 95%. Then they are shipped to Vietnam, finished to 100% and shipped to the US without the China tariffs. Whatever happened in China during the 95% is unregulated and unregistered. Whenever it is shipped from China directly there are regulations for the construction of parts and the materials used. But already finished parts without this info which are imported from somewhere else can miss this info, like the 95% phones shipped to Vietnam have. Vietnam needs to declare whatever they used for the 5% for the regulations and the other 95% is declared as a pre-made product. This is how toxic materials are able to enter the western markets without anyone knowing it and how China tariffs only help covering up the use of toxins by shipping goods through hubs in other countries and the production of products without any safety regulation resulting in exploding batteries for example. And for food products to be unknowingly covered with highly toxic pesticides. Don’t underestimate the corruption in China, it’s like the US x2.

                  Oh and the video is just a yt vid, I know, but he has a lot of Chinese sources as he lived there for several years and he nicely sums up all the articles I’ve read about this all so far. He uncovers a lot of corruption which the Chinese government desperately tries to hide. I’ve seen different sources backing him up.

                  • @exanime@lemmy.world
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                    12 months ago

                    Ok but then we accept anything Chinese made with all the likely human rights abuse, environmental issues, corruption, as long as some American company can act as middle man and take a piece of the pie?

    • @CosmoNova@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      I think you got something mixed up there. The saying does not go:

      If you want it to last, buy made in China!

      It goes:

      Buying cheap is buying twice

      And China really sells the cheapest crap there is. It isn’t even a competition.

    • CaptainBasculin
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      162 months ago

      Until the brand goes poof because China didn’t like something they did and poof; now you have a ghost car. Good luck finding repair parts for your car; and fixing the server connection required features

      • @exanime@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        You are correct, but that has happened with American brands (even cars) before

        At half the price of other EVs, I bet an entire new class of service stores, half mechanic shop, half third party parts, half mods, would spring into existence if these cars are allowed in the market

        Instead, we protect the horrible local brands

        • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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          72 months ago

          American manufacturers need to provide parts for 10 years after the last of the same model car rolled off the assembly line. Good luck forcing Chinese brands to respect that.

          • @exanime@lemmy.world
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            22 months ago

            Why? doesn’t Toyota, Kia, Hyundai, SaaB and all the non-American brands already do this? why would China not be able to do it?

            A ton of the parts for the American cars actually come from China, why would it be harder for China to do what they already do on behalf of the American manufacturers?

              • @exanime@lemmy.world
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                12 months ago

                Again, not sure why you are so certain about that when China is already manufacturing the parts for the companies you trust to have them

            • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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              32 months ago

              Because it’s standard practice in China to just close a company and restart it under a new name. The government can decide to shut down everything overnight.

              Look at parts availability for stuff sold by Chinese brands.

              • @exanime@lemmy.world
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                12 months ago

                I can find parts for Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Mazda, etc all made in China. Why does it work for American and foreign companies making every part they sell in China but it wouldn’t work for a Chinese company

                And, if that is the case, wouldn’t it make more sense to just force them to establish some corporate headquarters in the USA (as they rest of the brands do)?

                • @Kecessa@sh.itjust.works
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                  52 months ago

                  That’s established and stable brands that manufacture things in China which is completely different from Chinese brands building things in China and that can just close their doors tomorrow morning and leave the owners without any source for parts.

                  If an established manufacturer closes their doors tomorrow morning the same issue arises, the difference is that Chinese companies are known to do that and the Chinese government sometimes is responsible for closing them or simply doesn’t care about the effect on customers. They can reopen the following day and produce the same items as before but they won’t send you parts for the thing they were producing the day prior because it’s not the same company anymore.

                  • @exanime@lemmy.world
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                    22 months ago

                    Well, that’s kind of what is happening today with brands started in the USA as well (Henrik Fisker pulled this stunt twice with Karma and the Fisker Automotive)

                    I do get your point, I just have a hard time dismissing any and all Chinese cars when the collective “we” have no issue dealing with China as long as there is some middle man charging a premium. I also have a hard time understanding how tariffs address any of these issues.

                    China is stable enough, or so it seems, to supply most of our electronics, electrical components, plastics, tools, mechanical parts, etc etc etc… There is certainly a way to work with them in a stable way.

        • @ShepherdPie@midwest.social
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          22 months ago

          Our tariffs aren’t there to protect local brands they protect every foreign brand in the US too which make up 2/3 of the market.

      • @erenkoylu@lemmy.ml
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        72 months ago

        never had this experience before.

        But I had exactly this issue many times with Google cancelling stuff I like.