Two weeks ago I watched the new documentary American Factory (美国工厂) on a long plane ride. I had read a few reviews but wasn’t sure if I would like it, but it turned out to be excellent. The film, distributed by Barack & Michelle Obama’s production company, tells the story of Chinese automotive glass company Fuyao buying a closed down GM factory in Dayton, Ohio and re-employing 2000 local workers – at half their former salaries… The local American workers are taught glassmaking skills by Chinese that are relocated to Ohio for 2 years.
As is to be expected in such a setting, the culture clashes start immediately. It becomes clear quickly that the Americans are very happy to have jobs again but that they only work for money. There is no pride in their work, in the company or in the products they make. The Chinese on the other hand will sacrifice everything for the business and can’t understand that the Americans are so lazy. The 2 groups try to integrate, but although a few superficial friendships develop that’s about it. For the Chinese the only thing that counts is good quality products and a higher output, even if that means working day and night to get it done.
Once the Chinese billionaire who founded and runs Fuyao comes to visit it is clear that he has a very different management style than the Americans are used to. He micromanages and he wants to decide everything, which is typical of self-made Chinese business men. But it’s something that’s difficult to understand and accept for the American workforce. Very recognizable to me after 13 years of working in China and now over 6 in North America.
Things get really interesting when workers want to unionize, something the Chinese can’t relate to and of course won’t tolerate. Lots of food for thought about the excesses of capitalism, the state of the economy in (rural) US, but also more generally about the meaning of life in different cultures. Work to live or live to work?
Highly recommended, also if you have never lived and worked in China. It shows an important reason why the US is on the decline and what you can expect when China will start to take over the world.
Thank you for sharing Marc, I’ll definitely watch it as I’ve also lived in China for a short while and am very interested in following the developments. That said, perhaps you might enjoy watching some of the below youtube interviews. Surely, you’re aware of this side of China, particularly the CCP. Where do you think the naiveté (especially in Europe and up until very recently also in NA) towards the CCP, it’s positioning, PR, long term plans and communication comes from? This is very relatable to your story in this blogpost. I have my considerations on this.
Have a blessed day!
Tom
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4cwXifDaCjE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uCrpSK5r9HY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qH5QzuzD01A
Three videos with Kyle Bass (Texas Trump buddy who tries to make money by shorting the Chinese yuan), Steve Bannon (no need to explain what a crazy guy he is), and Guo Wenhui (who may actually be an undercover Chinese spy)? Sorry I can’t take those guys serious, so I did not watch any of the videos for more than 2 minutes. There are a lot of things you can say about China (both good and bad), but in my humble opinion China is being managed a lot better than Trump and his GOP enablers do.
I find it interesting to listen to what a hedge fund guy has to say about the current state of the world affairs and how he’s positioning himself to profit from it. Although I don’t agree with some of Kale Bass’s extremely negative views about China, he does raise some great points about Hong Kong in one of his interviews. I just realised what serious economic mess HK is in at the moment with the highest level of property prices in the world and also extreme high level of person debt amidst all the chaos and protests going on and massive amount of money will be leaving the economy.. it makes one wonder how the people in Hong Kong could be so dumb to try to completely destroy their own city for the benefit of the US interests. Kale Bass does have some valid points on the vulnerability and risks of China’s economy, but he’s totally underestimating the risks of the US economy and has way too much faith in the dollar considering the amount of debt obligations, unfunded pension obligations and unfunded health care obligations the US has and the country is being completely mismanaged at the moment and there’s no coherent strategy to deal with any of the real issues and crisises it seems. I believe both China and US’s economies will collapse at some point given the severity of the current global credit bubble. But China will have prepared for it and even with massive unemployment in the case of an economic collapse the country is still manageable. But this will not be the case with the US with all the gun problems, drug problems and homeless problems. In the US, a large portion of the nation’s wealth is directly tied to their stock market. Over the last two major recessions of the past century, the US stock market has gone down as much as 80% over a period of a few years, in such a case a huge portion of the country’s wealth will be wiped off, the country will more likely to collapse and disintegrate. I’m sure a lot of bankers and hedge funds are already preparing themselves to profit hugely from this historic opportunity especially if they are able to influence the price of the principal asset they stand to profit hugely with their derivatives instruments. Speaking of China, I think many western analysts seem to underestimate the real size of China’s economy. Kale Bass seriously thinks China has only a 12 trillion dollar economy while the US has a 20 trillion one.. It simply makes no sense for anyone with some business sense and have lived in both countries for some time. China’s GDP numbers are real and possibly understated. If you live in China you can literally see and feel the productivity growth here. It feels more likely the economy has doubled over the past six or seven years (admittedly fueled by debt to a large part too). The wages increases in China is very real even in third and fourth tier cities and this is partly tied to productivity growth. I think the Chinese government may have been under-reporting its GDP growth rates over the past several years because they know a lot of it has been created with credit. In the US though its just the opposite, it seems their GDP growth number has been cooked upwards year after year… The current US GDP per head is about 40% higher than that of Germany, the most productive major economy in Europe. How’s that possible? I would imagine the two countries are quite close in GDP per head. I wonder why so few people have questioned that. Its probably has to do with how the US GDP is be calculated. I heard they even include rent increase and technological improvement in their GDP number calculations which are most likely excluded in many other countries.
Good points Lei. I also believe China’s GDP is at least similar to the US. For sure China is a much more modern country than the US, but guys like Kyle Bass who never spent significant time there have no clue about that. Time will tell…
thanks for the tip, we enjoyed watching this documentary and recognize a lot of the culture clash from a similar situation. it’s good the documentary explains both sides of the story