A/V Veteran

I don’t know if you’ve noticed (though how could you not) that a lot of the stuff we buy these days is made in China. It ranges from the remarkably cheap (like the lightweight, pleated jacket I bought last year in Walmart (for less than the price of a CD or Blu-ray) to the very expensive (such as Buick’s new Envision SUV—yes, that’s made in the PRC as well, the first U.S. car made there, by GM Shanghai). It’s difficult to buy anything today without encountering a product made in China as the only viable alternative. And even if it’s manufactured in the U.S., many of its individual pieces were likely sourced in China.

The Chinese have long been an industrious people. But while they live under an authoritative, totalitarian wannabe regime (if you don’t think so, Google “China Social Grading System” and “Google in China”) they’ve managed to develop into a trading powerhouse. They’ve done so while retaining ultimate government control of industry (a fundamental tenet of the Communist party that runs the country) under the veneer of a free market economy.

I recently went through a list of exhibitors at this coming January’s 2019 CES. Once you get to “S” you have to weed through pages and pages of “Shenzhen This” or Shenzhen That.” Last year’s CES directory had over 30 pages filled with Shenzhen companies, a total of roughly 350. Most of these firms have tiny booths, but the companies themselves might be bigger than they appear. Shenzhen is a technology hub, a port city dwarfing New York with a population between 12 and 20 million depending on how it’s counted.

But with a population of 1.2 billion, China as a whole has other manufacturing centers as well, many of them busy turning out audio/video products. Not only are there wholly Chinese television companies such as TCL and Hisense, but many of the video products sold under familiar, non-Chinese brand names are either made in China or have their parts (from capacitors, resistors, and inductors to entire circuit boards and LCD panels) made in China.

Some Japanese and Korean video companies have been reluctant to have certain key components made in China for fear that these components, using proprietary engineering developed at great expense, would be copied by the Chinese, or used by the Chinese for products they make under contract to other companies competing with the Japanese or Koreans. Those fears are not unfounded, as China has long had, shall we say, a very flexible understanding of intellectual property rights.

A significant percentage of the products coveted by audio and video fans is now made in China. The video side is obvious, but audio is affected as well. If you’re looking for speakers that are even remotely affordable, (even as high as $5,000/pair, or more) China dominates your choices. Some of the better-known speaker makers in the U.S. and Europe even keep staffs from the home country in China, or visit there often, to be certain that their standards are maintained. Many of these speakers are beautifully made and finished, possibly aided by environmental standards that are, shall we say, a bit looser than at home. I was told (admittedly some years ago and unconfirmed) that some Japanese literature and Japanese audio magazines, which had gorgeous color, were printed in China not only because it was cheaper but because the inks available in China were not allowed in Japan.

Have Chinese industries so dominated the markets, both here and elsewhere, that local industry has suffered? Yes, but this has all happened before—with Japan. Just twenty or so years ago Marty McFly commented to an incredulous Doc Brown that “all the good stuff is made in Japan now.” This wasn’t always the case. My father once told me that After WWII many poorly made products were labeled “Made in USA.” As it happened, a town in Japan had been renamed USA! It took decades, but Japan eventually got everything together and killed off much of the U.S. domestic television and audio industry. After that, Korea seriously impacted the Japanese TV industry. And now the Chinese are challenging both of them.

Proposed and already imposed U.S. tariffs on China have a lot of companies that import from China, or make products using Chinese parts, very jittery. Some have already raised their prices, even though as I write this the full impact of such tariffs has yet to be fully felt (it doesn’t affect products still stocked in warehouses and in stores waiting to be sold). But it’s a complicated subject that has long troubled experts, and I’m certainly in no position to offer a solution. China has been taking advantage of the situation for decades, first as a minor player, now as a juggernaut. And Americans, by and large, simply want prices to stay low. While average U.S. wages have stagnated, those lower wages now go further as we enjoy home theaters, flat-panel TVs, home computers, personal assistants, home automation, and cellphones that cost far less than they otherwise might.