News Xina 10
When Joaquim asked me to write an editorial about China, I thought, “But I’m from Figueres!” Indeed, despite my looks, I’m about as Chinese as you, apart from my ancestral genes. The fact is, I feel Catalan and my only experience with China is through work and what I have seen from my parents, who came to Spain to finish their studies over 40 years ago and are now completely integrated into Catalan society.
You have very probably read a lot about China: how in the future (increasingly the present) it will be a world leader; how it is the world’s factory; how it is the world market, or how it will buy up everything. However, I’d like to give a more personal take on why I think China will be the world leader and what lessons we can learn from them that we can apply to our businesses and in our environment.
Why will China be the world leader? A few years ago, it was possible to say that its competitive edge came from manufacturing at lower costs, which is a clear difference. You only have to go to a ‘1 euro shop’ to see what they make, how they make it and the price they sell it at. It is all too tempting to conclude that the Chinese are manufacturers of tatty, low cost products, and that the West distinguishes itself by its quality or brands. This may have been the case some years ago, but I believe that this opinion is losing validity, not only because production prices in China will rise, but for two other key factors.
The first is that China is now the country that owns the most patents. Although we use their inventions every day (ink, powder, paste, etc.), I don’t think that the Chinese are more creative or inventive than anyone else. They probably have more patents for the same reason as they win so many individual medals: metrics and numbers. For every brilliant researcher we have, they potentially have a thousand or a hundred, or at any rate always more than other countries.
The second key factor, which is more ‘reproducible’ and applicable, is the ‘hunger’ factor. You don’t need to go to China or to study economics to see this in action. You only have to go to a ‘1 euro shop’ to see their drive and passion at work. The result of this entrepreneurial spirit, in addition to an extremely hardworking spirit (as the Spanish saying goes, “to work harder than a Chinaman”), is a society that truly wants to move forward. China is a country that quite literally went hungry during the Cultural Revolution, and when the Chinese saw the prospect of thriving, they seized it immediately with both hands. This spirit was also evident in English Version Versión en Castellano 9 9 Spain in the past. It dwindled with the introduction of the welfare state but it will more than likely resurface with the current economic crisis.
As a country I don’t know how we can compete, but as individuals we clearly have all the options in the world.
Let us not believe that the Chinese are smarter or more inventive than us merely by virtue of their nationality. The simple (or not so simple) fact is that they are hungrier. This is something we can learn from and put into practice. Last but not least, just as they came here to prosper, there is nothing stopping us from going there. In the future, the country concept will diminish and the individual will become more significant, and we will all be from the country where we pay our taxes. Take my case: I’m from Figueres, and proud of it.
Dídac Lee
Enterpreneur
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