I think China is going through its own Industrial Revolution and flooding the worlds markets with inferior products will in time improve as the companies will realise that repeat business is the strength of any successful company.
There are quality companies in China that produce first class products in up to date factories with good Quality Control
It is not that long since we were talking about Japanese crap
As to the working conditions this also will improve as the “workers of China” begin to feel the power that they hold as a workforce and their aspirations grow with a new consumer lifestyle
If we are talking about “making things” the biggest outlay is usually Labour rates that in turn are governed by the size of your labour pool. China at present wins hands down with India coming a close second
“With just over 1.3 billion people (1,330,044,605 as of mid-2008), China is the world's most populous country. As the world's population is approximately 6.7 billion, China represents a full 20% of the world's population so one in every five people on the planet is a resident of China.
By the late 2010s, China's population is expected to reach 1.4 billion. Around 2030, China's population is anticipated to peak and then slowly start dropping.
In the next few decades, India the world's second most populous country is expected to surpass China in population. By 2040, India's population is expected to be 1.52 billion; that same year, China's will be 1.45 billion and India will become the world's most populous country.
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“Industrial Revolution
Richard Arkwright is the person credited with being the brains behind the growth of factories. After he patented his spinning frame in 1769, he created the first true factory at Cromford, near Derby.
This act was to change Great Britain. Before very long, this factory employed over 300 people. Nothing had ever been seen like this before. The domestic system only needed two to three people working in their own home. By 1789, the Cromford mill employed 800 people. With the exception of a few engineers in the factory, the bulk of the work force was essentially unskilled. They had their own job to do over a set number of hours. Whereas those in the domestic system could work their own hours and enjoyed a degree of flexibility, those in the factories were governed by a clock and factory rules.
Edmund Cartwright's power loom ended the life style of skilled weavers. In the 1790's, weavers were well paid. Within 30 years many had become labourers in factories as their skill had now been taken over by machines. In 1813, there were only 2,400 power looms in Britain. by 1850, there were 250,000.
Factories were run for profit. Any form of machine safety guard cost money. As a result there were no safety guards. Safety clothing was non-existant. Workers wore their normal day-to-day clothes. In this era, clothes were frequently loose and an obvious danger.
Children were employed for four simple reasons :
there were plenty of them in orphanages and they could be replaced easily if accidents did occurthey were much cheaper than adults as a factory owner did not have to pay them as muchthey were small enough to crawl under machinery to tie up broken threads they were young enough to be bullied by 'strappers' - adults would not have stood for this
Some factory owners were better than others when it came to looking after their work force. Arkwright was one of these. He had some harsh factory rules (such as workers being fined for whistling at work or looking out of the window) but he also built homes for his work force, churches and expected his child workers to receive a basic amount of education. Other owners were not so charitable as they believed that the workers at their factories should be grateful for having a job and the comforts built by the likes of Arkwright did not extend elsewhere.
At the time when the Industrial Revolution was at its height, very few laws had been passed by Parliament to protect the workers. As many factory owners were Members of Parliament or knew MP's, this was likely to be the case. Factory inspectors were easily bribed as they were so poorly paid. Also there were so few of them, that covering all of Britain's factories would have been impossible.”
