The Façade of China’s Robotic Wisdom
The myopia of Chinese prudence and the necessity of nonrational ideals
I recall that when I was a kid I once saw a cool-looking robot toy in a hobby store, and I begged my father to buy it for me. The small, plastic robot was gray and blue and was encased in a box that had a plastic window in front so you could see the enticing toy. My dad obliged and I’ve never forgotten that as soon as I opened the box the toy fell apart. The box was the only thing holding the limbs to the torso. The toy practically disintegrated before I had the chance to play with it even a single time.
The little robot was made in China, as are around 30 percent of the world’s manufactured goods.
China is infamous for producing cheap, shoddy, knock-off merchandise. Indeed, an official Chinese report said that 40 percent of items sold online in China by companies like Alibaba are shoddy or counterfeit.
The stereotype is that Chinese workers cut corners because they’re relatively new to capitalism or because their culture encourages them to be unscrupulous. Neither seems entirely accurate since capitalism is hardly the only system in which goods are produced, and a large population of purely selfish, double-crossing individuals would make for a failed state. On the contrary, China is…
