Reliance on China

[ravenrover]

I wonder if any European country will have the balls to implement a ban on items manufactured in China when all this is over?
We seem to be too reliant on China for many things are there not items we can bring in house ie Woollen/Cotton Clothing and source other items electronics for example from other countries.
Cheap labour comes it to it but surely other countries can offer the same levels of pricing and production?
For me it is time to make the world less reliant on "made in China"
Just a thought

[BillyStubbsTears]

Any country that comes out of this without learning the lesson that they need either:

1) To be more self-reliant as a country
or
2) To have far more robust international partnerships

frankly, deserves whatever catastrophe the next major crisis visits upon them.

What you cannot do is to rely on others for critical provisions, and simultaneously eschew strong, binding international collaborations. Sooner or later, there's a crisis coming which will make this one look like a fun few weeks. Maybe it's MERS or Ebola getting out of hand. Maybe it's a mass communications breakdown (the cascading failure from space debris bringing down the satellite network is a horror in the making). Maybe it's hostile mass cyber attacks rendering communications unusable. Maybe it's climate change leading to huge flooding issues for the billions of people who live on coastal planes and the huge amount of productive capability that is based there.

We need to be thinking strategically how we prepare ourselves for resilience in those circumstances.

[Filo]

I agree, time to make the UK a great manufacturing nation again

[drfchound]

I wonder if any European country will have the balls to implement a ban on items manufactured in China when all this is over?
We seem to be too reliant on China for many things are there not items we can bring in house ie Woollen/Cotton Clothing and source other items electronics for example from other countries.
Cheap labour comes it to it but surely other countries can offer the same levels of pricing and production?
For me it is time to make the world less reliant on "made in China"
Just a thought

Add to that list, brassware items for the plumbing industry.
Even British firms like Peglers bring stuff in from there now.
For a long time now China has been the major supplier......it is all down to price and if Companies didn’t import their stuff then they missed out on sales.

[Filo]

Industry in this Country is being lost, take the two industries I worked in before I drove taxis, ship building, British Shipbuilding used to be the envy of the world, now we barely have a shipbuilding industry, and then glass production, the Company I worked for Pilkington Glass, developed the float glass process, Pilkington now owned by NSG (Nippon Sheet Glass), a great British Company owned overseas, it’s a disgrace

[drfchound]

What about Blitish Steel?
(Spelling error intentional by the way).

[Filo]

What about Blitish Steel?
(Spelling error intentional by the way).

Well I never worked for them 🤪

But your point stands, as it does with many other long lost firms, we as a Country should be self sufficient

[drfchound]

Interesting..... I just googled “how long has British manufacturing been in decline” and it came up with that British manufacturing jobs have increased by 5% between 2011 and 2016.
That is in contrast to a 33% loss of manufacturing jobs in the years 2001 to 2011.

[big fat yorkshire pudding]

Interesting..... I just googled “how long has British manufacturing been in decline” and it came up with that British manufacturing jobs have increased by 5% between 2011 and 2016.
That is in contrast to a 33% loss of manufacturing jobs in the years 2001 to 2011.

Still a loss.

Frankly until we are capable to do it at the prices it can be done overseas it will stay as is.  Do we really want to increase the NHS cost base to ensure it's made in the UK?

What we really need is a strong mix, good overseas cheap products but the ability to manufacture here aswell.

[Nudga]

I wonder if any European country will have the balls to implement a ban on items manufactured in China when all this is over?
We seem to be too reliant on China for many things are there not items we can bring in house ie Woollen/Cotton Clothing and source other items electronics for example from other countries.
Cheap labour comes it to it but surely other countries can offer the same levels of pricing and production?
For me it is time to make the world less reliant on "made in China"
Just a thought

Add to that list, brassware items for the plumbing industry.
Even British firms like Peglers bring stuff in from there now.
For a long time now China has been the major supplier......it is all down to price and if Companies didn’t import their stuff then they missed out on sales.

Yep, the amount of fittings I throw away on bathroom jobs because they either leak or thread is unreal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Interesting..... I just googled “how long has British manufacturing been in decline” and it came up with that British manufacturing jobs have increased by 5% between 2011 and 2016.
That is in contrast to a 33% loss of manufacturing jobs in the years 2001 to 2011.

That's all true according to the ONS data. Big failing of the Blair Government.