Here's an interesting way to entertain yourself for about five minutes. If you don't have Google Chrome you'll need to download it for this (IMO blows firefox out of the water anyway). When I go to ebay.com without going through a VPN it redirects to ebay.cn. Google Chrome has a nifty feature wherein it automatically translates web pages that are in foreign languages. The result... it's completely different. Ebay.cn is full of advice on how to set up a seller's account and how to engage in international trade. If you search for something like "Mercedes" (别克) the only results that come up pertain to selling. There are 0 listings on ebay.cn for anything from or for Mercedes. None. Or for Audi, which is an IMMENSELY popular car here.
What does the west have to offer China in terms of trade? Clearly the service sector, they need Microsoft Windows and KFC. In terms of manufactured goods though little things like a wooden shift knob for a Mercedes that might have been produced in Germany but not China could help in terms of trade balances. So why don't we see something like that? There are a lot of Mercedes cars in China. Am I really to believe that there is not one entrepreneurial German car guy who is savvy enough to sell second hand Mercedes parts to Chinese the way they do to Americans? American Mercedes fanatics eat that stuff up. Euro version tail lights and that sort of thing fetch big bucks.
So as an Westerner you log onto ebay and half of the stuff is shipped directly from China. You order it, shipping is something like a couple dollars and it shows up within a few days. Yet in China ebay only barely function as a place for Chinese to purchase things they might not be able to find at home (after enough hunting around you do eventually find yourself in the us ebay version). Chinese ebay is just a symptom but a startling one.
What does the west have to offer China in terms of trade? Clearly the service sector, they need Microsoft Windows and KFC. In terms of manufactured goods though little things like a wooden shift knob for a Mercedes that might have been produced in Germany but not China could help in terms of trade balances. So why don't we see something like that? There are a lot of Mercedes cars in China. Am I really to believe that there is not one entrepreneurial German car guy who is savvy enough to sell second hand Mercedes parts to Chinese the way they do to Americans? American Mercedes fanatics eat that stuff up. Euro version tail lights and that sort of thing fetch big bucks.
So as an Westerner you log onto ebay and half of the stuff is shipped directly from China. You order it, shipping is something like a couple dollars and it shows up within a few days. Yet in China ebay only barely function as a place for Chinese to purchase things they might not be able to find at home (after enough hunting around you do eventually find yourself in the us ebay version). Chinese ebay is just a symptom but a startling one.
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