The Times Magazine always opens my eyes to the global perspective. In this months Times, two discussions captured my heart. 1) The China crisis 2) The Deep Web The China crisis reminded me of the words of the Bible Abraham. Once, after conquering the kings that had earlier held Lot captive, he then spoke to the kings of Sodom and Gomorrah regarding the spoils. He made utterances that I would love to utter when in a similar situation. When the king of Sodom asked him to keep the spoils from Sodom and Gomorrah, he refused and asked only for payment for the men of war with him. He said: I DO NOT WANT YOU TO SAY YOU MADE ABRAHAM RICH! Profound words. I do not want you to turn and claim that you made me popular, strong, wealthy. I want to let God only to be my Provider. This is important and the China situation has put flesh into Abrahams bones. What China is going through is as a result of short sighted-ness. When the world asked China to be involved in their business, they offered her the materials, the recipes, the machinery and all but they didnt offer her the brains to innovate. The caption of the story reads : China MAKES everything. Why cant it CREATE anything? That is the China problem. The very reason the world turned their heads to the red dragon is the very one that is causing them to turn their backs to the land of curry. Labour costs. China has caught up with the world and has actually overtaken the rest. There remains markets with better labour prices where the West can take their raw materials, machinery and recipes. But will they learn from the China dilemma? Will India, Africa and the remainder of the so-called-3rd World learn? And, oh, they are going back to the US in what they call reshoring as opposed to to off-shoring. A couple of problems have led to the China syndrome. 1) Labour is no longer cheap 2) Chinese companies lag behind in technology 3) Innovation does not come easy 4) There are too few global brands 5) Good managers are hard to find. After 30 years of the China boom, why are these still a problem? Could there be another underlying reason behind these well articulated but probably insufficient explanations? If Africa and the rest, who are the next best targets for the economically, innovative, technologically savvy, branded and with greatly skilled powers hit our shores, what strategies shall be taken to ensure that the Chinese plague doesnt plague us as well? The problem with China is not the 5 listed above. The problem was failure to think like, and better than the West. Forget skills transfer, America must stay above board and any skills transfer therefore will be window dressing. Here they had the best of the whole world on their laps. Here they had the finest, from textiles to technology but yet, when America and her friends lift off, they are left holding on a hope they could never turn into substance. They held all in their hands, made much wealth in no time, so much that America became unsettled yet still, there is no evidence that they can stand when America packs her bags to another of her hosts in the poorer worlds. Makes me wonder if our South African thinkers have ever thought of manufacturing a South African car brand in case the likes of VW and Mercedes Benz pull the same trick? I wonder what shall be done by those whose arms are wide open to job creation from the benevolent ones? I wonder if, like Abraham we will say: We dont want you to say you made Africa wealthy. Because if they can make Africa wealthy (an oxymoron to begin with), they can make Africa poor again. So what would Abraham do? He would help rescue the American dream but he would not be sucked into the evaporative American benevolence. Abraham would have looked beyond their outwardly gracious offer and refused a hand shake, but trust not the hand of man which can be extended to save today and extended to enslave the next. He would have trusted God as His Provider and like Jacob, he would have used the available knowledge to innovate what only Jacob, with no help from Laban, has been gifted to produce. The Deep Web is a topic I still shudder to engage my heart in. All I can say is let us pray for our children. Their world stage is dark, cold and hostile - everything Africa is not (A-Frika means the absence of cold and hostility :-)
Posted on: Sat, 09 Nov 2013 09:17:03 +0000
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