Putting Countries in Perspective

When dealing with Chinese manufacturers or competing with them it is not really possible to separate the creation of an in-country product with the likelihood that "it" wont be illegally copied and undercut (usually in terms of quality and also in terms of price - and no margin appears too small). While this used to be the domain of expensive items (everything from computer software to a set of encyclopedias, high-end electronics to car parts, jewelry to recorded music, etc.) Chinese manufacturers now are willing to pirate virtually anything, including products costing as little as $0.09 to make. I can't find the link to the 9-cent article, but a recent survey by Business Week ("Chinese Counterfeiters Thrive in Africa") features a $0.20 toothbrush and $0.35 shoe polish. Enforcement of illegal products isn't all that much better in some C.A. countries than it is in some African countries (in fact, after similar problems in Honduras, Kiwi funded polishing kiosks, park features, and rewards information on fake polish). If a product made in C.A. was truly successful, and the maker not tied to a government family, it might well be the target fake-product makers, which might be an added incentive for not trying/investing. In a world of fakes and little protection, when the average buyer has relatively little money, the incentive is to make a cheap crappy product, and the Chinese surely own that market.

http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/08_33/b4096062676521.htm

While we [U.S.] might not make products found in Chinese department stores (if anyone thinks the Chinese-made crap found in U.S. department stores is pretty bad, wait until one closely examines the Chinese-made crap found in Chinese department stores), in 2007 China became the 3rd largest U.S. export market - a market that might rank higher shortly after any alteration in the high-tech export regulations the U.S. maintains toward China.

Though just a generalization, I am not sure it is completely accurate to say all Chinese want to leave China for the U.S. In fact, often, it seems Chinese want to leave China for any capitalist country, period. Here in Honduras there is a never ending influx of Chinese people, just as there is at least one visa-passport scandal involving Honduran government employees and the Chinese community. When you ask a Chinese person if they like it in Honduras [or Peru, Bolivia, Panama - basically anywhere I have ever been], the answer isn't necessarily a resounding "yes", but more like, "...at least it isn't China...". While all of these people might have preferred the U.S., they were quick to settle for any place not China. None of the Chinese people I have ever met were under any delusion as to what life would be like in a Central American country, nor what it would be like in the U.S. For the most part, people make the trip after family members have already done so, and the close family contacts insure fairly accurate information. While some emigration to the U.S. might be based on a television model, I don't see that per the Chinese - at least not those who have actually left China.

Per production, no country like Nicaragua (or Honduras, El Salvador, etc.) will cease to be an almost total China-consumer until it is possible to make the things they current import from China. Pick almost any product someone with a job might aspire to own and might be able to save to buy: coffee maker, bicycle, blender, portable radio, television, motor scooter, whatever. How hard is it for someone start a Nicaraguan company and start making these things in Nicaragua? Answer is, really hard (would the parts or components all be imported?), but the second question is the one that matters more: How could someone make the thing and undercut the price of the current Chinese imports? Answer, in most cases, is that it simply would not be possible, and no one is eager to invest in something that is not likely possible.