The quest for closed factories

What problem is Toyota having?
via WikipediaFor a few weeks it was the China-story in the foreign media: huge numbers of factories in Guangdong's export industry had closed down, shedding thousands of migrant workers, who were forced to return to their provinces. While the pictures all looked very convincing, not all seemed right.
Some figures went against the story of gloom and doom. Domestic consumption was still going strong. There was the argument that export was not as important for China as often believed. And then China's number crunchers reported that export grew in November almost 20 percent.
China's statistics were in the past just political instruments, but they have improved a lot over the past three, four years.
Not surprisingly, some people started to wonder what was actually going on. AllroadsleadtoChina started to ask questions, and now the China Law Blog comes with equally interesting observations.

But, and I know this is going to sound strange, I have been asking my firm's China clients just about every weekday for the last month how they have been impacted by the Global and China downturn and not a one of them has mentioned factory closings. Indeed, I have asked many of them if they have experienced any problems from factory closings of their own or of their suppliers and the only response I have gotten is "no."

Clearly, many are using the global financial crisis for their own purposes. For example, today I read that China's automotive industry was seeking help from China's central government. Pardon me? Did the sales figures for cars in China not go up in November? Obvious Toyota is having a problem, but does that not mean they are just doing a poor job compared to their competitors.
It do think it is time to ask some nasty questions to those companies who trying to misuse the global financial crisis for their own benefit, and the media who just are not asking the questions that are being asked as the blog.

CommercialAmy Sommers
by Fons1 via Flickr
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