China Needs To Take Path From 'Made in China' to 'Created by China'

As opposed to the United States, which has continued to plague by the federal debt crisis and led to shaken the confidence of global investors, the international influence of China, a country which has been upgraded as the second world largest economic body, has undoubtedly continued to improve it world status with the passing of time.
China's People's Liberation Army has just completed the construction of its first converted aircraft carrier. Its aircraft carrier will soon be pushed out to the sea for trial run. Meanwhile, China has also succeeded to launch its No 9 Beidou satellite to the designated space orbit, leading to the increasing maturity in China's construction of its sophisticated space navigation systems.
High Degree of Simulation
However, another kind of news about China has also sent out a different kind of marvel about current development in China to the outside world. After the people in the United States discovered a very high degree of simulation of the ‘local cottage industry’ of fake US Apple brand retail stores in Kunming, China, the international media also reported the emergence of a Chinese business model emulating the Swedish brand IKEA furniture stores appearing in China. The international report said China's counterfeiters are becoming more and more sophisticated in their way to produce counterfeit products or business models. They are no longer satisfied with the production of counterfeit brand-name products. They even want to go further to replicate the success retailer's brand image of the West, their related consumer experience and their customer service. They want to totally ‘counterfeit’ the entire western brand's experience by counterfeiting western products and services.
In retrospect, we can say that having gone through a number of bad domestic political struggles, when China began its early reformation and opening up, the country was in total poverty. The reasons why China could reap fantastic economic growth within a short period of 30 years after its reform and opening up are of course multiple and complex. Besides the factor that during that reformation period, the international situation then has indeed provided an overall conducive peaceful and stable environment suitable for China to enter its ‘strategic opportunity era’, it is also true that during that period, the people in China also hoped to have good governance of ruling government. They wanted to get rich fast. In China, many lands and resources have been laid idle for a long time with low level of utilization. The Chinese Government has also been a strong leading government making great effort to consolidate the rule of the nation. All these factors have added up together and resulted in the seemingly infinite energy of China suddenly burst out like a spring accumulated with intense pressure.
Leading Role in World
Within a short period of time, China is able to turn its poverty-stricken country to that of a country with economic status taking second leading role in the world. From quantitative perspective, China's economic performance is apparently a huge success; and the speed of its development process is also unprecedented. Cheap land, cheap labor and good resources in China have produced a strong magnet effect to global capital and technology.
China's status as a ‘world factory’ was also quickly established. For close to 20 years, the reason behind of why the world economy was able to maintain sustainable low inflation rate can be attributed to the ‘Made in China’ products. But this also happened to be the root cause of the problem in China now. From the Chinese government to the private sector, the impulse for both the sectors to seek wealth quickly and desperately have led the ‘Made in China’ product image from the original ‘cheap and good’ one to emerge a parallel trend for China to produce ‘fake and low quality’ branded products of other companies.
Economic Growth Rate
Even more critical is that while China's economic growth rate is moving along a double digit growth path, but there is no corresponding quality improvement in China's economic growth. To use Chinese official's statement, the economic growth of China belongs to the ‘extensive and rough kind’; the rapid economic growth has also brought with it higher costs in many areas --environmental pollution, loss of natural resources, human casualties, and the social unrest caused by drastic disparity of wealth and poverty among the people....’ Another fatal price which China has to pay for its blind pursuit of economic growth is that the Chinese society is now lack of refreshing and innovation in its societal value. The Chinese society is filled with a kind of get-rich-fast collective psychology. This has led the people in China trying to cut corners, take shorter path for economic growth without respecting the culture of observing intellectual property rights, among others.
In the end, there are not many takers for people in China to take up works that require them to work longer time to do research, to have more patience, dedication and more exploration to cumulate experience in order to invent and to create.
Maintaining Country’s Reputation
This collective psychology of the Chinese society can be viewed through a glimpse of what has happened in the recent Wenzhou City rear-end train accident. The Wenzhou story itself has exposed the deficiencies of China's official ‘innovation’ policy. The Wenzhou train accident has weakened the credibility of China's high-speed rail technology. Moreover, the aftermath management of the train tragedy by the Chinese authorities has also reflected the impetuous attitude of the Chinese Government in trying to maintain the reputation of its high-speed rail industry at the expense of ignoring human life.
The ‘counterfeit cottage’ industry culture in China has already been formed. Yet this ‘counterfeit cottage’ product culture in China has continued to lead the now wealthy China falling into the ‘rest on our laurels’ embarrassment --which is a reference to the kind of ‘Chinese culture’ that relies only on ancestral and patrimonial heritage to survive without coming out with significant and proud creation in originally invented product to show the world.
Technological Innovation
Technological innovation does not only refer to new discoveries. It should also include breakthroughs in science and humanities knowledge; in the birth of some alternative business model; in the creation of a variety of new political, economic, social, judicial system; in the creation in the popular culture, literature, art, and in creative thinking beyond the box, and so on. Not only can these innovations allow China to progress in services in trade, these innovations can also enrich and promote the collective human civilization.
As a big country with a population of 1.3 billion, China has long standing history. Yet as a big country with its continuous expansion of economic growth, China has not made significant contribution in this new century in these areas.
Rapid Changes in International Environment
Without making significant contribution to these areas, any discussion on the ‘the emergence of China’ and the ‘China model’ will lack a core meaning. With the rise and fall and rapid changes in the international environment, the global role to be played by China will become increasingly heavy. There is a need for China to shoulder more international responsibilities.
The present world community's expectations of China has gone beyond the status of China as the ‘the world factory’ of the previous years. If the 21st century, as some scholars said, is an Asia-Pacific Century and even a Century of China, then the ‘Made in China’ image must be elevated to ‘Created in China’ in order for China to meet the mission entrusted to it by history.