China gets a lot of hate these days from the developed world for...stealing jobs, I guess. China also seems to be the only country we criticize so strongly for being 'backward', which probably has something to do with being threatened by the fact they are so different but so very successful. As I'm sure you can guess, I get a bit defensive when people start hating on China for no specific reason or for the reason that "they took our jobs." My Ohio hometown is a manufacturing and farming town that has seen many factories close and jobs leave for cheaper places. At the same time, though, better jobs have been coming in, including having Marathon Petroleum re-establish its branch there as one of the national headquarters after splitting the headquarters in two. So, blue collar jobs went out while white collar jobs came in. Bad for the economy? No, not at all. You just got a promotion.
The problem is simple: we are near-sighted. Our myopia blinds us to the opportunities developing just over the horizon, convincing us that change is bad and stagnation is best. Yes, the transition is painful, that I will not deny. You will be unemployed (like me) while your industry shifts and recreates itself (the better the firm, the more seamless and continuous said shift will be). But this is the growing period and so much more is waiting for us at the end of it.
Economics has a model for this (there's a model for everything, you just have to know how to use it) in which it is important that workers can move freely (which you actually can, for the most part, despite how little you want to). Think of it this way: you're working on a new team, each of the members come from similar backgrounds and no large-scale training is required to take on any new role within the group. Three of the six of you have done the research on previous projects, three have done the visual and oral presentation of material and all of you have done management/leadership and internal communication. But on this project, you only need two people on research, two on presentation, one leader and one communication agent. No one can do everything and splitting into two separate groups would push you into diseconomies of scale. When dividing labor, it is key to consider each individual's personal skills. In economics, we call this 'competitive advantage'. Each person needs to do what each person does best. Even if someone is better at everything, they can't actually do everything, so when choosing which of two people should do the research or the leadership, the guy who is worse at everything, but better at research than leadership, should do the research. By doing this, you get the best possible results, with everyone doing their best work. It's efficient and effective.
But what does this have anything to do with China? China has that competitive advantage. China is better at labor-intensive jobs, plain and simple. The reasons are many, but the biggest is simply that labor is cheap. It is cheap because it is plentiful (and because there are no labor unions, labor laws are lax/non-existent, working culture is just different, etc.). Knowing this, that means the developed world has a different competitive advantage and employing China's competitive advantage can only be good for us, driving down the cost for our goods (either passed on to you by way of lower prices or by way of higher profits, passed on to you as a shareholder or employee). China, in turn, uses our competitive advantage in R&D, high technology, innovation, management, international know-how...
So why are we complaining? Because it hurts. It wasn't what you expected. We are in transition right now. China has only been open for business since 1979 and didn't become a powerhouse economy for a while after that. We're still finding our new place in the team and trying to get ourselves up to speed on that new statistics program so we can fulfill our new role to the best of our abilities. Think of this whole process as getting a promotion. The first couple weeks are hard, because things are now expected of you that you've never done before. But your boss (the market) has confidence in you and has given you a new responsibility, so get excited! You've got a raise, a corner office and a new, clean white collar. Get excited and stop complaining that the new guy on your team does things a little differently when he gets all the research on your desk in half the time for half the pay.
