dirty business

when a country is progressing at such a phenomenal speed, there are bound to be many greedy and unethical businessmen whose sole intention is to make some quick bucks. it is happening in hifi business too; in china, no less. i think china has the most "overnight-millionaires" in the world.

foreign hifi manufacturers who intend to set up factories or plants in china must first enlist the help of a "runner" or an "agent", someone (a foreigner also) who has been stationed long enough in china to know the contacts and geography of all those local plants. because logistics are such nightmare in china (some factories don't even have proper roads), coupled with the fact that factories relocate frequently, first-time manufacturers who want to make inroads into china are always daunted by the complexity of the whole exercise. these agents have full knowledge of the modus operandi of setting up a business in china and they make good money by providing consultancy and introducing the manufacturers to the right chinese contacs.

chinese businessmen are known to be unscrupulous. they can promise you one thing and break the promise the next day - it all boils down to money and who has more money to offer to them. many chinese manufacturers can manufacture/copy/duplicate any product you want, make some false claims about the product, give them a new badge and market them as a entirely new product. a case in point - if the product is cryogenically treated at -196 degree, they are willing to claim it as "-300 degree" just to fool the gullible audiophiles into believing that it is better. or, they can repackage some really cheap product by giving it better aesthetics (e.g better chassis) and sell it as a more upmarket product.

in short, in the name of making more money, they can leave their scruples at home. it does not help that hifi is such a subjective hobby that leaves a lot of room for exploitation and that many audiophiles are not discerning enough to differentiate a genuine product from a bogus one. or in certain cases, the audiophile may be aware but he has limited budget for US or european or japanese stuff. well, it is really a economics 101's demand-and-supply issue.

it is true that china-made products have improved by leaps and bounds and are getting competitive vis-a-vis the rest of the world. but the chinese businessmen's poor ethics, lack of conscience and professionalism leave much to be desired. in these regards, they are still lagging behind their western counterparts.