China buying up ailing Japanese firms

[cstaylor]

China eyes Japanese high-tech

Reversing a flow of funds, Chinese companies are heading to Japan to buy up small and medium-sized companies, with the ultimate prize being top-notch manufacturing technology left redundant by poor management

I wonder how much of the money is from Japan's ODA contributions to China?

[Crispy]

``Japanese manufacturers have technological capability but they have weak management capability,'' said Morningside's deputy chairman. ``China has talented managers as well as a massive market.''

I was under the impression that Japan's management problems came from the hierarchy and deference stuff that China had to deal with too. What makes Chinese managers able to do their job better?

I was talking to my dad a while ago, he's a Boeing marketing analyst. Boeing runs training schools for pilots, and they had to develop radically different training programs for training Asian pilots, because their cockpit crew runs under a very different set of rules than any other crew. In an Asian cockit, there is no cross-checking, i.e. the co-pilot doesn't ever question or check the actions of the captain, which is essentially his job. It's dangerous and wrong, and airplanes have been lost because of this, but the Asians just can't let it go, even if all of their lives are on the line. Crazy inscrutable Orient.

[cstaylor]

I think the reason is that Chinese won't have a social problem with firing incompetant subordinates, because they will be Japanese, not Chinese.

[GomiGirl]

I guess I am not Japanese so don't have any emotional reaction to Chinese foreign investment.

Perhaps it will get some people off their butts and be a bit more competitive. But I am hoping that the Chinese will start to recognise the value of their purchases of good technology and start to protect this from the theft by counterfeiting/pirating which is still a huge problem in the Chinese manufacturing sector.

One can dream....