Chinese Wheels

I've been racing and riding road bicycles since the early 1990s when I was in college. The premium bike stuff industry was dominated by European, American, and Japanese companies. Many of those companies shifted their manufacturing to China to boost profits and to be more competitive, then eventually Chinese companies started producing their own wheels, bike frames, and the like at a small fraction of the cost.

For example, I bought some nice carbon fiber wheels back in the early 2000s for about $1500 (about $2400 in today's money!). Now, a similar set of Chinese wheels is about $300-400. (about $250 in 2005 money.) The chinese companies post videos of their assembly lines in China. They use state of the art equipment and at least in the videos the employees look like they're pretty happy and professional.

I bought a set of Chinese wheels to see if they're legit, and they're perfectly fine. My old fancier wheels--like 15 years old--started to pop spokes after years of use and abuse. There's no reason to believe the Chinese wheels won't last. That said, they do seem maybe slightly less rugged and a big impact might cause a problem, where my fancy wheels absorbed pretty severe abuse without a glitch.

There are people who believe China can't compete in specific markets, like semiconductors. I can't see why they wouldn't be able to compete at a world class level in any area. At the same time, I can't see how the US will continue to compete at a high level in the various industries the US used to dominate when corporations sold out so thoroughly and the US population becomes dumber and dumber every single year. The number of students graduating US high schools with competency in math or other subjects declines every year.