Our Chinese friends have won a long time ago

By Alex P. Vidal

Let’s now stop reciting the oft-repeated mantra that “in the long run, China will win.” They’ve already won. A long time ago.

In fact, the Chinese have become dominant in almost all endeavors and levels of competition and trade globally–except winning the NBA championship and the FIFA World Cup.

We won’t be surprised if a Chinese boxer will soon be the one to send Manny Pacquiao into forced retirement now that all those Mexican taxi drivers have been flattened one after the other.

Was it a Chinese chessplayer who scalped women’s longest reigning world champion Maya Chiburdanidze?

In a mall in Nagoya, Japan in 2001, two Japanese salesmen laughed when I requested a “Made in Japan” bulb, not “Made in China.”

They could not explain in English, but I was able to read between the lines as they tried their best to speak: “We sell mostly made in China products here.” Including a Sony stereo!

FLAG CARRIER

The biggest mall in the Philippines — and in the entire Asia for that matter — and the country’s flag carrier are owned by Chinese tycoons. Our major telecommunication firms and banking institutions are also controlled by Chinese executives.

A known philantrophist in Iloilo is a low-profile Chinese trader who owns a mall a stone throw away from the Capitol.

They are remarkable in the sense that they have pumped adrenalin on our arid economy and generated employment opportunities for many Filipinos for several decades now.

According to our favorite author, Dr. Will Durant, the No. 1 greatest thinker of all time was Confucius, a Chinese teacher. Greece’s classical heroes Plato and Aristotle, with all their glory and grandeur, are only second and third, respectively.

In business and international trade, China is notches higher than those in the second pack. “Made in China” products flood the markets in Europe, Asia, United States, Canada, Africa in dizzying fashion — from nails to woods, electronics, garments, medical supplies, toothbrush, watches, brooms, toys, perfumes, railways, submarines, space shuttles, etcetera.

DOUBLE STANDARD

We’ve noticed, however, that there seems to be two kinds of “Made in China” products now scattered around the world– the ones suspected to be of inferior quality dumped in the Philippines and other Asean countries and the ones of superior quality shipped to the United States, Canada and Europe. Double standard?

Some Americans and Canadians as well as Europeans and Africans love to collect “Made in China” stuffs bought from within their countries because those items pass the quality standards.

Some Filipinos and their neighbors in Asia, on the other hand, view “Made in China” products with absolute skepticism and suspicion because some of these products are either substandard and unsafe. Is WTO at fault?

Israel is reported to be the second strongest military in the world next to the United States, but China is still superior numerically and logistically. China can afford to take on all comers in a winner-takes-all fracas involving the Spratleys tumult.

China can also now afford to send to moon or mars not only ape but a computer literate human being.

By the way, didn’t we just elect a Chinese president in P-noy “Coo Huang Coo” Aquino?