China's electronics industry : the definitive guide for companies and policy makers with interests in China

China's Electronics Industry is a comprehensive and current report on the technologies, manufacturing capabilities, and infrastructure that have made China a major player in the electronics industry. Not only does it cover the past, present, and future of important electronic technologies, but also the pros and cons of conducting business in China. This is an important reference for any company planning a venture in China as well as those who have already taken their first steps. It will also be of great interest to researchers and policy makers who need to know more about the role of central government in promoting strategic industries and assisting national science and technology development. Much of the data contained in the report is from 2006. No country has burst onto the economic scene as dramatically as China has in the past decade. It is the world's largest producer of many electronic products and has a leading edge semiconductor industry. This timely and comprehensive report from America's leading authority is a critical for anyone who is interested in working with China in the electronics field including business managers, academics, government institutes, foreign investors, as well as those who are interested in the past, present and future growth of China's Electronics Industry. If you are thinking about doing business in china's electronics industry, you must have this book.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

General Information

The People's Republic of China (hereafter referred to as "China") is located in the southeastern part of the Eurasian Continent and on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean, bordering on the East China Sea, Korea Bay, Yellow Sea, and South China Sea. China is the world's most populous country and the fourth largest in land area. Most of China is located in the temperate zone, with southerly parts in tropical and subtropical zones. Politically, China is under the leadership of the Communist Party. This chapter provides general information about China's geography, population, ethnic groups, language, religion, education system, and political structure, with a brief overview of its modern history.

1.1 Geography

China is centrally located in East Asia. It borders Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, and Bhutan to the west; Myanmar, Laos, and Vietnam to the south; across the seas to Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei, the Philippines, and Japan to the southeast; the Republic of Korea on the east and Russia and Mongolia to the north; with Kazakhstan, Kyrgystan, and Tadzhikistan to the northwest.

Historically, the high mountains and deserts of the west and northwest were almost impassible, and seaborne traffic between China and other countries was difficult and dangerous. This topography insulated China from other major civilizations until the advent of modern communication and technology. China's mountains, rivers, and other geographical features have also divided the country into distinct north and south regions, marked by differences in climate, agriculture, culinary traditions, dialects, politics, and culture. However, China's geographic isolation has been a unifying factor incorporating the country into one state for millennia.

In area, China is 9.6 million km2, smaller than Russia and Canada and slightly smaller than the United States. Overall, its terrain slopes from west to east, from the 6.44-kilometer-high mountains of Tibet, through high plateaus and desert, to hills and plains, and finally the deltas of the east coast.

Over 40 percent of China is mountainous or hilly. Its largest mountain range is the Qinling, extending east from the great Kunlun system of north Tibet. True plains are found in north and northeast China, the Yangtze River system, and the Sichuan basin.

China's coast on the east spans approximately 18,000 km. Most of the coastline is flat and most docks and harbors are ice-free year round. Around 5,400 islands occupy China's territorial seas, including Hainan (34,000 km2) and many islands, islets, reefs, and shoals in the South China Sea (the Dongsha, Xisha, Zhongsha, and Nansha island groups). Taiwan Island to the east has a total area of 36,000 km2.

The Yangtze, at 6,300 km, is China's longest river and third longest in the world, behind the Nile in Africa and the Amazon in South America. It is navigable by large ships year-round for 1,500 km inland from its mouth in the East China Sea. The second longest river in China is the Yellow River with a length of 5,464 km. The Yellow River flows from the Tibetan Plateau and is unnavigable for most of its length. The longest man-made river in the world is the Grand Canal, running 1,801 km from Beijing in the north to Hangzhou in Zhejiang Province in the south. The canal, which links the Haihe, Yellow, Huaihe, Yangtze, and Qiantang rivers, was first constructed in the 5th century B.C.

Only 13.3 percent of China's land is arable, but cultivated crops cover 95 million hectares (ha), mainly on the Northeast Plain (wheat, corn, sorghum, soybeans, flax, and sugar beets), the North China Plain (wheat, corn, millet, and cotton), the Middle-Lower Yangtze Plain (paddy rice and freshwater fish in the "land of fish and rice"), the Pearl River Delta (paddy rice), and the Sichuan Basin (paddy rice, rapeseed, and sugarcane). Per capita arable land is about 0.1 ha, only 47 percent of the world average. Grasslands cover an area of 400 million ha, while forests cover only 159 million ha, mainly in the northeast mountain ranges of the Greater Hinggan, Lesser Hinggan, and Changbai mountain ranges.

China's mineral reserves, comprised of 156 different minerals, rank third in the world, and include coal (1,003 billion tons, mostly in Northern China), iron (46 billion tons), salt (402 billion tons), oil (427 fields), natural gas (125 fields), and nonferrous metals such as tungsten, tin, antimony, zinc, molybdenum, lead, and mercury. China's water resources are vast, with over 1,500 rivers each draining over 1,000 km2. Inland water from rivers and underground springs comprises 1.82 percent of China's land surface and can provide 6.75 billion kWh of energy, of which 3.79 billion kWh has been developed. China's hydropower potential is the world's largest.

1.2 Population and Ethnic Groups

China is the most populous country in the world. The Chinese government reported that by July 2004 China's population, excluding the Hong Kong and Macao Special Administrative Regions and Taiwan, was 1.299 billion (21 percent of the total world population), of which males accounted for 51.5 percent and females 48.5 percent.

The growth of China's urban areas has accelerated dramatically since economic reforms were instituted in the late 1970s. Prior to that time, urban migration was tightly controlled to prevent runaway urban growth (over 80 percent of the population was rural). Urban populations experienced strict rationing of foodstuffs. In the 1990s, high demand for labor in urban areas provided ample job opportunities for residents, and the end of rationing made life in the cities easier. China's employment in 2003 is shown in Table 1.1 below.

Figure 1.1 shows the estimated age distribution of the population in 2004. Life expectancy in China is similar to that in other developed nations – about 70.4 years for men and 73.72 years for women. Another key finding was that the average family size fell from roughly 4 persons to roughly 3.5.

The Chinese government regards the large size of the country's population as a multidimensional issue. The growth of the population may be the strongest evidence of the success of the Communist regime in terms of the effectiveness of government measures to feed the nation and provide people with basic health care. The sheer size of the population has provided security to the nation, and has been a source of cheap labor and an immense potential consumer market attracting domestic and multinational businesses. Nevertheless, China has recognized the need to slow population growth due to inadequate per-capita resources. The government has formulated and implemented a population policy to restrict families to one child each, with flexible family planning policies for ethnic minorities and rural areas. As a result, the population growth rate was reduced from 1.47 percent in 1980 to an estimated 0.57 percent in 2004. China expects to control its population to below 1.33 billion. Table 1.2 shows various population-related figures in comparison with those of the United States.

Although China's population control efforts appear successful, new problems have arisen. First, the aging of the population has become a concern. Currently, it is estimated that there are about 97 million people over age 65, accounting for 7.5 percent of the national population, well over the internationally recognized proportion of 7 percent for an aging society. This will create a heavy social security burden. Another problem is the growing gender-ratio imbalance. The gender ratio is estimated at 112 boys to 100 girls.

Another challenge in China is that the richest 10 percent of Chinese control 45 percent of the country's wealth, according to Chinese Government figures, and the poorest 10 percent hold about 1 percent. About 250 million people in the country still earn less than US$1 a day – the official definition of poverty n China – and 700 million live on less than US$2 a day. Incomes among rural Chinese have actually declined in the last 4 years, the World Bank reports. This rural 70 percent of China's population has an average income of just US$318 a year. If benefits such as superior schools and medical care are included in the calculation, the average urban income is seven times greater than the average rural income, the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences has calculated.

The majority of the Chinese population is of Han ethnicity, making up about 91.6 percent of the total. The rest of China consists of some 56 different nationally recognized indigenous ethnic groups. The largest minority group is the Zhuang, comprising over 16 million, mostly in the Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region. There are 18 other nationally recognized minorities with a population of over 1 million, including the Zhuang, Manchu, Hui (Muslims), Miao, Uygur, Yi, Tujia, Mongolian, Tibetan, Bouyei, Dong, Yao, Korean, Bai, Hani, Li, Kazak, and Dai.

1.3 Language

The Chinese language exemplifies both the diversity and the unity of Chinese culture. On one hand, the standard written language can be understood by all educated Chinese. On the other, the spoken language is fragmented into hundreds of mutually unintelligible regional dialects and their local variants. There are 108 dialects in the province of Fujian alone. Except for Mandarin, no other Chinese major dialect is spoken by more than about 8.5 percent of the population, and most by less than 5 percent. Although all Chinese dialects are tonal, the number and inflection of tones differ markedly between the various dialects, along with significant differences in pronunciation. Consequently, a standard pronunciation is learned by most Chinese speakers throughout the world, often in addition to at least one other dialect. The standard pronunciation of Chinese is referred to as Mandarin in the West; Putonghua, or common spoken word, in China; and Guoyu, or national language, in Taiwan. Putonghua is based on the language spoken in northern China and has been China's official language for centuries. Putonghua is spoken by at least 71.5 percent of China's population.

Of the foreign languages spoken in China, Russian replaced English in the 1950s and was taught in most middle schools and institutions of higher education. However, with economic reform and opening to the outside world, English has resumed great popularity, particularly in the major cities. Japanese may be the second most popular foreign language. Other languages, such as French, Spanish, and German, are taught mainly at the university level. Various training programs and workshops have mushroomed throughout the country, making foreign language study the most successful educational and commercial program. With the surge in foreign imports and international exposure, a flood of foreign words has penetrated the Chinese language, imitating the original sounds but often carrying a hint of Chinese meaning.

China's language modernization efforts include a fairly successful attempt to simplify the pictographic characters of the written language to make learning easier and increase literacy. Simplified characters number 2,238, about one-third of the 7,000-8,000 characters required to write modern Chinese. Critics of China's simplification program point to the experience of Taiwan, which simultaneously achieved high literacy while rejecting simplification; they maintain that although there are some benefits from the simplified characters, the cultural cost is high, and that simplified characters are more easily confused with each other.

Chinese script can be written in any direction. Chinese newspapers sometimes combine left to right, right to left, and up to down on the same page. As the language is taught in all Chinese schools today, the sound of each Chinese character is represented in romanized written form by Pinying. With the ever-spreading use of computers, some think it is time to finally romanize all written Chinese; however, with computer-voice interfaces already possible, there may soon be no need to key in text character by character. Most Chinese feel that romanizing the written Chinese characters would be impractical, given the large number of homonyms in the language; that it would degrade understanding of both obvious and subtle meanings; and that it would be an incalculable cultural loss, given the enormous historical, political, and creative value of China's pictographic written language.

1.4 Religion

The word "religion" did not exist in the Chinese language until modern times, when scholars tried to create a term to match the Western concept. Indigenous Chinese "religious" pursuits, such as the practice of Confucianism, Taoism, and worship of ancestors, gods, and natural phenomena, are not religions in the Western sense but have religious overtones, and are now called Chinese religions for convenience. Religions imported from abroad include Buddhism, Islam, and Christianity, with a Chinese cultural overlay. Except for professional religious practitioners living apart in monasteries, religion in China is very much woven into the broad fabric of family and social life.
(Continues...) Excerpted from CHINA'S ELECTRONICS INDUSTRY by Michael Pecht. Copyright © 2006 by William Andrew, Inc.. Excerpted by permission of Elsevier Science.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site. China's Electronics Industry is a comprehensive and current report on the technologies, manufacturing capabilities, and infrastructure that have made China a major player in the electronics industry. Not only does it cover the past, present, and future of important electronic technologies, but also the pros and cons of conducting business in China. This is an important reference for any company planning a venture in China as well as those who have already taken their first steps. It will also be of great interest to researchers and policy makers who need to know more about the role of central government in promoting strategic industries and assisting national science and technology development. Much of the data contained in the report is from 2006.

No country has burst onto the economic scene as dramatically as China has in the past decade. It is the world's largest producer of many electronic products and has a leading edge semiconductor industry. This timely and comprehensive report from America's leading authority is a critical for anyone who is interested in working with China in the electronics field including business managers, academics, government institutes, foreign investors, as well as those who are interested in the past, present and future growth of China's Electronics Industry.

If you are thinking about doing business in china's electronics industry, you must have this book. Content: Front Cover; Preface; China's Electronics Industry: The Definitive Guide for Companies and Policy Makers With Interests in China; Acknowledgments; Copyright Page; Chapter 1. General Information; Contents; Foreword; Chapter 2. Economic Conditions and Policy; Chapter 3. China's Science and Technology; Chapter 4. Development of China's Electronics Industry; Chapter 5. Semiconductors; Chapter 6. Electronic Manufacturing Service Industries; Chapter 7. Connectors, Cable Assemblies, and Backplanes; Chapter 8. Computers; Chapter 9. Telecommunications Industry; Chapter 10. Other Electronics Industries. Abstract: A current and comprehensive report dealing with China's electronics industry, and written by America's leading authority. A must have for anyone in the electronics field that is considering (or already) working with China