Call me a cynic if you will but I greet the news that China is developing a civil passenger jet company with mirth. 'There's a hole in my bucket' went the humorous song made popular by Harry Belafonte in 1961. The trouble is that my bucket is brand new. It can't be fixed with straw because it's made of plastic. I bought it in the Chinese imports shop for $1.68. Yes, it was cheap. True, I hardly complain that it was nasty. But It seems that almost everything I buy that is made in China lasts for one day if that and then claps out!
How can I do anything but joke that the wings would fall off a Chinese jumbo jet half-way down the runway on it's maiden flight?
Admittedly, the Japanese experience may point to a different outcome. When I was a child a popular expression was 'Jap crap'. In those days everything made in Japan was highly suspect. All of that changed. The Japanese gained a firm foothold in manufacturing through volume production of shoddy goods, then lifted their game. By the mid 'seventies if something was made in Japan it was undoubtedly superior.
Will Chinese production run the same course? Let us hope so if they are going to begin building passenger jets that may fly over my home or yours.
