RENEE MONTAGNE, host: Quick - name a Chinese brand, just one. The fact is, after 30 years of bone-shaking, mind-bending economic group, everyone knows about brand China, but few can name a specific Chinese brand. As we continue our series on China, NPR‘s the reason for that is not just economic.0 v* Z! X; r$ D6 {9 r
ROB GIFFORD: In a bustling market near the center of the Phnom Penh, 24-year-old Soray Peah is testing the ringtones on a cell phone she wants to buy.
2 X! H6 b5 r. e" B) u$ W Ms. SORAY PEAH: (Foreign language spoken)) P& L. p2 a5 J2 F, y b! n# {
GIFFORD: I’ll definitely buy a Chinese-made phone, she says, because they‘re cheap, even though the quality is not great.
4 o& k \. p4 {9 D/ } Ms. PEAH: (Foreign language spoken)
) j1 U4 P# b3 b$ [% c4 m% S GIFFORD: But she doesn’t know any Chinese brands, and in fact the brand she is going to buy is a fake Nokia, copied in China and sold Asia. This reputation for Chinese-made goods holds inside more upscale stores in Phnom Penh, as well.
- d0 l) W6 g# g3 c Manager Tha Vy runs a smart store in a mall, selling electronics.
0 L1 a7 d# `9 @, N3 Z5 o Mr. THA VY (Electronics Store Manager): No, we don‘t have Chinese brands. We’ve got only Korean brands and Japanese brands, because the Chinese products came to Cambodia for the first time, the products were very poor quality.
9 T% |+ M) j: ~ GIFFORD: So, a store manager in Cambodia puts his finger on a key point of China‘s rise: cheap T-shirts and fake mobile phones: fine. IPads and laptops assembled for foreign companies: fine, too. But Chinese brands? It’s not really happening yet. B& {, N/ H) A- G1 U; e+ k, v
GIFFORD: Half a world away, in Camden, South Carolina, American workers are attaching the seal on a refrigerator door. This is the American factory of Haier, a Chinese company that‘s probably the closest China gets to a known international brand.
1 w1 v& v. b9 ^! Z. K3 ] Mr. GERALD REEVES (Manager, Haier): I think we got good people. We got good management. We got good products.8 I: V. l1 X+ M! M! H3 C
GIFFORD: Manager Gerald Reeves says Haier is making quality goods, so it hasn’t suffered from the image of low-end, made-in-China products.
8 \0 M) p$ O4 v K/ @ Mr. REEVES: I don‘t know that it’s really been a challenge, because it says Made in the USA on our boxes. And a lot of people don‘t even realize this is a Chinese company, truth be known./ b( ^7 w5 l0 d( [
GIFFORD: Haier, he says, is investing plenty in research and development to keep their quality high.
4 F" n8 v7 T% |8 k* _& ` Mr. REEVES: We’ve got some R and D upstairs. If you‘re going to build products for an American market, you need to have Americans, for the most part, designing those products.3 Z& l# @' L+ o# e7 ~, ]
GIFFORD: But many analysts say that Haier’s limited success may, in some ways, be the exception that proves the rule. They attribute China‘s inability to develop and innovate to problems within China that go deeper than just the development of brands - a lack of legal protection, for a start.5 n+ I$ X; Q! e: p$ T0 G# p4 D
Mr. PAUL FRENCH (Access Asia): If you’re going to innovate, if you‘re going to be entrepreneurial, if you’re going to create and invent things, you need a legal system that can protect your invention.
- U( w2 d' u- k/ [0 P. g/ H$ F& E GIFFORD: Paul French of Shanghai consulting firm Access Asia has lived in China for nearly 20 years.
: E4 H9 b+ L/ i7 t Mr. FRENCH: The government should take the lead on that, and an independent legal system needs to be able to do that and to respect the rights of entrepreneurs and innovators. And at the moment, that is simply not the case, here.# F5 A" p6 n3 n/ S6 C4 s# M4 w# y
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