Why is China much slower on transition to high-end manufacturing than Japan? What should China learn from Japan to make a faster transition from low to high-end manufacturing?
为什么中国向高端制造业转型的速度比日本慢很多？中国应该向日本学习什么，才能更快地从低端制造业转型到高端制造业？
以下是Quora网友的评论：
Malleus Sinarum
Because China did not invent the modern world, America, and Japan and Germany did. Modernism is a idiom. China did not speak or invent the idiom of modernism. So they are the outside looking in still. Western live is something they copy but it’s nothing indigenous to Chinese culture.
因为现代世界不是中国发明的，而是美国、日本和德国发明的。现代主义是一个词，并不是中国提出或发明出来的。所以中国人至今仍然是局外人。西方的生活是中国可以复制的东西，但并不是中国的本土文化。
Yausi Tamn
no expert , perhaps China was on the phrase of development which was still remote from high end perhaps because China that time found it more right to go for low cost consumers products to go into high end will mean direct rivalry with Japan and the entire western world which at that circumstances will arouse the west and Japan to rage on China , the low cost consumers products was no offense to anybody until the era had changed for China to find survival gradually at high end , I think times had changed that Japan and the West is not after even the high end and times are such that Japan and the West are seeking to even outsource the high end and had secured themselves on other high level developments
没有专家，也许中国的发展与高端制造业仍存在较大的差距，也许是因为中国当时觉得制造低端产品更合适，如果当时就制造高端产品，将意味着直接与日本和整个西方世界竞争，在当时的历史背景下，绝对会引起西方和日本对中国的敌对。低端产品不会侵犯他们的利益，直到时代逐渐改变，中国逐渐在高端制造业找到了立足之地。我认为时代已经发生了改变，日本和西方甚至已经不追求高端制造业了，现在的日本和西方希望将高端制造业外包出去，在其他高水平研发上获得了稳固的地位。
John Thacker
If the premise is “China is much slower in transitioning to high-end manufacturing than Japan did at a similar level of development / income,” then the premise is incorrect. China is not being slowing in transitioning to high-end manufacturing than other countries of a similar per capita income. China is still a middle-income country, of similar per capita income to Thailand and its position in the manufacturing value chain compares reasonably, even favorably to Thailand (and to other Asian countries at similar stages of development.)
如果你这个问题的前提是“在类似的发展/收入水平下，中国向高端制造业转型的速度比日本慢得多”，那么我只能说你这个前提是不正确的。跟其他人均收入水平相似的国家相比，中国向高端制造业转型的速度并不慢。中国现在还是中等收入国家，人均收入与泰国相当，中国在制造业价值链中的地位相对合理，甚至优于泰国(以及其他处于类似发展阶段的亚洲国家)。
China is a very unequal country. Because it is a large country, there are individually wealthy people and wealthy cities, just as Bangkok looks quite modern and rich. But once you take into account all the rural areas, it is a middle income country.
Now, if the question is, “Why is China much slower on becoming a high average income country post World War II than Japan, Korea, Singapore, Hong Kong, Taiwan, etc.” that’s a much more complicated question worthy of study.
中国是一个发展非常不均衡的国家。因为中国是一个大国，所以有富裕的民众和富裕的城市，就像曼谷那样，看起来也非常摩登富裕。但是如果你把所有的农村地区都考虑进去，那么中国就是一个中等收入国家。
现在，如果问题改成“为什么二战后，中国大陆成长为高人均收入国家的速度比日本、韩国、新加坡、中国香港、中国台湾等都要慢得多”，那么这个问题会更复杂一些，值得研究。
Scott Rong
You really need read the history book to understand China & Japan in 1950, 1960, 1970, etc.
What China learn is to develop step by step, from low end to high end, learn and work hard.
你真的得读点历史书，了解一下1950年、1960年、1970年等时期的中国和日本分别是什么情况。
中国学到的经验是稳扎稳打，一步一步地发展，从低端到高端，不断学习，不断努力。
iao Nengshou
You may not have noticed that Japan was already very developed before World War II, at least in terms of technology and industry. Technology is not instantaneous, and it will take many years or even several generations. When China first developed heavy industry, it encountered the Sino-Japanese War, and there has been little progress since the latter half of the century. The huge volume also makes China very difficult to manage. More importantly, China does not have the kind of urgency that South Koreans feel. At least from the low suicide rate in China, we can see that the Chinese people's sense of competition is not very strong. National peace is a prerequisite for the development of science and technology. However, the main experience of China in the first half century was war and revolution. In addition to the continued development of weapons, other technologies are almost stagnant. In addition, the relationship between China and the West is not very good. In strategic considerations, China cannot purchase advanced civilian technology. In fact, the United States once sold many civilian technologies to Japan, and China can only rely on its own research and development.
你可能不太了解，在第二次世界大战之前，日本就已经非常发达了，至少在科技和工业方面已经如此。科技不可能瞬间飞跃，需要很多年甚至很多代人的时间。中国刚开始发展重工业时，遇到了甲午战争，从20世纪下半叶之后几乎没有什么进步。中国的疆域之大也令中国很难管理。更重要的是，中国没有像韩国人那样感受到急切的紧迫感。至少从中国较低的自杀率可以看出，中国人的竞争意识并不是很强。国家和平是科学技术发展的先决条件。但中国在前半个世纪一直忙着战争和革命。除了继续研发武器之外，其他科技都几乎停滞不前。此外，中国和西方的关系也不太融洽。出于战略考虑，中国无法购买先进的民用技术。事实上，美国就曾经将很多民用技术卖给了日本，中国只能依靠自主研发。
Deng in
Japan is one of the oldest capitalists countries on the earth,it reformed and begun to industrialize in the 19th century ,Japan got a huge “compensation “ from China (Qing government)through the treaty of shimonoseki (马关条约）at the end of 19th century,it helped Japan laid the foundations of high end manufacturing and high literacy. Even the remote villages had already had electricity at that time ,you can’t imagine that in China.As a result Japan had the power to start the war in pacific area. After WW2 many infrastructure in Japan were damaged but the technology foundation remained,so it turned to civil science and technology with the help of USA and became the representative of high-end manufacturing.
So I think you should compare Japan with Germany instead of China ,they are more similar in development history
日本是地球上最古老的zb主义国家之一，它在19世纪进行改革并开始了工业化进程。日本在19世纪末通过《马关条约》从中国(清政府)那里获得了巨额的“赔偿”，这笔资金帮助日本奠定了高端制造业和高识字率的基础。在当时的日本，就连偏远的村庄也都已经通电了，这在当时的中国是无法想象的。因此，日本有能力在太平洋地区发动战争。二战后，日本的许多基础设施遭到了破坏，但科技基础仍然存在，所以日本在美国的帮助下转而发展民用科技，成为高端制造业的代表国家。
所以我认为你应该比较日本和德国，这两个国家在发展历史上更为相似。
Ron Berkes
Quality systems are needed for high quality manufacturing. Its not China compared to Japan. Its companies that embrace quality systems and ones who do not. High-end manufacturing requires a solid quality system behind it and many factories in China have adopted those systems based on global demand.
高质量生产需要质量体系。不是中国和日本比如何，而是采纳质量体系的公司和不采纳质量体系的公司的对比。高端制造业需要坚实的质量体系作为后盾，中国的许多工厂已经根据全球商品采购需求采纳了这些体系。
Mark Jordon
The economic of America is better than Japan and much more better than South Korea while South Korea is still far more better than China.If China want to caught up with South Korea,what will happened???
美国的经济比日本好，比韩国好很多，而韩国还是比中国好上不少。如果中国想要赶超韩国，会发生什么？
From the picture we can see that there are 17 Korean company reach to top five hundred companies in the world.If China caught up with South Korea ,consider that the population of China is 27 times bigger than South Korea,There will be more than 459 Chinese company reach to top five hundred companies in the world .
Yes,if China want to catch up with South Korea,it means that more than 45.9 percent of the best company will belong to China,it is a impossible aim for China ,so China will always be a develo country.
从图中我们可以看到，世界500强中有17家韩国公司。如果中国赶超韩国，鉴于中国的人口是韩国的27倍，那么中国将有超过459家企业跻身世界500强。
是的，如果中国想赶超韩国，就意味着超过45.9%的一流企业将属于中国，这对中国来说是一个不可能实现的目标，所以中国只能永远维持发展中国家的地位。
Mike Wu
Very good answers have been given. But there is one more point I'd like to raise, China’s population and geographic size. Education and economic opportunities are not evenly distributed across the country. And the supporting infrastructure is still heavily concentrated along the eastern coast and large cities.
China is still investing to bring the hinterland into the economic fold. In the meantime one still needs low end high manpower industries to provide jobs for the “teeming masses”.
我已经在评论区看到了很好的答案。但我还想提一点，中国的人口和地理面积。教育和经济机会在整个中国的分布并不均匀。配套基础设施仍主要集中在东部沿海和大城市。
中国仍在继续投资，将内陆地区纳入经济版图。与此同时，我们仍然需要低端劳动密集型产业来为“普罗大众”提供就业机会。
M. Stan
I think the question should be rephrased to: Why is China much slower on transition to “high-end-only” manufacturing than Japan?
我认为这个问题应该改写一下：为什么中国向“只保留高端制造业”转型的速度比日本慢得多？
Joseph Wang
I don’t think that China is mostly about low-end manufacturing, and the transition time from low end to high end seems pretty comparable.
The low tech factories have moved away from China, and most everything that I’ve seen manufactured in China nowadays has some computer chip in it, so people aren’t manufacturing shoes but rather smart phones and robots (and robots to make smart phones).
我并不认为中国还在专心发展低端制造业，从低端到高端的过渡时间似乎挺有优势的。
低技术含量的工厂已经撤离中国了，现在我能看到的中国制造的几乎所有商品都内置了电脑芯片，所以中国人已经不是整天制造鞋子了，他们已经在制造智能手机和机器人(以及能制造智能手机的机器人)。
Martin Basinger
The basic assumption your question contains is flat out wrong. Basically all high-technology that sells around the world today is manufactured in China, not Japan. China’s rise is actually faster so far, and with no external help like Japan received.
I don’t think Japan is a good example to learn from - because they did not do the transition on their own, they were propped up as it was merely a nice present given to them by the US after WWII because the US thought they needed an economically strong “wall” against the rise of co sm back then. And look how little is left of their wealth - they are piling on debt like no other country in the world, they can’t seem to turn around their economy no matter how drastic the measures they try to apply are (Abenomics = Quantitative easing at never seen before scale), and they seem to fall back into the dangerous old ideologies (superiorism).
你在问题里提出的基本假设是完全错误的。世界各地正在销售的几乎所有高科技产品都不是日本制造，而是中国制造。到目前为止，中国的崛起速度超过日本，也没有像日本那样得到过外部的帮助。
我认为日本并不是一个值得学习的好榜样—因为他们并非依靠自己完成转型，他们只是很幸运地在二战后获得美国赠与他们的厚礼—美国认为他们需要一个经济上足够强大的“封锁墙”来对抗他们的崛起。看看他们仅存的一点财富吧—他们不断堆积债务，债台高筑，超过了世界上所有的国家。无论采取多么严苛的措施(史上最大规模的定量宽松政策)，他们似乎都已经无力扭转经济颓势了，他们似乎陷入了危险的旧意识形态。
Winston Chen
She's not-unless you consider manufacturing iPhones “low-end manufacturing.” Presumably what you're asking is why China is not a high-income country like Japan is, which can be attributed to most people being employed in middle income industries instead of high income industries (manufacturing vs engineering (or service industries in general), i.e.). There are a lot of reasons for this: Japan essentially exported her way to prosperity, China is too big for that, also China is a less open society, which impedes transition to innovative knowledge economies, the relatively opaque legal system….but mostly, it's the fact that she's been integrated into the global economy only since about 1980 at earliest, and in fact not really in truth until much later. Ask again in 10–15 years, and we’ll see how much further along she's gotten.
中国的转型根本就不慢，除非你认为iphone的生产也属于“低端制造业”。大概我猜，你想问的是为什么中国还不是日本那样的高收入国家，这可以归因于大多数人从事中等收入行业，而非高收入行业。这有很多原因：日本基本上是靠出口实现经济繁荣的，但中国实在太大了，又不是一个非常开放的社会，这阻碍了中国向创新知识经济的过渡....但最重要的是，中国是在1980年左右才开始融入全球经济的，事实上，直到很久以后才真正融入全球经济。你可以等个10-15年再问一次这个问题，到那个时候我们就会知道中国已经实现多大的发展了。