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Literature Review

The transformation of the Chinese Manufacturing Industry

In the 1970s, the paramount leader of China- Deng XiaoPing started a program called Chinese economic reform which allowed foreign direct investment to start a business in China. The reform not only attracted a large number of foreign direct investments but also provide a large number of employment opportunities which solve a lot of employment issues. This action accelerated the growth rate of China’s economy. The gross domestic product values began to rise exponentially after reform officially implemented in 1978. When China joined WTO in 2001, the market has been further opened and foreign capital has become more influential. The membership between China and WTO has helped the Chinese market became a market of concern to global capitalists. With the injection of global capital and the policy support of the Chinese government, the accumulation of capital and technology has given China the basis for becoming a world biggest manufacturing.

The cheap labor and low-cost raw material have increased the number of factories spring up like mushrooms in China. The rise of the Chinese manufacturing industry has reduced the prices of global small commodities, and the living expenses of people in different countries have reduced sharply which means they can save more money from their daily expenditure. However, the pollution and factories are like light and shadow; neither of them can live without each other, but tighter they grow uncontrollably.

While China became the world biggest manufacturing, the over speeding development started polluting the environment without notice until the first documentary about smog in China that revealed the illegal discharge from the factories caused immeasurable damage to the environment and local residents either on physiological or psychological. According to Zhou et al., without any meteorological control, the smog episodes are positively and statistically significantly associated with mortality in 5 out of 7 districts/ counties. In Ji County, a smog episode is associated with 6.94% increase in overall mortality and in Ci County is associated with a 19.26% increase in overall mortality (2015). Frequent smog has greatly increased the probability of local residents suffering from respiratory diseases which may cause tracheitis, asthma, and lung cancer.

During the industrial development, not only the air was polluted, but also water pollution and soil pollution in some industrial areas. Major sources of surface water and groundwater contamination in China include un-regulated sewage and municipal wastewater discharge, industrial wastewater discharge and agricultural fertilizers and pesticides (Liu and Yang, 2012, as cited in Yang, Q et al., 2018). The water with excessive heavy metals will cause different degrees of organ failure and damage to the nerve system. In 2017, the Chinese government started a movement as promotion of Ecological Civilization which focuses on further environmental governance for the balance among industrial development, natural environment, and human health. As a result, China is to stop or delay work on 151 planned and under-construction coal plants as Beijing struggles to respond to a flat-lining of demand for coal power (Myllyvirta, 2018).

After realizing the negative impact of too many factories on environment and people, the Chinese government started a program called ‘Made-In-China 2025’ which based on ‘German Industry 4.0’ that allowed Chinese manufacturing industry change from ‘Made in China’ to ‘Innovated in China’ to make manufacturing more meticulous on precision industrial. The ‘Industry 4.0’ will take these policies and measures and enable China to make the necessary transformation and upgrading of its manufacturing industry (Pikas, B et al., 2016).

The program ‘Made-In-China 2025’ is focused on high-tech fields such as the pharmaceutical industry, chip industry, semiconductor industry, aerospace industry, and high-tech ships. This program is critical to promoting innovation and the shackles of industrial development. It will comprehensively improve the quality and level of China’s manufacturing industry to push China become a high-tech industry manufacturing country like America, Japan, and Germany. At the same time of industrial transformation, the Chinese government has invested more energy in environmental protection to seek the balance among industry, environment, and human health.

After years of research, China successfully developed world-leading gantry crane, dredge, and high-speed rail. With the efforts of scientific researchers, the Chinese factory has made a change from quantity to quality that allows the manufacturing industry to increase the chance of creating the value of the output and decrease the pollution to the environment. According to SPG& Accenture, if the port in Yangtze River Delta improves 15% operating efficiency, the annual cost savings will reach 1 billion yuan. High terminal efficiency will reduce the time that the ship stays in port. A decrease of 10% time that the ship stays in port can save 1.46 billion yuan for the shipping company (SPG& Accenture,2016, as cited in Zhang, 2017). The high-quality industrial products not only improve the efficiency of the corresponding industry but also increase the economic capacity. The quality revolution of Chinese industry is not only the optimization and innovation of the process, but also the basis for improving the value and potential of the product. If China's manufacturing industry can complete industrial transformation, then China will be able to get more benefits from the demographic dividend which may be able to lead The Fourth Industrial Revolution to benefit all human beings.

The main idea in this article is about the reform created opportunity and danger by the transfer of foreign direct investment to China. While more products are produced to create more value, more pollution is produced as a consequence of irregular industrialization. This article will let people know the opportunity and danger in over speeding development that needs to be measuring. This will also become one of the references of other high population developing countries to measure the balance among industry, environment, and human health.

Reference

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(2016). Air pollutant emissions from Chinese households: A major and underappreciated ambient pollution source. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 113(28), 7756-7761.

Myllyvirta, Lauri. “China Halts More than 150 Coal-Fired Power Plants.” Unearthed,

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Pikas, B., Zhang, X., Peek, W. A., & Lee, T. (2016). The transformation and

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Yang, Q., Li, Z., Lu, X., Duan, Q., Huang, L., & Bi, J. (2018). A review of soil heavy

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