China Can Produce Apple Products, but not Steve Jobs

Jonathan Mak, Hong Kong Teen's Graphic Tribute to Steve Jobs

What China lacks?

Since Steve Jobs passed away, millions of Internet users in China have mourned his death on micro-blogs. Soon, we all asked the same question: “Can China produce someone like Steve Jobs?” The answers were invariably pessimistic, but the focus of discussion soon shifted to China’s political, economic and legal systems. Internet users have complained that China could become the world’s factory, but the Chinese factory specialises in counterfeit goods, not the creation of their own brands.

Chinese factories have produced iPhones, iPads, iPods and other Apple products for the entire world, but they cannot produce Apple’s creativity. A few years ago, one of my friends came back from Beijing and showed me her fake Gucci handbag made in China. It looked so real that you would have thought it cost $500.  My friend exclaimed: “The Chinese people’s skills are so good. They can still make profit even selling it for $30.”
I asked: “If the Chinese possess such superb skills, why don’t they create their own brand and compete with Gucci? Then, they too could sell it for $500 and make $480 profit. Even if they sold it for $300 or $400, they would still make plenty of profit. Why do they make fake goods to be satisfied with $10 profit per bag?”

（Apple fans mourn Steve Jobs in New York city. Photo by David）

For Gucci, at best, the manufacturing cost of a handbag is fifty dollars. But why must Gucci sell it for $500? Isn’t it because this price also includes the cost of creation, design, marketing, quality control and inventory management? In addition, it also includes decades or even a century of support and development. A brand name means credibility. The difference between cost and selling price is the profit that consumers pay for a product’s credibility.

Chinese counterfeit goods have destroyed other brands’ hard-earned credibility. In today’s China, what it desperately needs is credibility. Under such an environment, only counterfeit goods will flourish; how can it nourish the possibility of an Apple Inc?

It is most likely that Apple Inc would be eliminated right after its germination. Human beings love freedom and pursue freedom. A free society must have a material base, which is the protection of private property, in order to ensure true freedom. Under the Communist regime, China has no protection for private property. Fake goods earn fast bucks, even though the profits are low. There are so many fake goods and poisonous foods. Does that mean that merchants don’t have any conscience? No, it is because this commercial environment forces you to lower the cost in order to survive.

China can have Apple products and also Steve Jobs. However, what China lacks is an environment for them to survive – protection for creativity. Nothing is sadder than a society that stifles its innovation and has no credibility.