A funny thing is happening on the way to the (consumer) Forum: the PRC is imploding in business terms.
The basic posit that communism and capitalism are incompatible is finally coming to a head. It's not because of the number of millionaires who are building castle-like mansions outside cities such as Shanghai. It's not about the difference between those (now many) very well-off people and the peasants who are hounded by corrupt local party officials: no, that is a revolution that is further down the road when it really hits home to the poor farmer exactly what the more equal people are getting.
No, this is a trade battle.
Inside the PRC, the manufacturers of consumer products are running out of customers, and the competition is so intense their margins are razor thin. That is not good, of course, for the sweat workers who are producing the products. The manufacturing costs are still mostly dependent on labor costs -- they will need to be cut even further.
The wise vendors are looking to export -- not just to Wal*Mart, where the profits are just as thin, but to Europe and North America, at just the same time that vendors in those continents are trying to gain footholds in the PRC. Those importers, hit with input duties -- described in other terms -- and other under-the-table costs (paid by local contacts who are not employees) are already finding that the market really isn't what they thought it might have been. But none of them dares admit it, just in case the other guy is doing better.
The EU organization is an expensive place. Benefits for employees are more than over-generous and there is little reverse responsibility for how money is spent. But there is an overwhelming sense of protectionism that is totally out of whack with the supposed free-market from the like of the WTO (although that is totally another topic).
Now that the RoHS initiative has been very successfully foisted on the semiconductor market -- probably a totally token and unnecessary reduction in the lead (Pb) content in the world's products -- the first step has been taken to keep PRC electronic products out of Europe. There is no manner, except by lying, that the PRC can meet RoHS conditions today or in the near future.
And when they do, just wait for what Europe has planned for the future. The PRC and the USA may have declined to sign Kyoto, but, eventually -- and it is unfortunately going to take a while -- they will have to tacitly join in, as the EU enacts legislation that effectively makes compliance necessary if they want to do business there.
