photo essay: trade rallies

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26 IEEE Spectrum | October 2004 | NA

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Page 1: Photo Essay: Trade Rallies

26 IEEE Spectrum | October 2004 | NA

Page 2: Photo Essay: Trade Rallies

TradeRalliesIf you bought a new TV in the lastcouple of years, there’s a goodchance it was made in China. Now theworld’s biggest television maker,China produced nearly 40 million setsin 2002—a quarter of the total globalproduction—including those shownhere at a high-tech expo in Beijing.Half of China’s TVs are exported, andwhile the influx of low-cost setsinto the United States and Europehas been a boon for consumers,competing producers are less happy.In May, the U.S. government slappedantidumping duties on Chinese sets.The European Union, meanwhile,limits the number of Chinese TVs thatcan be imported.

Many of the sets flagged as“Made in China” are merely assembledthere from foreign-made components.Most Chinese large-screen plasmadisplays, for example, still rely onplasma panels shipped in from Japanand South Korea. But in thin-filmtransistor liquid crystal displays, theChinese are gaining ground, witha handful of state-of-the-art LCDplants either under construction orplanned. China is also one of themost promising markets for digitaltelevision, following the government’sannouncement to roll out digitalbroadcasting in time for the 2008Olympic Games in Beijing. [For moreon China’s growing technologicalprowess, see “East Asia Rising” inthis issue.]

Photograph by China Photos/Reuters/Corbis

October 2004 | IEEE Spectrum | NA 27