Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label

[M II A II R II K]

Bridge Comes to San Francisco With a Made-in-China Label


June 25, 2011

By DAVID BARBOZA

Read More: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/26/bu...pagewanted=all

Talk about outsourcing. At a sprawling manufacturing complex here, hundreds of Chinese laborers are now completing work on the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge. Next month, the last four of more than two dozen giant steel modules — each with a roadbed segment about half the size of a football field — will be loaded onto a huge ship and transported 6,500 miles to Oakland. There, they will be assembled to fit into the eastern span of the new Bay Bridge.

- The project is part of China’s continual move up the global economic value chain — from cheap toys to Apple iPads to commercial jetliners — as it aims to become the world’s civil engineer. The assembly work in California, and the pouring of the concrete road surface, will be done by Americans. But construction of the bridge decks and the materials that went into them are a Made in China affair. California officials say the state saved hundreds of millions of dollars by turning to China.

- In New York City alone, Chinese companies have won contracts to help renovate the subway system, refurbish the Alexander Hamilton Bridge over the Harlem River and build a new Metro-North train platform near Yankee Stadium. As with the Bay Bridge, American union labor would carry out most of the work done on United States soil.

- American steelworker unions have disparaged the Bay Bridge contract by accusing the state of California of sending good jobs overseas and settling for what they deride as poor-quality Chinese steel. Industry groups in the United States and other countries have raised questions about the safety and quality of Chinese workmanship on such projects. Indeed, China has had quality control problems ranging from tainted milk to poorly built schools.

- But executives and officials who have awarded the various Chinese contracts say their audits have convinced them of the projects’ engineering integrity. And they note that with the full financial force of the Chinese government behind its infrastructure companies, the monumental scale of the work, and the prices bid, are hard for private industry elsewhere to beat.

- The new Bay Bridge, expected to open to traffic in 2013, will replace a structure that has never been quite the same since the 1989 Bay Area earthquake. At $7.2 billion, it will be one of the most expensive structures ever built. But California officials estimate that they will save at least $400 million by having so much of the work done in China.

....

[Troubadour]

But California officials estimate that they will save at least $400 million by having so much of the work done in China.

This illustrates one of the biggest problems in American politics today - the attitude that money not in the pockets of American consumers is money "saved." This is why we've been in a slow, agonizing Hoover spiral down the drain since 1982. One of the greatest benefits about public infrastructure projects is that they create jobs that put money in the pockets of consumers, which drives growth. These officials, whoever they are, are bragging that they've created fewer jobs.

[llamaorama]

Despite the sensationalist tone, I don't know if this is any more weird than how stuff is already done by European and Japanese firms. Or multi-nationals. Likewise, there are American engineering firms doing things in China. In today's world, a company doing any kind of project and the people who work for it could be from anywhere.

[Roadcruiser1]

Although I am Chinese I was born here, and I live here which technically makes me an American. Why the hell can't we produce anything here anymore? We are feeding our money to nations that hate us, and we don't make almost anything here anymore. I just don't get this. We were once the largest manufacturers of our own kind. We need to place massive tariffs on non American goods and products to save our nation or else we are doomed, because our money is going overseas.

[Onn]

Originally Posted by Roadcruiser1

Although I am Chinese I was born here, and I live here which technically makes me an American. Why the hell can't we produce anything here anymore? We are feeding our money to nations that hate us, and we don't make almost anything here anymore. I just don't get this. We were once the largest manufacturers of our own kind. We need to place massive tariffs on non American goods and products to save our nation or else we are doomed, because our money is going overseas.

In value terms we still do make the most in the world (that's because most of our major products are luxury goods, like computer chips, airplanes, boats, cars...) The reason so much is made in China today is because the labor is cheap and there is a lot of it. Both of those factors are changing however. Labor costs are going up and the Chinese population is becoming more urbanized and older. China is manipulating its currency to keep labor costs low, but now inflation is starting to bite. The situation will reverse itself, we just have to hold on until then. Pretty much the same thing happened in the 1980s when it looked like Japan’s economy was going to take over the world.

[timeo]

This article totally glosses over the fact that a number of crucial elements of the Bay Bridge come from several other countries as well; not just China. The saddle for the cables were built in Japan, while I believe the cables themselves were fabricated in South Korea. The UK, Norway and many cities in California also had a large role in all of this:

http://baybridgeinfo.org/content/bridge-parts-origins

[CyberEric]

Originally Posted by timeo

This article totally glosses over the fact that a number of crucial elements of the Bay Bridge come from several other countries as well; not just China. The saddle for the cables were built in Japan, while I believe the cables themselves were fabricated in South Korea. The UK, Norway and many cities in California also had a large role in all of this:

http://baybridgeinfo.org/content/bridge-parts-origins

I was thinking the exact same thing. Thank you!
I see a lot of these stories in regards to China; stories that try to confirm certain assertions while avoiding the larger complexities.

[Wizened Variations]

Originally Posted by CyberEric

I was thinking the exact same thing. Thank you!
I see a lot of these stories in regards to China; stories that try to confirm certain assertions while avoiding the larger complexities.

Yes, but we have great designers that outsource their work too. The multiplier effects of making something this entirely in the US would have been amazing. I suspect somewhere around 5x the contract for the steel modules could have helped SOME part of the US.

But, in our micropolitical shortsighted nation, where trillions are spent to bail out TBTF and hundreds of billions feed the defence machine, the Bay Area had little choice. Sack of Tomatoes is locked up in paying for huge welfare costs, and, likewise, the Federal Government has bigger fish to fry.

Remember that much of orginal Bay Bridge and the Golden Gate were fabricated by companies like Bethleham Steel and shipped in modules through the Panama Canal.

In the case of the Golden gate, which was built during the last Depression, such projects helped keep our factories alive.

(From 2000 to 2008 we lost 48,000 FACTORIES)

[miketoronto]

Originally Posted by Onn

The reason so much is made in China today is because the labor is cheap

I really do not buy the argument about the cheap labour thing. We may pay more in wages in the USA. However that is not new. American companies paid good wages in the 50's, 60's, and 70's. That is what built the middle class, and allowed them to buy things, and grow those companies.

So the idea that we if we don't outsource things, that we will not be able to afford them, is stupid.
We were able afford all this stuff decades ago when everyone had a job at home.

[TwasBrillig]

The fact that we outsourced so much of the new Bay Bridge bothers me. But it doesn't make me as mad as the Martin Luther King Jr. Monument.

[pdxtex]

"We are feeding our money to nations that hate us........"

and sooner or later thats going to come back and bite us in the a$$. not only are we selling our soul to the far east but china is already one step ahead of us and is the only world player who is heavily investing in what will be the new china, africa!!!! you cant blame the chinese though, who doesnt like lucrative contracts and foreign nations willing to buy all of their stuff.

[northbay]

not all the bridge is being made is china.
here is some old news of the cable saddle which was manufactured in japan:

Bridge Saddles Cast in a Blaze at Japan Steel Works
May 2011
Karin Betts

The island of Hokkaido in northern Japan is home to wild lands, icy winters and snow monkeys, hot springs and volcanic plateaus. And in its industrial port city of Muroran, within the immense workshops of the hundred-year-old Japan Steel Works (JSW) plant, an equally striking scene unfolded in late 2008 as molten steel was cast into a 165- ton “saddle” that will eventually be one of six saddles to hold and guide the new East Span’s main suspension cable...

source: http://www.mtc.ca.gov/news/current_t...abrication.htm