Posted on 03/18/2020 7:43:03 AM PDT by Zhang Fei
In retrospect, they should have been. By the 1990s, the Germans were purchasing cheaper fabrics woven in Bulgaria and Romania. Then, they shifted their sights to China. The German customers felt pressure to find savings because enormous new retailers were carving into their businesses — brands like Zara and H&M, tapping low-wage factories in Asia.
Chinese factories were buying the same German-made machinery used by the mills in Prato. They were hiring Italian consultants who were instructing them on the modern arts of the trade.
Some companies adapted by elevating their quality. One local mill, Marini, followed the American clothing brands that were its customers as they gravitated to China, shipping its fabric there. But this was clearly the exception. From 2001 to 2011, Prato’s 6,000 textile companies became 3,000, as those employed in the industry dropped to 19,000 from 40,000, according to Confindustria, an Italian trade association.
As Prato’s factories went dark, people began arriving from China to exploit an opportunity.
Most were from Wenzhou, a coastal city famed for its entrepreneurial spirit. They took over failed workshops and built new factories. They imported fabric from China, sewing it into clothing. They cannily imitated the styles of Italian fashion brands, while affixing a valuable label to their creations — “Made in Italy.”
Today, more than a tenth of the city’s 200,000 inhabitants are Chinese immigrants here legally, plus, by varying estimates, perhaps 15,000 who lack proper documents.
Chinese groceries and restaurants have emerged to serve the local population. On the outskirts of the city, Chinese-owned warehouses overflow with racks of clothing destined for street markets in Florence and Paris.
Among Italian textile workers who have veered to the right, the arrival of the Chinese tends to get lumped together with African migration as an indignity that has turned Prato
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Just like racist or homophobe or sexist, these people have used it so much that it means nothing anymore.
There hasn’t been anyone even moderately right in Italy since the early fifties.
what a coincidence!
Good post.
[...aaaaaand this is the region of Italy where the first cases of Wuhan Flu appeared.
what a coincidence! ]
The container ship’s contribution to the cheap ocean transportation of goods, in parallel with rapid air transport, means that buyers (and diseases) can cross continents in the time span of a single day. In the tangible goods business, there is no substitute for personal inspection.
Italy - China connection - bump for later.....
“Oddly enough coincidence” would be more significant if German Patient Zero were the tip of an epidemiological pyramid. But even a medical layman’s common sense suggests that there were numerous first-generation vectors of contagion. Therefore, the story of Chinese textile workers remains valid.
Just a short observation - Germany has a very rich and colorful history with great saints, philosophers, scientists, and entrepreneurs. For about 12 years of their history, an egomaniac and Satanist was able to take over the country, and within 1-2 years, establish the Third Reich, killing and imprisoning everyone who disagreed with them or tried to counter their hateful propaganda. We all know how that turned out. Millions of people, such as Jews, Gypsies, and Poles, died in concentration camps and in otherwise horrible conditions. Germany now is the permanent target of news media and others who demonize their entire population and history.
China has been a communist nation which imprisons, executes and terrorizes their citizens with forced abortions - for over 72 years.
Evil is evil - and we must not ever forget or sugar-coat it. So, why do so many think they can continue to identify all of Germany and all of her citizens because of a 12-year period of time? Germany is now a democracy.
US unions are drooling.
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