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The programme I watched was the Paul Holmes interview with the Morgans of TradeMe fame.

Sam's parents are thoroughly entertaining folks with just enough eccentricity to make their stories quite captivating and Garreth has proven himself to be a pretty savvy guy when it comes to matters financial so I was quite interested to hear his comments on China.

Once upon a time, the only "china" in most Kiwi houses was the crockery in the plate cupboard -- and even that was more likely to have been made locally -- my how things have changed!

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A while back, I wrote a column about how the Chinese invasion of our consumer electronics market was well underway -- and nothing much has changed except that the invasion has picked up a little more speed.

It was interesting therefore to hear Garreth Morgan effectively say that China looks set to become the next economic superpower.

There can be no doubt that the Chinese have come from nowhere to already achieve the position as the world's leading supplier of consumer products, in just a very few short years.

Stephen Tindal, along with Briscoes, Mitre 10 and a raft of other discount retailers have all done their bit to hike the amount of chinaware in our lives but it seems we're not complaining.

Sure, a lot of Chinese product is shoddy and only has a limited lifetime but it's cheap and many Kiwis just love cheap.

China is rapidly advancing beyond the "cheap and nasty" phase of its economic development however, and now even hyper-critical services such as the maintenance of Air NZ's passenger jet fleet is being outsourced to them.

Sure, you can still buy real crap with the "Made in China" sticker on it but quality products are also starting to appear out of this country - and that ought to be worrying countries such as the USA, Japan and New Zealand.

While Western industrialised nations think they're in control of technology standards and developments, China is quietly working away -- sending its best and brightest to be educated in countries such as the USA and NZ and developing a highly skilled workforce to augment its serf-labourers.

They're talking about sending rockets to the moon for goodness sake!

If you could buy shares in a country, I'd suggest that China would be a good investment right now. Their GDP is growing at an enormous rate, their workers are (according to Garreth Morgan) optimistic and enthused about the future (which means they'll work damned hard for bugger all) and every other country in the world is lining up to buy their well-priced exports.

In fact, given the size of the US national debt (much of which is owed to China), it won't be long before they're able to just turn up and say "sorry, get out, we own you now". There'd be no need for a war -- the accountants would just do the math and figure out that America owes more than it's worth.

Back in NZ, the Greens are pushing for government and regular folks to buy NZ first -- and that's not a bad idea. It ensures that our manufacturers have a strong local market and helps to control our burgeoning trade deficit.

The problem is that we've already lost many of the industries that the Chinese are so good at. Can you buy Kiwi-made consumer electronics any more? I think not.

But would you be prepared to pay a premium of (say) 30% to buy Kiwi-made versions of the goods in your house that currently bear the "Made in China" label?

Should we even bother to try? Or are we better off just keep importing the stuff that China makes cheap and focus on just those niche markets where NZ is actually competitive in the global marketplace?

Do a quick count up -- how many things in you can see from where you are now sitting actually carry the "Made in China" label? Does it worry you?

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