[stefanistheman]

Well, what goes around, comes around.

- Once upon a time, the Japanese were the ones doing the cheap imitations...

 

[BillyO]

Gimme a good old wice wocket war any day.

 

[55182]

You misspelled w-h-o-r-e

 

[42941]

and H-D wants to enter the Chinese market !

 

[vermicious]

The chinese, I believe, have considerably more animosity towards Japan than they do towards America. American goods (particularly automobiles) seem to be selling quite well in China.

 

[longride]

The Japanese must have short memories. They have the balls to complain about blatent ripoffs of other designs, and cheap quality?Hello! Remember how you guys got market share in the US? Anybody remember the 60's over there in Japan? They haven't seen the best part. Wait till those cheap ripoffs hit their shores by the boatload. Bet they'll love that. Watch protectionism take it's highest form. Then all the Harley haters can say that the only reason Honda is still in business is because the Japanese Gov protected them. And you can bet all the tea in China that the Japanese will never let any of those goods into their market. Not a chance.

 

[conchscooter]

Japan has always had the most protected market in the industrialised world. You won't have to wait to see it... As for Harley Davidson in China, the H-D brand was created years ago as a luxury anomaly and everywhere in the world people want to express their wealth with their toys- stupid but true (think Hummer/Escalade/Ferrari) and in the same way in China there will always be a market for high end symbols of wealth. People in the US don't use H-D's as daily riders (except for the vocal few) and they won't in China.

The reason Japanese rip-offs beat other brands in the 70's was that their machines were competitively priced and worked. They didn't leak oil! Wow! Nowadays Toyota/Honda command premium prices in the car market leaving poorer consumers to select their cup holders in less reliable, less valuable cars produced elsewhere. waiting to gloat over the dmeise of Japanese industry is going to be a self-defeating breath-holding contest.

 

[seruzawa]

I always chuckle at the knuckleheads who moan about the 3 years of tariffs on Japanese imports into the USA while the Japanese themselves have engaged in the most blatant protectionism of their domestic industries year after year after year.



And I'm not surprised that the Chinese are turned off by Honda's over-pricing. We have the same problem here.

 

[sarnali]

You haven't looked at any Korean cars lately have you? They pretty well own the small car/ entry level market on the West Coast and their moving up into the premium brand territory pretty quickly while their quality numbers skyrocket.



While it's true they're not at Japanese quality levels yet they've come along quite nicely in a short amount of time. Japans aging work force, sharply declining birth rates and offloading of their own manufacturing is going to cause their economy to contract sharply in the coming years.

 

[55182]

They already have pookie ...

 

[55182]

Ah, you read Marvin Wolf's stuff?

 

[43093]

So it's fine to do something wrong as long as someone else did it too? As far as Honda's pricing I will agree if you are talking cars/trucks, but their motorcycles seem to be priced only slightly higher than the other 3 of the big 4. One reason for that is Honda's have a reputation of better than average reliability. No I don't own a Honda, just stating what I believe to be the facts.

 

[seruzawa]

No, I never said it was fine. And the Japanese were in fact dumping in the USA. Many nations act when they see dumping in their markets and rightly so IMHO.



Any instances of Japanese companies whining about foreign trade protectionism by other nations should be met with gales of laughter.

 

[40524]

Well, if Japan had mounted a land invasion against your country more than once, and generally treated you like dirt, you might be a hater too...

 

[36284]

People have been salivating to get at China's "huge untapped market" for as long as I can remember, and it has always fallen short of expectations. Any product that they are still learning how to make will do fairly well for a while, and then they will produce a reasonable facsimile of it at a fraction of the price, and that will be that. Motorcycle, cars, airplanes, televisions, computers-it don't matter. Sooner or later they will learn how to make a cheap ripoff for an unbeatable price, and dominate the domestic market. Then, they will come after us, with the same kind of tactics that the Japanese used, but on ten times the scale. At least that's the way I see it.