"Cars from China ... are selling well in USA" (#48; Topic B)

Last night, CNN revealed that Ford plans to restructure (the second time in this century, the first one being in 2002). This morning, in anticipation of Ford's announcement at 10:30, NPR held a forum. One caller prefaced with: "Cars from China and Korea are selling well in USA; the American auto manufacturers are squeezed" and asked what can be done. I asked myself: What is going on? Chinese cars selling in USA? Selling well in USA? Where did this caller, who sounded intelligent, get this misinformation? Why Japanese cars, which dominate the US market, are not even mentioned? Is there an anti-China lobby looming in the background? Fortunately, the forum's resource person, New York Times's Detroit bureau chief, calmly corrected her, beginning with: "Chinese cars were exhibited for the first time in the United States in the Detroit Auto Show last week; it is called Geely" (#25). She continued to say that GM is the largest auto manufacturer in China, and that Ford plans to be the second largest -- this latter point was confirmed by Bill Ford, Ford's CEO, in his press conference at 10:30, carried live over CNBC -- Ford plans to have "a strong presence in China." Hearing this, I again ask myself: I have never heard or read that GM or Ford has a visible presence, let alone a strong presence, in Japan. Now, with GM and Ford dominating the Chinese market, and with China not having even a single car in the USA, China is already being fingered as the culprit for the weakening, if not the demise, of GM and Ford. What is going on?
Posted at 11:27 am, Monday, January 23, 2006