Photograph courtesy Robert Kuo
Feature: The New Superpower
May 1, 2006
The tag on your new regency-style sofa may be from an American designer, but
the increasing likelihood is that it was manufactured in China. The nation is
home to a $34 billion furniture manufacturing industry that increased 30 percent
between 2003 and 2004. Critics say China has been chipping away at what used to
be a steady American business—Appalachia, the heart of the American furniture
industry, has taken the hardest blows; it has lost more than 30 percent of its
furniture manufacturing jobs. But proponents of Chinese efficiency see the
country’s expanding role in the international industry as a positive development
in terms of dollars saved in manufacturing.
When China entered the
World Trade Organization in 2001, it agreed to treat fairly and consistently—the
WTO’s terms—both imports and exports of goods. Now ranked third in world
merchandise trade (after the U.S. and Germany) China’s exports were once limited
to electronics and plastic products that lined Wal-Mart shelves. But China has
moved into the world of furniture manufacturing with a force that some feel is
unfair: In 2004, a coalition of 26 American furniture manufacturers pressed
lawmakers to enforce antidumping legislation and impose heavy tariffs on the
billions of dollars’ worth of wooden bedroom furniture streaming into the States
from China. The influx is fundamentally changing the way American furniture
makers do business, and some are discovering how to skirt the saturation of
China-made goods by becoming as creative in their production as they are in
their designs.
Until recently, China’s main furniture exports were the
low- to mid-range wooden pieces, including ready-to-assemble items—not the
best of quality. But that is changing. “They’re competing in every style and
category,” says Jackie Hirschhaut, vice president of public relations and
marketing at the American Home Furnishings Alliance in High Point, N.C.
“You
used to believe that because it was made in China, it meant it was inferior or
second-rate or just cheap,” says Edward Tashjian, vice president of marketing
for Century Furniture Industries, Inc., in Hickory, N.C.. “But these factories
in China are multimillion-square-foot factories with state-of-the-art equipment.
For the most part, the quality’s pretty good.”
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A piece from the
collection of Los Angeles designer Robert Kuo, who relies on China’s
craftspeople for their traditional techniques. Photograph courtesy Robert Kuo. (Click image to enlarge)That Chinese factories can turn out quality pieces in days, not weeks, is only one worry for American makers; some pieces look handcrafted, or appear more expensive, in part because they are made of rubber wood, which, when properly stained, has the appearance of cherry. And some U.S. companies say knockoffs of American designs are flowing off the production lines. “We’ve seen people with digital cameras standing at our windows and taking photos of our furniture in our showroom,” says Doug Bassett, vice president of sales at Vaughan-Bassett Furniture. “We suspect that those shots are quickly finding their way to Asia where the designs have been copied.” In fact, Bassett keeps in his office a Chinese knockoff of a Vaughan-Bassett dresser—a knockoff that retails for less than the cost of materials alone in America.
“It’s not a lily-pure industry,” explains Tashjian. “It’s like the fashion couture that comes down the runway; within two or three years it’s in Kmart.” On the other hand, he says, “Everything coming out of China is a copy.”
But representatives of the Chinese furniture industry disagree. Yu Yi, marketing and planning department manager for the China Foreign Trade Guangzhou Exhibition Corp., says, “Many top players [in China] are employing designers from Germany or Italy or the U.S.. They’re not just making copies of everything to sell back.”
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