Asian Robots

The top three countries for robot density (measured as number of industrial robots per 10,000 manufacturing workers) are all Asian - Japan (an eye popping 295), Singapore (169) and South Korea (164).

But when the regional averages are taken into consideration, Asia/Pacific falls to third place (27) behind Europe (50) and the Americas (31). This suggests that the two largest Asian countries, China and India, are way behind the curve.

When I dug a little deeper, I found 2008 numbers showing India and China significantly increased. China increased 14% from 2006 to 2007, while the industrial robot count increased by 11% in India.

See http://www.worldrobotics.org/downloads/2008_executive_summary.pdf for the full report.


http://spectrum.ieee.org/print/7012

China's piracy

China has been working toward modernizing their navy for years. Now Somalia's pirates have provided a legitimate excuse for China to flex its muscles and test foreign waters. Member nations of the U.N. Security Council have dispatched vessels to protect their commercial ships from the pirates, and they have asked fellow member, China, to assist.

The hijacking is a serious problem. Of the 100 vessels attacked off the coast of Somalia, 40 have been hijacked.

I suspect that once China enters the waters off the Horn of Africa, they will never leave. China has many African investments and trade relationships. China imports more oil from Angola than Saudi Arabia. These are relationships China wouldn't want its competitors, such as India, to enjoy too easily.

Obviously, the piracy issue is a serious problem, but I doubt China is going to leave African waters even if it is resolved.


http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/asiapcf/12/17/china.pirates/index.html