The first plane produced by a Chinese government initiative to compete in the market for large passenger jetliners has been unveiled in Shanghai.
The Commercial Aircraft Corporation of China (COMAC) showed off its twin-engine C919 in a ceremony on Monday attended by some 4,000 government officials and other guests at a hangar near the Pudong International Airport.
For China, the plane represents at least seven years of efforts in a state-mandated drive to reduce dependence on European consortium Airbus and Boeing of the United States, and even compete against them.
"China's air transport industry cannot completely rely on imports. A great nation must have its own large commercial aircraft," the country's civil aviation chief Li Jiaxiang told an audience of government and industry officials.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @01:46PM
China's domestic market is big enough to subsidize this outfit till it becomes competitive with Boeing/Airbus. Even if developed economy don't buy it (initially), they'd be able to sell at discount to developing countries.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by SanityCheck on Tuesday November 03 2015, @03:22PM
Yeah and the best part of the whole "let's ship the crappy jobs to China and then live like Kings by selling them high-end stuff" is blowing up in their face now. What do you mean the Chinese are not that stupid and are building their own cars/planes/ships/trains/industrial machines/computers/phones/everything?
We are all going to end up homeless, poor, starving, and importing Chinese everything up to and including pharmaceuticals before long. Good job "free market."
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @06:19PM
(Score: 3, Interesting) by SanityCheck on Tuesday November 03 2015, @07:32PM
Hahaha that one hits pretty close to home.
This is off-topic but at one point in my life I was so addicted to online video games that when I felt hungry in real life I would eat in the game, and that caused me not to feel hungry at least for a while. Of course it was an existence worse than death, since my addiction nearly consumed me.
But luckily I made a recovery and I'm much wiser for it, and much more understanding of other people's addictions in general.
(Score: 2) by Gravis on Tuesday November 03 2015, @11:18PM
I was so addicted to online video games that when I felt hungry in real life I would eat in the game, and that caused me not to feel hungry at least for a while.
now that is some serious escapism!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 03 2015, @10:31PM
Back in 2008, some heparin users died and it was blamed on adulterated heparin from China (processed in the USA).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Chinese_heparin_adulteration [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 2) by mendax on Tuesday November 03 2015, @09:14PM
I'm not so certain about that. The Russians still build airliners. They're reliable, veritable tanks with wings, support western avionics and engines if you want them, and are far cheaper than what Airbus and Boeing offer. The Tu-204 is an excellent case in point. But developing countries don't buy many of them. What makes you think that the Chinese are going to have any better luck in selling them. The Russians have been designing and building jet airliners for over 50 years and, like Boeing, has learned from its mistakes and knows how to build a reliable airliner. All the Chinese can show for its plane building efforts until recently is making copies of other's designs.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.