Why China Couldn’t Make a Ballpoint Pen Until 2017

Despite assembling billions of ballpoint pens each year, it wasn't until 2017 that China was able to make its own working ballpoint pen. Here's why.

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[Bk]

They were imported from Germany and Japan so there no need to innovate. It was the government of China that forced the manufacturers to develop the ballpoint pen.

[ninepointsix_mug]

1:58 I can’t agree more. As a Chinese, I always use ballpoint pens like Bic or Schneider ones, with beloved viscous ballpoint ink. Those ballpoint pens work WAY MORE THAN perfectly. However, all my classmates, in middle school or in university, use KNOCKOFF gel pens. As a pen aficionado, I can’t figure out which part of those knockoffs causes them not to work but I assume it’s the sockets. 0.5mm points are harder to make than 1.0-plus I’ve been using, and they just make those 0.5mm ones with worse technology.

[Emoechaiti]

2:48 by this logic USA should have been the largest producer of ball point pens lol

[gunsroses]

The reason why no one in China is willing to develop ballpoint pen refills is very simple. Its market is too small, and the profits cannot cover the R&D investment, so it is better to buy them directly.

[charleskwok]

I know commenting here is going to get me nothing but attacks. But twisting partial truth into smearing campaign only proves that this video either:
1. Didn't bother to do any research, just regurgitate something that has been circulating on the web
2. Intentionally mislead viewers because such topics attract attention and therefore view counts

Yes, manufacturing ball point tip roller ball is a high precision process that China was unable to do so decades ago, therefore China had to import it. When China finally had the capability to manufacture it, it was in fact the free market capitalism that determined not to develop the technology and manufacturing processes to produce it domestically, because the investment overhead will cost so much (remember it really is a high precision manufacturing process ) profit margin so thin and the product costs so little to import that it is impractical to do so from free market capitalism point of view. So some media outlet picked up on this and started to say China is so backward that they can't produce a ball point tip roller ball. This "piece of news" got spread in China and the Chinese people became outrage that China was so lousy. Some felt insulted while others felt ashamed, some even blame the political system for China being such a failure. When Beijing caught wind of this online outrage, it became a national pride project instead of market freedom. The central government decided that this must be produced domestically regardless of the cost. Like the video said, it was done successfully. But now the overseas producers are not happy, because China is able to produce it in lower cost and even better in quality, they lost the huge China market and their global market share has shrunk dramatically, due to the awakening of the sleeping giant of a competitor. Well, they have the western media who simply wanted to insult China to thank for.

Whatever version you want to believe is up to you. Wisdom tells us to view everything from all sides before making any judgement. Thank you for reading thus far.

[GreyerShade]

Ive dealt with the Chinese academically and in business and they're a drone hivemind. Some of them literally lack ALL CAPACITY for imaginative thought. Their manufacturing is unreal. Give them the parts and they can crank our billions of them 24/7. But hand them a blank sheet and ask them ti design something brand new and its very difficult for many of them. No incentives for original thought as a drone. The collective frowns on ANYONE who thinks outside the box. Were on the 3rd-4th generation of drone. Imagination and expression are important for a reason. Communism/socialism chokes that out of humans.

[SundayMatinee]

From the standpoint of dictators and oligarchies, the problem with giving the power to the people is that it gives the power to the people.

[grdainylung]

Its crazy, they invented paper 2000 years ago but cant make a pen until recently 😂😂

[musafawundu]

Following the logic of prioritizing the market isn't always the best thing...

[Mayangone]

I remember using GSA issued ball pens. They were terrible. Ink flooded the ball and smeared all over.

[benthurber]

1- How do we know they actually did it and not just rebranded the German ones?
2- The technical know-how to build such insanely precise parts does, indeed, take years to develop.
3- That development is completely wasted if not immediately transfered over to developing ballbearings. (A thing that is *actually* critical to a country's production and maintenance, and has no substitute like a pencil.)
4- Only for an authoritarian regime did this represent any real problem that needed to be "solved." No one in the rest of the world particularly cared until the CCP pointed out their own insecurity over it. Then we jumped on it like a pack of dogs on a 3-legged cat, because the CCP has earned the world's derision.)

So, I have no idea how much money the Chinese government threw at this in order to fix this embarrassment, but it represents another misallocation of capital. The numbers I have to work with say they make 38 billion pens a year and that the savings would be $17.3M a year... that's a savings of $0.00046 per unit...
Yes, less than one-half, of one-tenth, of. One. Cent. Per. Pen.

Think I'll pay an extra penny for the German tips, thank you.

[leeo]

Actually free market capitalism would not have encourage the development of that tech because import of much cheaper. CCP prioritize it because of National strategic interest and subsidize the research development cost.

[gamer]

It’s funny how videos like this make it seem like everyone else can make ballpoint pen and China’s the only country that can’t until recently. The reality is now China is one of the three countries, along with Switzerland and Japan, who are capable of making these from scratch. Not even the US can make ballpoint pen heads.

[whatsup]

Sexual revolution of 1960s would u explore that topic

[jsudduy]

well they won't have works to make ballpen now

[ppazpppaz]

What a crap website, there is only a handful of countries that can make ball point pens, and you guessed it, most countries that can't make ball point pens are capitalist.

[bharatavarsha]

Damn, that's some serious shit 🔥

[angelfrias]

China might have cheap fast labor but they are really behind in bieng innovation

[jkonior]

This is a great lesson on why communism fails.

[youraverageoperator]

That's really weird. Also, great beard