China, AliExpress, and the Global Tech Machine (Or: How I Justified Buying Another Mechanical Keyboard)
When you buy a piece of tech from AliExpress and it turns up a week or two later, it’s easy to focus on the wait. What’s harder to grasp is the scale behind that delivery — thousands of factories, entire cities built around electronics, and a logistics machine that moves billions of products out of China every year. This isn’t about cheap knock-offs anymore. It’s about how Chinese manufacturing quietly made high-quality tech accessible to almost everyone. 🧠The Engine: Manufacturing Powerhouse China has become the manufacturing centre of the world. And this isn't just about creating the product, I'm talking about from when an idea is but a fragment of your imagination in your head, to creating prototypes, and all the way to exporting the finished version. It's seriously impressive stuff. China today isn’t the “cheap knock-off” factory of the past. It’s the world’s leading exporter of manufactured goods — especially electronics and high-tech products . In 2024 alone , China...
