The World is Flat: Flatteners 5 & 6 questions

1. India was very lucky because they would not have been able to afford to pay for bandwidth to connect India with America, so the American shareholders paid for it. America had found out from the ITT's (Indian Institutes of Technology) how much more knowledgeable the Indians were because many came to America after graduating from an ITT. India benefited from the dot-com bust because the number of American companies that wanted to use the fiber-optic cable to outsource work to India greatly increased. India had the right number of people to get a job done in the fastest amount of time. Y2K also helped India because it gave India the ability to collaborate with Western companies through the fiber-optic networks.

2. China's joining the World Trade Organization gave the WTO a huge boost in offshoring. Companies moved their production to China, where China could employee numerous workers for low wages. By joining the WTO, China was able to do business with other countries, because under WTO rules they had to treat non-Chinese citizens or firms as if they were Chinese in terms of their economic rights and obligations under Chinese law. Foreign companies were now able sell anything anywhere in China, which they were previously not able to do before China joined the WTO.

3. China has not had as big of an impact on outsourcing as it has offshoring. When a company moves one of its factories that is operating in America, for example, to China, that is offshoring. By having a factory in China, an American company can save money and time because the Chinese can manufacture products faster and can be paid a lot less than someone would have to be paid to make the same product in America. Many countries are moving their factories to China for this reason.