My bic byros have not particularly precise balls, made from not particularly hard balls. If you pop one out and wash it, you can see the surface roughness and imperfections. Some other brands of pen use glass balls!
The article seems to confirm that the issue is not, in fact, an inability to produce a ballpoint pen (tip). Rather, they could not produce a competitive high-end one:
"A year ago Premier Li Keqiang went on national television and bemoaned the failure of his country to produce a good quality version of this seemingly-simple implement.
Locally-made versions felt "rough" compared to those from Germany, Switzerland and Japan, Mr Li complained."
> Premier Li Keqiang recently made a shocking revelation about the industrial capabilities of China on national television: despite the fact that the country is widely known as the “world’s factory” and produces everything from iPhones, aircraft carriers, high-speed railways to spacecraft. Until now there is not a single manufacturer in China that is able to produce the tiny rotating ball fitted to the tip of a ball pen that disperses ink as you write.
> Each of these tiny metal balls has to be imported by Chinese pen manufacturers from overseas suppliers.
I assume the 90% figure was rounded up to "all of them", potentially by Li Keqiang himself, who was probably not interested in low-quality ballpoint pens that could be made without high-precision manufacturing equipment.
I can't find an original source for that. Maybe he said it, maybe there have been several misquotes. More anecdotally, we all know how much people like to mock Chinese manufacturing as purely copy-cat and low quality. You can almost see the glee dripping off the articles about the ballpoint. I'm pretty sure you can imagine someone with a failed ball-point saying "probably made in China". This doesn't mean it's untrue, but it does mean there's likely a bias.
It's not entirely unbelievable that they couldn't do this to a sufficient standard at all. I'm just saying it's more believable that they could, but couldn't do it to an excellent standard.
My bic byros have not particularly precise balls, made from not particularly hard balls. If you pop one out and wash it, you can see the surface roughness and imperfections. Some other brands of pen use glass balls!
I think the claim in this thread is false...