59 ms·

Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

• Holmes 7y ago
  More of this--mercantilism for all!
• alexandernst 7y ago
  A step in the right direction!
• jennyyang 7y ago
  At the very least, medical supplies and drugs manufacturing will get pulled back into each country. The 3M spat between Canada and the US makes it abundantly clear that in a time of true crisis, you can't even trust your closest friends when something terrifying happens to the world like this pandemic. Whether it means all manufacturing will move away from China or if it means that they will spread it globally, is an interesting question. China will have more incidents of pandemics for sure, because they haven't learned from the last one, and they won't learn from this one. It's certainly less efficient to have the same products being produced everywhere, but maybe ruthless efficiency isn't good for the world or its citizens, especially when it comes to income inequality.
  • remarkEon 7y ago
    Got a link detailing what happened between Canada and the US? My understanding of the 3M debacle is that they use a distributor model for their consumables, and essentially "wash their hands" of what their distributors do once they have product in hand - and in the 3M case, the PPE was just going to the highest bidder, regardless of national origin.
    • cmrdporcupine 7y ago
      Not at all applicable in this case. Some federal authorities in the US attempted to halt some 3 million (or 500,000 depending on reports, it seems) purchased shipments destined for Canada from 3M. It was only the intervention at the highest level of the Canadian government that stopped this. It's worth pointing out that without Canadian nurses from Windsor who cross the border every day to work in Detroit hospitals, the healthcare system in Detroit wouldn't function. Or that apparently the pulp used to make the 3M masks comes from softwood from British Columbia. I'm sure Chrystia Freeland made these points and many others abundantly clear when she got on the phone with the Trump administration.
      • Mountain_Skies 7y ago
        Which is why Canada keeps losing. Canada loses more than the U.S. does it they stop exporting pulpwood. The U.S. can replace Canadian forestry products easily. Canada can't find a new buyer so easily. Detroit makes up one fifth of one percent of the US population. Windsor nurses aren't going to set national policy for the United States. Chrystia Freeland keeps bargaining from positions of absurd weakness and gets the expected results. Not sure why any Canadian likes her but maybe they care more about the perception of eye poking than actual productive results for the Canadian public.
        • cmrdporcupine 7y ago
          Having 1/10th the population of the United States, and correspondingly smaller economy, puts us in a weak position no matter what. I never voted Liberal, never have, but honestly, Freeland is decent. Trudeau's dad said it best, to Nixon, in 1969: "Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt," said the late Pierre Trudeau.
      • petertodd 7y ago
        The N95 masks are made out of plastic, not pulp. I looked into the pulp claim, and it's true that pulp is used to make some types of lesser surgical masks. But there's no reason to think there is anything all that special about that pulp - it could be sourced from the US too at somewhat higher cost.
  • muro 7y ago
    Taleb describes this well: globalism allows for optimization (cost, efficiency), but increases risk. To reduce risk, add redundancy (locally).
    • te_chris 7y ago
      Sorry, trying not to nitpick, but you mean Globalisation, not globalism.
    • elliekelly 7y ago
      In some ways it decreases risk though, too. The risk of war, specifically. The US and Chinese governments are far from friends but our economies are much too interconnected to allow either side to instigate too much of a disagreement. For the most part globalization is good but the pandemic has certainly highlighted the value of strategic redundancy or at least an emergency plan B.
      • TeMPOraL 7y ago
        Isn't WWI the usual counterargument to globalization reducing the risk of war? Or were the countries back then not interconnected enough?
        • elliekelly 7y ago
          That's a good point. Perhaps globalization alone only marginally reduces the risk and it's the combination of globalization + trust (or at least not mistrust) that reduces the likelihood of war. If that's the case then the US government's efforts to take supplies away from some of our closest allies is even more dangerous and short-sighted than I initially thought. A month ago I would have said a mask factory in Canada vs. US is nearly equal in terms of national security because Canada could be trusted to help in a time of crisis. I'm sure many Canadians felt the same way. Now I'm not so sure that's true and I certainly don't blame the Canadians.
        • vkou 7y ago
          No shortage of ink was spilled on the wishful thinking that globalization will prevent future wars... All through the 1910s.
  • wendyshu 7y ago
    Trade barriers, price controls, stimulus, etc. -- remarkable how fast economic liberalism goes out the window in a crisis.
    • cmrdporcupine 7y ago
      What I get from this is it's remarkable how inept the model established by 'economic liberalism', with its just-in-time delivery and 'globalized production to cheapest labour zone' is at delivering on people's real needs in time of crisis. It's amazing how quickly the very proposition that we can get by without any state-level macroeconomic planning, -- and that the free market organically produces superior results -- is shown to be an ideological fantasy the moment s*hit hits the fan, with bare shelves and missing medical equipment and millions set to be without health insurance in the US... My opinion: States that retain some capacity of a planned economy will do better in scenarios like this. And with climate change becoming more serious, there will be more of these kinds of crisis.
      • vkou 7y ago
        > What I get from this is it's remarkable how inept the model established by 'economic liberalism', with its just-in-time delivery and 'globalized production to cheapest labour zone' is at delivering on people's real needs in time of crisis. Indeed. The PPE/toilet paper/tasting kit/flour shortages are becoming farcical at this point. It feels like the Soviet Union, where wonderful pronouncements about the plenitude of _______ are made, but then you discover otherwise at the grocery, or the doctor. Of course, in 2020, the solution to these problems is rationing. It's almost as if rationing is the only way to solve these kinds of shortages. But since the rationing is per-shopping visit, people just hoard by hitting up multiple stores in one shopping trip...
      • dorgo 7y ago
        > with bare shelves yes, this is a mystery. Free market should have fixed that. Even if the last roll of toilet paper would cost $1000000 the shelf should not be empty. Is the price regulated in some way?
  • FooBarWidget 7y ago
    > China will have more incidents of pandemics for sure, because they haven't learned from the last one, and they won't learn from this one. I disagree. They took many months to report SARS to WHO, yes. But this time, reporting to WHO took ~5 days. It was discovered by dr Zhang Jixian on Dec 26, then reported to WHO on Dec 31. Then it took them about another week to sequence the genome and share it with the world. Plus the whole lockdown shows that they obviously made plans beforehand. The difference is huge. Take a look at this timeline by the American Medical Association: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2762130 We've now been able to trace the earliest case back to November, but nobody knew about it until late December, so that doesn't count as cover-up. It wasn't good enough, that's true. And before human-to-human transmission was confirmed, they should have been a bit faster, though I would argue they couldn't have been much more faster than about a week or two. Mistakes definitely have been made, and it still isn't good enough, but "they haven't learned and they won't learn" is quite simply not true, and is more based on prejudice than fact.
    • TeMPOraL 7y ago
      > Plus the whole lockdown shows that they obviously made plans beforehand. And the hospitals. Not even China can just one day decide, out of the blue, to build two large-scale specialized hospitals in 10 days. Having that capability requires recognizing the need for it and preparing beforehand - which is another thing they've learned from the past pandemics.
    • not_exactly__ 7y ago
      > But this time, reporting to WHO took ~5 days. It was discovered by dr Zhang Jixian on Dec 26, then reported to WHO on Dec 31. False. It took much longer than five days. The WHO was indeed notified on the 31st but the Chinese government organs knew about this long before. First CCTV report that I recall was around the 15th. First confirmed cases were early December. There’s even US intel reports dating back to November. But when this started, the Chinese system did what the Chinese system always does: try to save face and pretend all is okay. I do not share any optimism that this trait will change especially given the crushing blows to press freedom in the last ten years.
  • tomp 7y ago
    To be honest, I don't understand what efficiency gains this kind of globalization was supposed to bring anyways... A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. Obviously, cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency, (1) more a question of fairness, (2) can be done domestically (low-cost immigrant workers) and (3) there's plenty of cheap workers worldwide, not just in China. Another potential advantage could be, factories are closer to natural resources, but it seems to me that that's not as much a question of efficiency, as it is of lax (enforcement of) environmental standards. Which I personally don't see as a net gain, even if it results in cheaper production. The only real advantage I can see is concentration of skill - e.g. people say that you basically have to develop electronics in Shenzhen, there's simply not enough talent in the US and EU - but I wonder if the efficiency gains are offset by innovation losses. Again, IMO it would be better to have a local high-skilled population of engineers & entrepreneurs.
    • chosenbreed37 7y ago
      > The only real advantage I can see is concentration of skill - e.g. people say that you basically have to develop electronics in Shenzhen, there's simply not enough talent in the US and EU - but I wonder if the efficiency gains are offset by innovation losses. Again, IMO it would be better to have a local high-skilled population of engineers & entrepreneurs. There are probably advantages for many large corporations. e.g. Nike, Apple. Design in the US, manufacture in China (or equivalent), reap profits in the US What perhaps we should be thinking about is the second order effects of unfettered globalization. In the good times we only see the advantages. Ultimately, it looks like it is better to have some redundancy (in certain areas/sectors at least) to be able to deal with situations like these
      • jbay 7y ago
        Why do the design in the US? Chinese engineers are doing great designs themselves, and for less than American salaries... And they can visit right there on the factory floor, talking to the manufacturers directly about how to make their designs, in the same time zone and the same language... Are US engineers imagining the same ideas about being irreplaceable that an earlier generation of American machinists, tool-and-die experts, and manufacturing workers also did?
  • mc32 7y ago
    There was a spat btwn Sweden and France too. A Swedish company kept masks in a French warehouse and wanted to ship them home because they finally needed them. France blocked it till it eventually relented.
    • Mirioron 7y ago
      To explain: a Swedish company warehoused millions of masks in France. Two million of these masks (million each) were supposed to be sent to Spain and Italy. France had confiscated all of these masks. It took two weeks of pressure by Sweden (and other EU countries) for them to release the masks and for them to finally be sent to Spain and Italy.
  • justin66 7y ago
    > The 3M spat between Canada and the US makes it abundantly clear that in a time of true crisis, you can't even trust your closest friends when something terrifying happens to the world like this pandemic. I think the Canadians worked that out a few years ago when the Trump administration declared Canadian steel a security threat to the United States so they could impose trade restrictions in contravention of our treaty obligations.
    • magicsmoke 7y ago
      The last time Canada had a military backstop against the US was when the British empire was still around, back in the 1920s when stuff like War Plan Red and Defence Scheme No. 1 was floating around about how a US-Canada/British war would play out. After WW2 and the collapse of the British empire, Canada had no military last resort against the US. 100 years is a hell of a long time to develop Stockholm syndrome. To be fair, before WW2 Canada was a protectorate of Britain as well. Such is the fate of smaller players on the world stage.
  • obmelvin 7y ago
    Absolutely. For example, companies in New Zealand are pursuing a coronavirus vaccine. Do you think they really doubt the willingness of Moderna [0] (Boston based biotech company) to sell them the vaccine if it is successful? I'd be willing to bet that no, the primary concern is how long they would have to wait to buy it. [0] Arbitrary choice, replace with anyone who gets a vaccine past trials
  • Mountain_Skies 7y ago
    People have friends, countries do not. The country that doesn't understand this sets up its own misery. Also no government that wants to remain in power is going to ship out goods that are already in short supply in their own country. Excess goods of course will continue to be traded for economic benefit.
  • Nasrudith 7y ago
    We have seen a lot of talk about a single point of failure but localizing the manufacturing isn't a pancaea by any means as they also shut down during pandemics. The only things immune are automated and unable to be contaminated. Also technically it is better for income inequality in global terms if it converges to a global median. That is why so many hate it because they are the ones with their ox gored by reduced inequity and they don't even consider themselves that rich! I recognize that is a glib and misleading truth in many ways given PPI differences mean that a salary to be locally comfortable in one locale could lead to homeless starvation in another, that inequality exists both locally and globally. It is more a note about the irony than any statement of morals.
    • mbrameld 7y ago
      > localizing the manufacturing isn't a pancaea by any means as they also shut down during pandemics But you eliminate other failure modes related to the pandemic that don't involve the plant physically not operating due to worker sickness or curve-flattening measures. If Canada produces their own masks then the US can't take them.
    • int_19h 7y ago
      In this pandemic, we aren't shutting down things that are deemed essential - and any manufacturing facilities used in pandemic response would, of course, also be essential. Whereas the current state of affairs is that China just stops exporting masks, and there's nothing we can do about it.
  • arkades 7y ago
    No, it won't. Speaking as someone who is currently spending his days sourcing medical equipment for his medical center: the cheapest US-based face shield costs nearly 3x what the average face shield in China does (the most expensive US face shield is >10x). Even with shipping hiccoughs and the desire to buy American, I can't justify purchasing 1/3 the personal protective equipment.
    • nn3 7y ago
      In the current situation they probably don't have a lot of incentive to lower prices. But the question is: how much premium would you be willing to pay for a local supplier? If the american company was "only" 50% more expensive, would it work out after the pandemic?
      • arkades 7y ago
        Probably not? I mean, as a personal consumer, yes - I'd pay a premium on my own products to buy American. I do, in fact, do that when it's an option. As an organizational representative, though, that's iffier. Healthcare reimbursement is pretty heavily regulated (most of the wild price fluctuation you see has to do with numbers used for public-facing negotiations, not the contracted rates we actually ever get paid.) The only way we get by is by minimizing costs; we can't really increase revenue effectively, except by increasing volume of services. As it is, operating margins in hospitals tend to run at about 2% - it's razor, razor thin. Upping expenses 50% on "critical" items (which for us is, you know, a huge proportion of our stuff) would put us out of business. It's not something we can do unilaterally. Either it has be funded through an increase in funding earmarked for that, or something equivalent.
  • nswest23 7y ago
    Or we could all just prepare for pandemics the way we’re supposed to. Otherwise moving manufacturing will be a band aid at best.
  • theseadroid 7y ago
    I disagree that China has not learned from the last one: https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2020/jan/23/china-coronavirus-sars-cover-up-beijing-disease-dissent https://www.theguardian.com/global/commentisfree/2020/jan/23... https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0771-1 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0771-1
  • Holmes 6y ago
    What they should do is come up with a trade pact for countries outside China and increase production there. Sort of like a Pacific-wide partnership...
• tren-hard 7y ago
  So Japanese companies move operations to China because it's cheaper, leaving Japanese jobs behinds. Those businesses profit from cheap labor, emissions, and materials. Now Japan is subsidizing their return to Japan with $2.2 billion. I really hope the US doesn't adopt this (narrator: they will). It's a slap in the face to tax payers.
  • ShinTakuya 7y ago
    While I agree in part that it's not fair, I would argue against the idea that jobs were lost in Japan. Maybe temporarily lost, but in the end economically you end up finding another way to contribute value and be paid. Moreover the companies can't be blamed for taking the most profitable route. It's up to the governments to regulate.
    • hahamrfunnyguy 7y ago
      I disagree. Many of the jobs that left Japan and the United States in the 80's and 90's are not coming back - they've already been replaced by robots. This is just the tip of the iceberg. Cashiers, accountants and drivers are all being replaced by robots and automated systems. These jobs are going away and aren't going to be replaced by a comparable entry-level job. This automation is picking up pace now and will only continue.
      • lgleason 7y ago
        If that was truly the case it would be cheaper to have manufacturing locally, vs shipping things across the world from China.
        • pretendscholar 7y ago
          Its difficult because japan is not a resource region country. They don't want to reshore production because its costly to source all of the materials they need.
          • 7y ago
• jackinloadup 7y ago
  One brick on the road out of CCP's China.
• brianbreslin 7y ago
  I would be shocked if we don't see more countries fund similar packages. This won't destroy China's production capabilities but will give them less leverage over everyone else.
• systemvoltage 7y ago
  Actually this pandemic has shown some true colors of many nations. 1) US trying to unsuccessfully hoard supplies, issues with the German testing company 2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. 3) European countries are in-fighting for supplies. Switzerland wants supplies from Germany who is unwilling to supply them. Austria and Germany butt heads. 4) India banning critical medical exports There are so many stories of how each nation is behaving. Even within the US, states are bidding against each other and the federal government has not shown solid leadership. When times are grim, humans tend to invoke strong tribal instincts (for e.g. brotherhood that forms between soldiers). If we hypothetically had a more deadly virus than Coronavirus, say with a CFR of 50% and we were unable to stop it, there would be in-fighting between counties and neighborhoods. There are some good stories too, especially the sacrifice of the healthcare workers, delivery staff and politicians. When times are great -> Globalism When times are tough -> Isolation and tribalism
  • hkmurakami 7y ago
    I personally enjoyed the hypocrisy of China initially requesting Nations to not "overreact" and close borders to its travelers (mid February), then proceeding to do exactly this towards these same nations (mid March) when things became worse overseas.
    • philliphaydon 7y ago
      During Swine Flu outbreak in 2009 china closed it's borders to Mexico, but turns around and says it's unfair when people close their borders to china. Then proceeded to close their borders AGAIN. facepalm
      • Medicalidiot 7y ago
        SARS happened in 2002-2004, no?
        • 7y ago
• henearkr 7y ago
  I'm surprised that Japan's government is feeling this as a priority right now... There are no problems for goods importation between Japan and China now, and as in China the pandemics has been largely reduced, there should not be in the near future neither. PS: Japan and more precisely Tokyo is on the brink to imitate the human tragedy of Italy and US, so maybe they could vote some different budgets for now... (like, BUYING TESTS) PPS: economical decoupling is typically building the path for war, instead of reinforcing cooperation. Humanity needs to cooperate to progress swiftly, and the more there are wars the more the efforts of everybody are wasted (or worse destroy others). psst: for people downvoting, I'd love your counter-arguments
  • numpad0 7y ago
    From my personal Japanese perspective the issue is clear: the situation isn’t tangibly horrible, so the higher up politicians aren’t amused. They’re feeling underwhelmed, betrayed even, that the experts they think who represent the virus are still demanding more out of the government.
    • henearkr 7y ago
      Yes, exactly. How can we teach them "to fscking look 10 days from now on the graph!"... It feels like they are used to gambling thinking "oh look, the new cases are slightly reduced today, so there is maybe no problem!". A failure to understand simple modeling and statistics.
  • chvid 7y ago
    You are correct but in this situation there is fear and anger which leads to isolationist policies. The path out of this, both the handling of the virus and the economic fallout, is more corporation and trade. For Japan it means more trade with China as it is dependent both on Chinese supply and Chinese demand. I think the policies will be walked back or just become overshadowed and insignificant.
    • henearkr 7y ago
      I am disappointed that only people who agree with me want to present their arguments :)
• knowaveragejoe 7y ago
  Reducing dependence on China is a good idea. A single point of failure leads to a lot of the problems we're experiencing now. However that doesn't mean we should abandon global trade or the movement of people. Isolationism isn't the lesson we should be learning from this whole mess.
  • dchichkov 7y ago
    It is difficult to compete with a strategic program like "Made in China 2025". We'll see. I'd guess, no change - the subsidy program in China will remain largest and most competitive, market will seeks subsidies of the largest program. The externalities, like the single point of failure that you've pointed out, will be ignored.
    • magicsmoke 7y ago
      The subsidies from Made in China 2025 won't be going to foreign companies since it's supposed fund Chinese companies and domestic innovation so they can have replacements for foreign tech IP. There should be no reason for the international market to think they can get some of that money.
      • dchichkov 7y ago
        The subsidies are used by foreign companies, by purchasing products subsidized by Made in China programs.
      • aianus 7y ago
        > There should be no reason for the international market to think they can get some of that money. Unless the Chinese companies receiving the subsidies are barred from exporting their products, then the global market will buy those subsidized products and global unsubsidized competitors will suffer. You are not allowed to export state subsidized products per WTO rules.
        • reaperducer 7y ago
• bedhead 7y ago
  Trump has a limitless number of flaws (I didn't vote for him) but goddamn has he been prescient about Chinese trade, their never-ending shenanigans (hacking, spying, stealing, anti-competitive actions), and bringing back manufacturing and supply chain jobs back. I'm glad to see other countries wake up to this, even if it's without the fanfare of Trump. Let China make plastic toys and other nonessentials, the rest I'd be happy to see come home even if it meant higher prices - think of it as the cost of an embedded insurance policy.
  • TazeTSchnitzel 7y ago
    He wasn't prescient: he gets his ideas from Fox News and conservative ideologues, and if he made any prophecies, they were self-fulfilling, because his administration has intentionally created the current circus around China.
    • bedhead 7y ago
      Nice try - he's been saying this for literally decades. I used to think it was stupid too. Not so much anymore. I expect a mountain of downvotes for simply saying Trump has been right...
• guug 7y ago
  Even if japan (or any other country) manages to pull production back within its boarders, wouldn't China still be more competitive due to cheaper labor/supply chain costs? IMO, the reason why companies outsourced their production to china still holds today. Companies pulling out will be at a competitive disadvantage against companies who don't.
  • camhenlin 7y ago
    That ought to depend on how heavily the Japanese government is willing to subsidize them
  • mc32 7y ago
    It may be that rather than put all production eggs in the China basket, advanced economies diversify both by having domestic production and having a diversified global production basket.
  • lgleason 7y ago
    Factor in the cost of the pandemic, and the question becomes is it worth it for that cheap TV etc.?
  • reaperducer 7y ago
    Even if japan (or any other country) manages to pull production back within its boarders, wouldn't China still be more competitive due to cheaper labor/supply chain costs? Not everyone makes purchasing decisions based on price alone. My wife is into vintage things as a hobby. She says the demand for anything "made in USA" has gone through the roof in the last five years simply because people don't want to support China anymore. Even used Made in Mexico, Taiwan, and Hong Kong items have seen a surge. The trick is to move that view of China as a bad option from a subset of people to the majority of people. Her full-time work is in retail, and she says people will happily pay 3x the price for "Made in Italy" items instead of "Made in China." China knows this, which is why it has factories in both the E.U. and the United States filled with Chinese laborers churning things out so they can be labeled "Made in {$anywhere_but_China}."
    • 7y ago
• camhenlin 7y ago
  This is a really smart move on Japan's part and hopefully other countries quickly follow suit with more substantial sums of money. $2.2B isn't going to go very far, but pumping trillions in to local manufacturing might, and would also act as a decent stimulus for local economies. Any products that can be manufactured domestically, or might suffer from shortages during global pandemics or other worldwide issues, need to be manufactured domestically. This ought to be pretty obvious at this point. We should be using this opportunity to determine which must have manufacturing capabilities locally, making that happen, then sticking to it long term for national defense. This doesn't just apply to Japan, or the US, but every country on the globe. Global supply chains are really showing their weaknesses over the last couple months. Additionally, anything that countries can do to pry away CCP control of global supply chains should be done, with a long term goal of weakening the CCP as they have certainly shown they can't be trusted. They can't be trusted by their people, they can't be trusted by other nations. They've shown now multiple times they will do everything that they can to cover up growing pandemics within their boarders, hide actual infection and death numbers, downplay problems, silence whistleblowers, and lie. Beyond that, they continue to support genocide inside their own boarders, and they continue their aggressive expansion in the South China Sea. They are a bad actor.
• duxup 7y ago
  I approve of decentralizing a lot of these critical things. I do think that unweaving the weave and actually keeping these industries competitive / efficient at home ... will be an incredibly difficult task.
• _wldu 7y ago
  The USA really needs to stop rewarding the quarterly profit driven stock market approach to management. It's the same thing that caused Boeing to build bad airplanes and the same thing that causes companies to build insecure software. We need to get back to engineers and architects (who actually know what they are doing) making decisions and building solid solutions and products. Companies can be reasonably profitable and have sound products and software too without farming everything out to the cheapest bidder of the week.
  • virmundi 7y ago
    I don’t think this was ever a real thing. DC-10 had terrible problems. When you bought a car in the 50-60s you’d have a notepad in the car and write down the issues you found. You’d then have warranty work. I agree with your goals but let’s not get into a Make America Great Again mindset.
  • jtdev 7y ago
    We must start asking: is this good for the bottom line and the country. Fiduciaries, including business executives are currently required to do everything within the law to maximize profits for shareholder - even if that means doing things that are bad for the country in the long term. The current "race to the bottom" approach seems like a great way to run a country into the ground - which is now on spectacular display as we see the impacts of relying on an authoritarian, communist regime for PPE and many other essentials.
    • greedo 7y ago
      This fiduciary responsibility is often brought up, but is largely inaccurate. Many companies, quite legally, do things that don't contribute to the bottom line, and in fact may damage it. And the courts have been fairly lenient in ruling in these companies favor.
  • finolex1 7y ago
    Easy to say now. How many people would be willing (and able) to pay, say, 20% more for an iPhone?
• LatteLazy 7y ago
  Every country needs to distance themselves from China until they sort out their food hygiene laws and they prove they can handle epidemics without lying. I have no problem with the Chinese people. But their government caused this and then lied to make it worse. You can't keep trading with someone like that. Add in the treatment of minorities and the lack of progress towards democracy or rule of law, and they're basically North Korea with a working economy...
  • elchief 7y ago
    It's not just the laws they need to figure out. Domestic pangolin use is illegal, so they just illegally import it
    • ed_balls 7y ago
      It's unsolvable problem. People will go to wet markets in Myanmar on a trip. The only way out is an antiviral that is cheap, safe and effective.
    • LatteLazy 7y ago
      It baffles me. China has zero issue eliminating the slightest threat to the party. From book sellers in Hong Kong to religious minorities to the great firewall, no job too big, no threat too small. But apparently eliminating wet markets was unpopular and thats a no no. It worked when they did it after SARS. It saved a shit tonne of lives, it brought them one step closer to being a first world nation. But now its impossible and undemocratic? I don't know why they won't do this. But it's "won't", not "can't". And to me, that's unacceptable.
      • aianus 7y ago
        > I don't know why they won't do this The number of Chinese (still a minority) that want to eat exotic meats greatly outnumber the Chinese who want to read dissident books or use Twitter instead of Weibo. Censorship is not very unpopular there, but diet restrictions would be.
• jorblumesea 7y ago
  Easier said than done, given that the Chinese government is pretty much writing blank checks to attract, retain and gather just about every form of IP and manufacturing processes known. You see the same thing with 5G, where the goals of the Chinese government isn't so much to produce a price competitive product but crush global competition in the marketplace by whatever means possible. How can you compete with subsidies so heavy it's basically free? The game they're playing isn't free market.
  • throw_m239339 7y ago
    > How can you compete with subsidies so heavy it's basically free? Well we need to acknowledge the treat that is China first and foremost, which is hard for a entire generation of people who grew up addicted to China cheap goods. China is a (bloody) dictatorship, they can plan a global strategy 50 years in advance. Our western countries are weak because of political whims and are unable to trace a clear strategy because we have been all about short term profit for 40 years now.
    • Analemma_ 7y ago
      > they can plan a global strategy 50 years in advance. Our western countries are weak because of political whims and are unable to trace a clear strategy because we have been all about short term profit for 40 years now. This sort of alarmism about "our enemies are outmaneuvering us with long-term planning while we only pay attention to the immediate future" is common, but historically these predictions have never panned out. Go back and read Michael Crichton's Rising Sun sometime, he goes on and on for pages with arguments totally isomorphic to yours: Japan is going to take over the world because of their crafty long-term planning and investment, etc. It was published in 1992, at which point the Japanese bubble had already burst and Japan entered a period of stagnation that continues to this day. People said the same thing about Germany in the 70's, the Soviet Union in the 60's, and on and on. Der mentsh trakht un got lakht.
• mikechen233 7y ago
  Just today telsa sold 10000 cars in the Shanghai factory in March and Tesla stock jumped as result. I have a feeling that with Europe and US in continue lock down, China is going to support a huge number businesses. Looking at a number of Western business, all cite china has a very important market. Everyone of them earned a ton of money from that market. Some manufacturing will leave china, but if business want to access that market, they will continue to be near that market meaning involve China as part of the supply chain. On side note, ccp and China has brought a lot to Chinese people, wealth, stability, and education. 800 million was lifted out of property in the last 30 years. Chinese middle class is more than the entire US population. As a Chinese person, I no longer has to worry about whether I will have enough food or clothing. Nowadays I am interested which iPhone I can buy and which Nike shoes I like. To say the government doesn't care about the well being of the citizens is dishonest at best. All of this has given and will continue give a massive opportunity to foreign business. Hundreds of billion of dollars of cooperate profits per year. If we cut earnings from China out of companies on SPY, how much is the stock market valuation is going to drop by? So next time if you want to bash and vilify China and ccp using fake news, think about how much China and ccp contributed to your retirement fund. I have more than happy to discuss China and it's policies using facts, data and reason. But it's the smearing and vilification using fake news I cannot stand. And of course it's not perfect in anyway. Internet information regulations and media control is one of them. But I feel people outside don't really understand this country and it's government. They say the government oppresses and doesn't care about the people. Yet a majority of people feels the complete opposite in their daily lives.
  • bgorman 7y ago
    There is no vilification about China. China is by far the biggest non-existential threat to individual liberty in the world today. Great firewall of China. No Freedom of Speech or Religion. Ethnic Cleansing Camps. Militarizing the South China Sea. Massive corporate espionage operations. Claiming Taiwan is a breakaway island. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength
    • throw_this_one 7y ago
      Yeah their strategy is to grow so large that they can just call the shots. I would be a ton of "western" politicians and business leaders are in their pockets too. Instead of a head on conflict they are going to slowly absorb the enemy. This is one area that I think Trump was right in, and the Dems (and neo-cons) seemed to be mostly in their pockets. I don't fully understand what Obama's China plan was.
• mschuster91 7y ago
  Finally. Once this has been completed, China will lose a lot of political leverage as the threat of blocking/impeding trade will be something other countries can actually go on and ignore.
• mikorym 7y ago
  Well, if you want to move something to Southern Africa, I can help with that.
• jonplackett 7y ago
  Isn’t China the only place that’s (At least partly) open now though?
• hungryhobo 7y ago
  It never really made sense to me why after this pandemic, people think it's better to move supply chains out of china. Having supply chains scattered around different smaller nations would introduce MORE risk not LESS. Instead of waiting 2 months for production in china to ramp up, now I gotta wait for production in X different countries to ramp up. Rach country with different ability to deal with a pandemic. I can understand maybe every country should have some manufacturing capacity for the essentials, but on average I don't see how it's more efficient.
• magwa101 7y ago
  But yes!
• ubermon 7y ago
  Is coincidence that I found most outrageous comments are by throw away accounts? I expected much more for hacker news
• neonate 7y ago
  https://archive.md/bn51z https://archive.md/bn51z
• dang 7y ago
  All: using HN for nationalistic flamewar is against the site rules. Please read https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. We ban accounts that break them, regardless of country, politics, or ideology and regardless of how wrong some other commenter is or you feel they are. HN is for curious conversation. The idea is: if you have a substantive point to make, make it thoughtfully; if you don't, please don't comment until you do. Specifically, if you can't respect the person you're talking to, do yourself and all of us a favor and don't reply. You'll only make the thread worse, and it's wretched enough already. If you don't want to see nagging announcements like this at the top of a thread, I sympathize; I don't want to write them either. Unfortunately, if users don't contain themselves, we end up in hell: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823753 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22823753. Please contain yourselves.
  • matt_the_bass 7y ago
    Thank you.
• deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
• jeffdavis 7y ago
  I think a better way to look at this is not as domestic supply chains, but diversified supply chains. There may be reason to encourage domestic, especially for certain kinds of things, but I don't think it needs to be a huge push into trade isolationism. There are lots of industrialized countries we can do business with, and lots of countries with lagging industry that might be improved with increased trade or investment in whatever industry they do have.
• strategarius 7y ago
  It should have been done years ago. Otherwise one day you may wake up and realize all your critical supplie chains (including not only iPhone, but also medicine and medical equipment) could be broken by communist totalitarian state, so you grip your teeth and love Communist Party and Comrade Xi, so as average Chinese citizen.