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China was actually trying to heavily establish offshoring in the Philippines—but that has seemingly dried up with the increasing South China Sea tensions.

by derefr 2y ago

alephnerd 2y ago
Same with India before 2020 - China used to be India's largest FDI partner before the Galwan crisis. After that, the Indian government "persuaded" Chinese players to sell off their Indian assets to Indian, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, and American players instead. 4 years later, the GlobalTimes - which was extremely provocative against India - has started pushing out content arguing that India should begin reopening it's economy to Chinese players.
- Gibbon1 2y ago
  I swear a lot of wars get started by guys like Xi who after seizing power internally try to seize power externally and it often ends really really badly for the host country. Seriously, the leader of Germany in the 1930's, Stalin, Putin, Saddam Hussein, now Xi. All seized power domestically and then couldn't help themselves when it came to neighboring countries.
  - para_parolu 2y ago
    Obviously this is heated topic, but did it ends really bad for USSR under Stalin rule (until his death)? I mean it was bad for many citizens but other areas were actually ok-ish considering war destructions. I’m not trying to make point about Stalin. Just trying to find if this is really a rule, but my historical knowledge is pretty limited. Intuitively I feel any overpowered political entity end up like shit. But interesting to see real data.
    - hkpack 2y ago
      Of course it was bad. But the point was about starting wars. Stalin did start many wars, disastrous invasion of Finland, invasion of Poland, Molotov-Ribentrop pact with Germany and so on.
      - Gibbon1 2y ago
        You could imagine an alternate universe where Stalin gets dysentery and dies. The USSR tells Ribentrop to f'off. And then joins the allies declaring war on Germany when Hitler invades Poland. Also I forgot to add Mussolini and his designs on Greece, Balkans, North and the Horn of Africa.
    - petre 2y ago
      If you ask the Russians the Brezhnyev rule was the best (stability, stagnation), with Stalin trailing him (won WW2, rapid industrialization). If you ask westeners, Khrushchev (space race, reforms) and Gorbachev (glasnost). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Leonid_Brezhnev https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Leonid_Brezhnev
    - antifa 2y ago
      I think they just wanted to imply Xi was "like Hitler" and the rest is just filler ideology.
  - zaphirplane 2y ago
    Is it me or is this one of those, only other people we don’t like do bad things. You’d need to generalize the pop science to the British, French, Spanish and portugues empires then address the genocide of indigenous tribes by America, Canada and Australia
    - Gibbon1 2y ago
      I'm talking about particular types of leaders.
  - novolunt 2y ago
    [dead]
  - DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
    Xi has been in power for 12 years now, and he hasn't started a single war yet. Meanwhile, how many wars has the US fought in the same timeframe?
marcosdumay 2y ago
Looks like militarism and imperialism are not compatible at that crazy new 21th century world. IMO, that's a good development. I hope it lasts.
- ein0p 2y ago
  Uh, and what would that mean for the United States? China hasn’t been at war with anyone for decades.
  - daliusd 2y ago
    Militarism and imperialism is not about wars only
    - ein0p 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - marcosdumay 2y ago
        The countries you keep invading are not your key economical partners.
      - BobbyJo 2y ago
        Confused about what point you're attempting to make here? Political conflict with a trade partner obviously leads to reduced trade, no matter the parties involved. What part of that statement are you taking issue with?
        ein0p 2y ago
        > Looks like militarism and imperialism are not compatible at that crazy new 21th century world Your faux confusion isn't really impressing anyone. Is the US, the most militarist and imperialist nation in the world by far at the moment, "compatible" with the "crazy new 21st century world"? I've also yet to see any practical examples of Chinese militarism or imperialism. I keep hearing that it's going to start happening any day now, but then it never does. What I do see is the hegemon (the US) trying to take down a rising superpower via economic warfare, and by creating instability in the region - a typical behavior of a militarist and imperialist nation.
petre 2y ago
Good luck with that. The Philippines has aligned with the US for some time and water gunning their fishermen doesn't help either. They should try to outsource to their colonies in Central Asia instead.
fspeech 2y ago
I've never sensed any real desire for China to offshore to the Philippines, given its military alliance with the US. Maybe they dangle the prospect from time to time to try to pry the Philippines away. They have much friendlier targets in Southeast Asia, with Thailand and Malaysia at the top of the list.
- aragonite 2y ago
  Not only that, but the Philippines has a tiny manufacturing sector compared to other major SEA economies. [1][2] I wonder if grandparent was thinking of a different country. [1] > In 2021, the economic mix of the Philippine economy was approximately 61% services, 17.6% manufacturing, and 10.1% agriculture. (https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/philippines-market-overview https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/philippines-...) [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_center_industry_in_the_Philippines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_center_industry_in_the_...
  - derefr 2y ago
    > I wonder if grandparent was thinking of a different country Nope! I was speaking of offshoring mostly in the services industry, not the manufacturing industry[1]. Things like call centers (as you linked.) Chinese companies like BBK use Philippines call centres to serve customers in English-language markets. Which isn't at-all uncommon—the US does the same thing—but China hadn't been doing much offshoring of any kind until the last decade, and the little they have done has focused almost solely onto the Philippines. There's also something that you might not exactly call "offshoring", but it's a related idea. It's a combination of "exclave-building" and "foreign investment": Chinese companies responding to increasing levels of Chinese tourism in the Philippines by buying up Filipino companies (most visibly in the hospitality industry, but also everywhere from construction to finance) and modifying those companies to cater more to Chinese-audience interests; then, within China, promoting tourism to the Philippines — and specifically to those cities they've built up a presence within — to increase ROI on those investments. From a Filipino perspective, this was kind of a virtuous cycle, as it resulted in a lot of money being pumped into their economy. But this too has now sharply declined. --- [1] But why hasn't China begun to outsource manufacturing yet? AFAIK, it's because the Chinese manufacturing sector has so much inertia — so much built up talent, so much invested CapEx, so many local partner relationships, so many achieved efficiencies of scale — that even if domestic labor prices seriously rise within China, it'll take a long time before companies are willing to bite the bullet and invest in moving any of that. And it's also a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: if you first offshore some middle step of manufacturing, the rest of the manufacturing process would still be cheapest for you [with your existing China-based processes] to continue to do in China; so now you'll have to ship raw goods out to the offshoring country, and then bring processed goods back into China for finishing. And during that, you'll be in competition with "full-pipeline Chinese" companies that aren't bothering to do that. IMHO I'd mostly only expect China to offshore steps that either exist at the beginning or end of a manufacturing process. Especially origination of raw goods, e.g. mining. Which would seemingly be the long-term goal of China's infrastructure investments in various African countries.

China was actually trying to heavily establish offshoring in the Philippines—but that has seemingly dried up with the increasing South China Sea tensions.

by derefr 2y ago

China was actually trying to heavily establish offshoring in the Philippines—but that has seemingly dried up with the increasing South China Sea tensions.

alephnerd 2y ago

Same with India before 2020 - China used to be India's largest FDI partner before the Galwan crisis. After that, the Indian government "persuaded" Chinese players to sell off their Indian assets to Indian, Taiwanese, Korean, Japanese, and American players instead. 4 years later, the GlobalTimes - which was extremely provocative against India - has started pushing out content arguing that India should begin reopening it's economy to Chinese players.

Gibbon1 2y ago
I swear a lot of wars get started by guys like Xi who after seizing power internally try to seize power externally and it often ends really really badly for the host country. Seriously, the leader of Germany in the 1930's, Stalin, Putin, Saddam Hussein, now Xi. All seized power domestically and then couldn't help themselves when it came to neighboring countries.
- para_parolu 2y ago
  Obviously this is heated topic, but did it ends really bad for USSR under Stalin rule (until his death)? I mean it was bad for many citizens but other areas were actually ok-ish considering war destructions. I’m not trying to make point about Stalin. Just trying to find if this is really a rule, but my historical knowledge is pretty limited. Intuitively I feel any overpowered political entity end up like shit. But interesting to see real data.
  - hkpack 2y ago
    Of course it was bad. But the point was about starting wars. Stalin did start many wars, disastrous invasion of Finland, invasion of Poland, Molotov-Ribentrop pact with Germany and so on.
    - Gibbon1 2y ago
      You could imagine an alternate universe where Stalin gets dysentery and dies. The USSR tells Ribentrop to f'off. And then joins the allies declaring war on Germany when Hitler invades Poland. Also I forgot to add Mussolini and his designs on Greece, Balkans, North and the Horn of Africa.
  - petre 2y ago
    If you ask the Russians the Brezhnyev rule was the best (stability, stagnation), with Stalin trailing him (won WW2, rapid industrialization). If you ask westeners, Khrushchev (space race, reforms) and Gorbachev (glasnost). https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Leonid_Brezhnev https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_of_Leonid_Brezhnev
  - antifa 2y ago
    I think they just wanted to imply Xi was "like Hitler" and the rest is just filler ideology.
- zaphirplane 2y ago
  Is it me or is this one of those, only other people we don’t like do bad things. You’d need to generalize the pop science to the British, French, Spanish and portugues empires then address the genocide of indigenous tribes by America, Canada and Australia
  - Gibbon1 2y ago
    I'm talking about particular types of leaders.
- novolunt 2y ago
  [dead]
- DiogenesKynikos 2y ago
  Xi has been in power for 12 years now, and he hasn't started a single war yet. Meanwhile, how many wars has the US fought in the same timeframe?

marcosdumay 2y ago

Looks like militarism and imperialism are not compatible at that crazy new 21th century world. IMO, that's a good development. I hope it lasts.

ein0p 2y ago
Uh, and what would that mean for the United States? China hasn’t been at war with anyone for decades.
- daliusd 2y ago
  Militarism and imperialism is not about wars only
  - ein0p 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - marcosdumay 2y ago
      The countries you keep invading are not your key economical partners.
    - BobbyJo 2y ago
      Confused about what point you're attempting to make here? Political conflict with a trade partner obviously leads to reduced trade, no matter the parties involved. What part of that statement are you taking issue with?
      - ein0p 2y ago
        > Looks like militarism and imperialism are not compatible at that crazy new 21th century world Your faux confusion isn't really impressing anyone. Is the US, the most militarist and imperialist nation in the world by far at the moment, "compatible" with the "crazy new 21st century world"? I've also yet to see any practical examples of Chinese militarism or imperialism. I keep hearing that it's going to start happening any day now, but then it never does. What I do see is the hegemon (the US) trying to take down a rising superpower via economic warfare, and by creating instability in the region - a typical behavior of a militarist and imperialist nation.

petre 2y ago

Good luck with that. The Philippines has aligned with the US for some time and water gunning their fishermen doesn't help either. They should try to outsource to their colonies in Central Asia instead.

fspeech 2y ago

I've never sensed any real desire for China to offshore to the Philippines, given its military alliance with the US. Maybe they dangle the prospect from time to time to try to pry the Philippines away. They have much friendlier targets in Southeast Asia, with Thailand and Malaysia at the top of the list.

aragonite 2y ago
Not only that, but the Philippines has a tiny manufacturing sector compared to other major SEA economies. [1][2] I wonder if grandparent was thinking of a different country. [1] > In 2021, the economic mix of the Philippine economy was approximately 61% services, 17.6% manufacturing, and 10.1% agriculture. (https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/philippines-market-overview https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/philippines-...) [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_center_industry_in_the_Philippines https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Call_center_industry_in_the_...
- derefr 2y ago
  > I wonder if grandparent was thinking of a different country Nope! I was speaking of offshoring mostly in the services industry, not the manufacturing industry[1]. Things like call centers (as you linked.) Chinese companies like BBK use Philippines call centres to serve customers in English-language markets. Which isn't at-all uncommon—the US does the same thing—but China hadn't been doing much offshoring of any kind until the last decade, and the little they have done has focused almost solely onto the Philippines. There's also something that you might not exactly call "offshoring", but it's a related idea. It's a combination of "exclave-building" and "foreign investment": Chinese companies responding to increasing levels of Chinese tourism in the Philippines by buying up Filipino companies (most visibly in the hospitality industry, but also everywhere from construction to finance) and modifying those companies to cater more to Chinese-audience interests; then, within China, promoting tourism to the Philippines — and specifically to those cities they've built up a presence within — to increase ROI on those investments. From a Filipino perspective, this was kind of a virtuous cycle, as it resulted in a lot of money being pumped into their economy. But this too has now sharply declined. --- [1] But why hasn't China begun to outsource manufacturing yet? AFAIK, it's because the Chinese manufacturing sector has so much inertia — so much built up talent, so much invested CapEx, so many local partner relationships, so many achieved efficiencies of scale — that even if domestic labor prices seriously rise within China, it'll take a long time before companies are willing to bite the bullet and invest in moving any of that. And it's also a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem: if you first offshore some middle step of manufacturing, the rest of the manufacturing process would still be cheapest for you [with your existing China-based processes] to continue to do in China; so now you'll have to ship raw goods out to the offshoring country, and then bring processed goods back into China for finishing. And during that, you'll be in competition with "full-pipeline Chinese" companies that aren't bothering to do that. IMHO I'd mostly only expect China to offshore steps that either exist at the beginning or end of a manufacturing process. Especially origination of raw goods, e.g. mining. Which would seemingly be the long-term goal of China's infrastructure investments in various African countries.