17 ms·

Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as bei

• sandworm101 2y ago
  >> future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger That is an environmental apocalypse best avoided as early as possible.
• bpt3 2y ago
  Their population is declining, and they are a long way away from parity with the west on a per-capita basis. I think China missed their opportunity. Also, the UK hasn't dominated finance for a century and has never been dominant in services, so it doesn't seem like an apt comparison.
  • bryanlarsen 2y ago
    > Their population is declining Not where it matters. China has a much larger under-employed population base than the US has. They still have a few hundred million peasant farmers whose children can and are getting educated and moving to the city. Their pool of labour is growing while the US's is stagnant. Not that it needs to grow -- over the last decade or so China's factory employment has been relatively constant while output has surged dramatically. Their factories are rapidly automating.
    • giardini 2y ago
      We don't need "peasant farmers" to educate, we need AIs to program!8-)) The race between manual labor and machine labor is heating up anew. We don't yet have humanoid robots but they're on the design table, so it may be time to fasten your seat belt.
      • themgt 2y ago
        > We don't yet have humanoid robots but they're on the design table, so it may be time to fasten your seat belt. Right ... so about that, here's Morgan Stanley's report on humanoid robots from a couple months ago: Investors will notice that 73% of the companies confirmed to be involved in humanoids and 77% of integrators are based out of Asia (56%/45% out of China, respectively). A common refrain we hear from investors is the lack of Western firms to add to their humanoid portfolio outside of TSLA and NVDA. In our view, this is important information in and of itself as it represents the reality of the current humanoid ecosystem which we expect may need to change materially over time (see the West's current experience with EVs which has significant supply chain overlap with humanoids). Our research suggests China continues to show the most impressive progress in humanoid robotics where startups are benefitting from established supply chains, local adoption opportunities, and strong degrees of national government support. https://advisor.morganstanley.com/john.howard/documents/field/j/jo/john-howard/The_Humanoid_100_-_Mapping_the_Humanoid_Robot_Value_Chain.pdf https://advisor.morganstanley.com/john.howard/documents/fiel...
      • thfuran 2y ago
        Educating a few hundred million former peasant farmers is how you get things invented.
      • numpad0 2y ago
        You might as well start from educating peasant farmers even at that.
    • bpt3 2y ago
      The US labor pool is far from stagnant thanks to immigration, though Trump is trying to screw that up as well. And those children will be burdened with caring for their elderly parents, often alone, continuing to keep internal consumption low. They are automating and moving up the supply chain, but have a long, long way to go as a nation.
  • ttoinou 2y ago
    But look at per capita per purchasing power
    • lotsofpulp 2y ago
      Power of the purchasing power was a luxury of the US being the most desirable source of stability, creating a high demand for US securities and money. If trust in the US goes down, then so does purchasing power.
      • slt2021 2y ago
        there will always be states-hostages to the US Navy and US Air Force that will be forced to purchase USD, for example Gulf States that basically pay ransom in term of keeping the petrodollar and investing in USD. The moment oil producing gulf states decide to stop buying USD bonds, they will receive "democracy". The whole intent to fight Iran is not only to protect Israel, but also to choke off China's major oil supplier. If Iran folds into US control, it will be easier to choke China in terms of energy supplies
    • DrillShopper 2y ago
      Per capita purchasing power will decrease rapidly in the US if USD stops being the world's preferred reserve currency. China's per capita purchasing power will increase rapidly if RMB becomes the world's preferred reserve currency. Trump seems to be doing everything to speed up the former and as a result is also speeding up the latter.
    • deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
  • vlovich123 2y ago
    > I think China missed their opportunity. I think so too prior to the Trump tarrifs. Now their influence abroad is picking up steam again, with former WW2 enemies now becoming trade allies. I think this has reinvigorated their opportunity.
    • bpt3 2y ago
      China hasn't changed, as their new "partners" will be reminded of soon enough. I suspect they will squander the opportunity the US unforced error has provided, but we'll see.
      • vlovich123 2y ago
        The partners didn’t want to establish strong trade ties because of national animus between their peoples stemming from WW2 and regional security concerns, not because China is an unreliable trading partner. From what I’ve read, China is actually a very reliable trading partner and generally asks a lot less of countries than the US does. Obviously that’s how they attempt to gain influence and leverage in US spheres of influence longer term to make larger asks, but most politicians only think of short term consequences.
        • int_19h 2y ago
          And national animus can change significantly over time. Just look at where US and Vietnam are (or were, prior to tariffs).
      • FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
        Lesson I learned doing business with PRC over the decades: if you're not family, then you are an enemy. If you're not Han, then you're not human...
  • throwacct 2y ago
    This 100x. This is the time to go all in and truly shake everything from the ground up. If the US moves at least 25% to the continent, it could solve lots of issues by developing manufacturing for critical products in-house and nearshoring the rest to LATAM, helping reduce illegal immigration considerably. Win-win for the whole continent.
    • goatlover 2y ago
      It will be more expensive for the consumer who will have been busy paying the tariff sales tax to get to that point. There's a reason businesses moved industry overseas.
  • lossolo 2y ago
    The first effects of their population decline will be felt around 2050 by UN estimations. What do you think they’ll be doing for the next 30 years? Considering they already ship more robots than the rest of the world combined, I don't think that will be a huge problem.
    • boelboel 2y ago
      No their population decline is felt already, they don't have enough people to fill the factories right now and too many highly educated people. This is mostly about people in non stem related fields and non elite universities. If you're a young chinese with a so-so degree you're basically fucked. The UN estimations are fully off for all countries in the world (look at the actual fertility rates published by countries). If you look at UN you'll see like 1.7 fertility rate for colombia, in reality it's 1.0. All countries are kinda demographically fucked, the US is the one that's doing the best. They have been forging their demographic numbers for years already as well. I'm not saying it looks rosy for the US but it's not great for china either unless you believe in some kinda rapid rise in robotisation in the next 10 years.
  • Sonnigeszeug 2y ago
    'declining' on which level? China will surpass USA from a GDP Point of view in 2035. China surpassed Germany as industry machines export in 2018.
    • ebruchez 2y ago
      > China will surpass USA from a GDP Point of view in 2035. Don't be so sure, this has become much less clear. For example, in this article: "The Centre for Economics and Business Research, which in 2020 predicted that China would overtake the U.S. by 2028, revised the crossover point two years later, to 2036. This month, the British consultancy said it will not happen in the next 15 years." https://www.newsweek.com/2025/01/31/china-us-compete-biggest-economies-gdp-population-birth-rates-2010768.html https://www.newsweek.com/2025/01/31/china-us-compete-biggest...
      • thfuran 2y ago
        That was before the US decided to shoot itself in the face with economic policy.
        • ebruchez 2y ago
          Yes, but this will likely hurt China as well. You can't assume only the US will be hurt by this.
          • thfuran 2y ago
            I don't. I'm saying all prior bets are off, though I do think US is going to be in the center of the nexus of pain, even if China is also hurt.
            • greenchair 2y ago
              [flagged]
          • Sonnigeszeug 2y ago
  • engineer_22 2y ago
    We can afford to be lazy, the chinese have their own problems. Word for that, hubris
  • kolanos 2y ago
    > Their population is declining, ... This can not be overstated. China is on the verge of the largest population collapse in human history. By 2080 China's population will drop by 600 million. If that trend continues, by 2150 China's population will drop to 280 million. Other asian countries such as South Korea and Japan are on a similar trajectory.
    • gowld 2y ago
      Why would that trend continue for 100 years? No reason to believe that.
      • stackedinserter 2y ago
        Because women are obligated to work 40 hours every week just to stay afloat. Unless you find a way for young educated family to live a decent life on a single husband's income, the trend will continue.
        • Ancalagon 2y ago
          And that wont happen to the US?
          • stackedinserter 2y ago
            What is "that" that "won't happen"? US, Canada, Europe are demographically cooked too, but they (partially) solve this problem with immigration, that is not an option for China and the rest of Asia.
            • Jensson 2y ago
              You think there will be zero policy changes in China over the next 125 years?
              • stackedinserter 2y ago
  • tim333 2y ago
    The UK may not have dominated finance for a while but we had headlines like: "London Beats New York as the World’s Leading Financial Center in the Latest Ranking" in 2015 before the glory that is Brexit. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/london-beats-new-york-as-the-world-s-leading-financial-city https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-09-28/london-be...
• edm0nd 2y ago
  [flagged]
  • eastbound 2y ago
    Infringement is good for the economy. Even our nations have progressed at a time when none of that was enforced, and are only strolling since then (or, as you may aptly say, rent-seeking). PS: For those of us in software who wonder whether an economy without IP could exist, entire software industries exist without copyright protection, one trick for example is to provide the service behind the cloud, so customers never have access to the source code; meanwhile OSS, which is based on preventing restrictions on sharing, is the eighth wonder of the world, which has proven that IP is unnecessary to software.
  • Sonnigeszeug 2y ago
    You do understand that Chinese Companies can easily just hire people from abroad? You also do know how many companies moved their knowledge to China on purpose right? The knowledge on how to build things, is learnable even if you don't just 'hack' everything. And there is a lot of signaling happening, that china has surpassed American and European companies in R&D. CATL for example. Whatever China did or still does, its a land with 1.4 Billion people vs. 340 Million. Also we achieved, around the globe, a level of expertise around so many topics, that we do not talk about huge differences. If an engine from china is a few % less efficient than the high techv ersion from germany, but the labor cost is fundamental different, than you just loos. And the prices are significant different. So significant, that if USA doesn't change, it will not be able to compete. Even a 104% tarif does not change the competitivness of China in a lot of areas. All of this is only a problem in capitalism btw. and with the upcoming robot revolution, the 'richness' of manufacturing will never again go to the workers ever. This time is over. We need to figure this out
    • edm0nd 2y ago
      You do understand that Chinese government can (and does) easily just instruct their nation-state hackers to steal from abroad? They have been caught doing this for decades.
• pjc50 2y ago
  > US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now The thing is .. there's a point here, but it's not at all tied in with physical products. People are obsessed with one side of the ledger while refusing to see the other. Most of the stuff the UK is struggling with (transport, healthcare, energy) are "state capacity" issues. Things where the state is unavoidably involved and having better, more decisive leadership and not getting bogged down in consultations, would make a big difference. The UK stepped on its own rake because it was obsessed with tiny, already vanished industries like fishing. Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. It's not actually where we want to be. While real UK manufacture successes (cars, aircraft, satellites, generators, all sorts of high-tech stuff) get completely ignored. Or bogged down in extra export red tape thanks to Brexit. To improve reality, we have to start from reality, not whatever vision of the past propaganda "news" channels are blathering about.
  • sitkack 2y ago
    > we have to start from reality, not whatever vision of the past propaganda "news" channels are blathering about Ha ha ha. I was this naive once. This just isn't our reality. You would have to have a functioning education system AND a population with adequate emotional regulation. Do we even have the pieces anymore?
  • myrmidon 2y ago
    > Fishing is less profitable for the whole UK than Warhammer. This sounded completely insane to me. I tried to look up numbers and found that Games Workshop brings in > 0.5 billion in revenue (!!), compared to all of UKs fisheries at 1 billion-ish (profit margins are, as you'd expect, pretty favorable for the plastic figurines that they don' even paint for you). Thanks for this interesting fact.
    • bombcar 2y ago
      There's a problem with just directly comparing them - because JKR probably brings in more revenue to the UK than fishing, with Potter copyrights. But most of that revenue goes to JKR, whereas most of the fishing revenue may end up in "working class" people's pockets.
• yapyap 2y ago
  > Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes I’m not sure if you’re just speaking on what you experience or because of this post but the OP is a clothing guy so it makes sense he will look at it from a clothing (including shoes) perspective. I agree though, if Americans truly do see Asia as just the cheap clothing factory continent they’re sorely mistaken. All you have to do is to just look at TSMC (Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company) and realize that if you were impacting just that company alone you would get a slap in the face as a country, all (~70%) the major chips come from there. I am aware the US is developing a Semiconductor factory in their own country but it is not done yet and it will not go as tiny in nms as TSMC already is.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• lossolo 2y ago
  This. Anyone who doesn’t believe it — please go spend some time in Shenzhen, Shanghai, or similar cities, like I did. I just got back from China. I’ve been (also lived and worked) to the U.S. many times, and I can confidently say that China’s tier-1 cities are on another level when it comes to development and QoL (and not only T1 cities, I was in smaller regions in the north too). It’s also incredibly clean, super safe, and the infrastructure is breathtaking.
  • tayo42 2y ago
    That's been my current dream trip for a little. I think it woukd be so cool to ride the trains around the country and see what it's really like there. Learning the language is hard though
    • markus_zhang 2y ago
      English is the second language of most young and middle-aged Chinese, so you should be fine at least in tier-s cities.
      • decimalenough 2y ago
        I recently visited China and even the people you'd expect to speak English (front desk at Western branded hotel, airline check-in, etc) either spoke zero English or really struggled. My shitty Mandarin got a workout.
    • Symbiote 2y ago
      Remember to carry your passport at all times, as you'll need it to buy a train ticket. Even a simple metro ticket. You can also smile at the CCTV cameras, which are in groups every 100m or so within cities.
      • magnuznilzzon 2y ago
        Train tickets sure, for the high speed rail, but metro? Not in Shanghai at least
• da02 2y ago
  Any experience or thoughts on Vietnam and Malaysia? Are they also moving ahead?
  • tim333 2y ago
    Vietnam was one of the fastest growing countries in the world but from a low base. They were following a similar trajectory to China but about 20 years behind. Not sure how the tariffs will affect things.
  • decimalenough 2y ago
    Vietnam is the next China, they're still behind but catching up fast. Malaysia is handicapped by the resource curse (lots of oil) dysfunctional government and race politics that serve to drive out everybody who is not ethnically Malay.
  • herbst 2y ago
    I was in Malaysia ~10 years ago. I saw a lot of weird things for sure, but I also saw a modern capital city that could easily shadow over many European cities today in terms of life quality, fancyness and nearly any metric. I didn't see any shoe manufacturers :)
    • da02 2y ago
      What were some weird things you saw in the urban areas or suburban areas?
• Herring 2y ago
  > What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario? Comparative advantage means countries benefit from specializing in producing goods or services where they have the lowest relative opportunity cost - not necessarily where they're the best overall. Even if China focuses on technology (and this is far from decided), America can still thrive by specializing in other areas where its relative efficiency or unique capabilities are better. Examples: Germany specializes in high-precision manufacturing, India does well with software development, IT services, and medicines, Australia exports minerals, natural resources, and agricultural products, etc. Everybody brings something to the table. The world economy cannot possibly get worse by adding 1B people doing top-level work. > Ricardo's theory implies that comparative advantage rather than absolute advantage is responsible for much of international trade. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparative_advantage BTW these would have been great ECON 101 discussions to have before the election.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • harvey9 2y ago
    India does well on software development partly on a volume basis. Their top end developers often want to move abroad for career development and earning potential. I would not be surprised if potus put tariffs on H1Bs
    • FredPret 2y ago
      Wouldn't this just be income tax?
      • harvey9 2y ago
        There could be a charge to the visa sponsor based on the salary of the worker
    • alfalfasprout 2y ago
      Trump is on the record extensively as being very pro H1B (probably spurned on by Musk, Zuck, and Pichai). Because many of these workers can be overworked without complaint for lower compensation than American workers. It's never been about protecting Americans...
• lolinder 2y ago
  Be careful extrapolating based on China's current population and demographics. Too much of our armchair assessments of China's velocity is based on their meteoric rise on the backs of a historically large working-age population—a population that is now rapidly aging out of the workforce with nothing to replace it thanks to the one child policy. The US's demographics aren't stellar, but they're a lot better off than most of the developed world. It remains to be seen how different 2010's China—with 90% of the population being under 60—is from 2050's China—with only 69% of the population being under 60. https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2050/ https://www.populationpyramid.net/china/2050/
  • peterfirefly 2y ago
    The one-child policy didn't play as large a role as people in the West think. Chinese fertility rates had already fallen drastically before that policy. (It was also not as absolute as people in the West think. There were exceptions for rural China and minorities.)
  • spaceman_2020 2y ago
    It’s a little more nuanced than that. Western demographics are largely propped up by immigration, which brings with it its own sociopolitical challenges. What you gain in demographics, you might lose in social cohesion and political stability.
    • lolinder 2y ago
      It's a lot more nuanced than that. China's internal diversity is much higher than Westerners typically understand, and their social cohesion and political stability are less well maintained than their external-facing image would lead you to believe.
      • spaceman_2020 2y ago
        Yeah, but that’s not the same level of diversity as an atheist Frenchman and a muslim Algerian and a Christian Ivorian. The Sichuanese might not get along with the Cantonese, but they’re ethnically the same people with a shared culture
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• ninetyninenine 2y ago
  >We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, This is a nice way to put it. Anticipate a world within your life time where China is the dominant economic, technological, military and cultural super power. Anticipate jealousy, anticipate fear, but know that as Americans who have been top dog for decades there is nothing wrong with not being the best. Additionally anticipate a changing world view less focused on the view that freedom and democracy as the only possible way to lead and anticipate that despite the fact that China is a communist country and centrally controlled they don't want conflict and they don't want total war. China and the US are not perfect. The US needs to accept this fact and it needs to accept that another is about to take it's place as the top dog.
  • zppln 2y ago
    > cultural super power My impression is that Chinese culture has very little appeal elsewhere (at least in the West). They can't seem to be able to (or care to) package it in an appealing way. Sure, they're being catered to in films and video games but I see very little organic interest in Chinese culture, especially compared to Japanese or Korean culture.
    • ninetyninenine 2y ago
      It's true. It's changing though. Wu Kong Black myth and even the top grossing film of last year was chinese animation. See the comments under the trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiAYjyiIBM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gsiAYjyiIBM. The film was apparently incredible. The core culture of China is actually foundational to much of Asia. The stuff you see coming out of Japan and Korea is surface level aesthetics built on top of this foundation. You're probably thinking Nintendo, KPop and anime. Once China makes the aesthetics just as good as other parts of Asia I can see China becoming a cultural power house. Even the mythology surrounding China historically in terms of say one thing like Wuxia is better than anything out of Korea, Japan or the west in my opinion. Really in the end people are more attracted to the aesthetic presentation of everything. Japan does this really well while China has always been unskilled, crude and rough on the edges. But this is changing at a nearly breakneck pace.
• overfeed 2y ago
  > What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario? A few months ago, I'd have said soft-power and goodwill built over decades with the rest of the western world, which roughly equals China in population size. Instead, I agree that the US is staring down a "managed decline" like the UK, but hopefully not as steep.
  • doctorpangloss 2y ago
    …what does this have to do with shoes? A “managed decline?” Brother, the problem with the UK economy is Brexit. That was put in by a plebiscite. It’s not saying much, but at every level, including in the manufacture of shoes, the government has the greatest power to create or destroy wealth.
    • overfeed 2y ago
      Austerity measures predate Brexit by quite a bit as a result of deliberate choices by a conservative government. Brexit accelerated pre-existing downtrends. Many parallels may be drawn: austerity vs DOGE in gutting government services, the deluded nativist/isolationist core of Brexit vs the tariffing the entire world, xenophobia, and most obviously a nostalgia of past-greatness that doesn't quite fit the present circumstances.
• rib3ye 2y ago
  I think it's pretty clear what Trump's long-term solution is with unobtainable economic goals on China and strategic outreach to Russia — He wants to turn that 4x into 1x via hot war before the Xi's 2027 military goals are reached.
  • School-Cotton 2y ago
    I’m no Trump fan but I think it’s a bit of an exaggeration to say he wants to genocide a billion Chinese people…
• bboygravity 2y ago
  Except that that future of a big powerful China doesn't exist. Their birth-rate is 1. Game-over.
  • Izikiel43 2y ago
    The USA is also below replacement levels.
    • philg_jr 2y ago
      Not with immigration.
      • _t9ow 2y ago
        Immigration will take a nosedive under Trump.
      • peterfirefly 2y ago
        That's not necessarily a good thing. Do the New Americans want the same things as the pre-existing ones? Are they as capable? Not just "in a few generations" but here and now? Are they even likely to be as capable "in a few generations"? If the statistics aren't very wrong, it doesn't seem like a solution.
        • marxplank 2y ago
          Indian Americans make the most money in America, I’m sure immigrants can be capable
          • horns4lyfe 2y ago
            “Making the most money” isn’t the same as building a society people want to live in
            • slt2021 2y ago
• ignoramous 2y ago
  > When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. I wrote this not long after (10y ago) and I think this view is still unpopular now as it was then (for reasons beyond me): I fully expect Baidu and other tech giants on the Chinese shores to try and push the boundaries of technology. Silicon Valley (and the US) in general has always been the hot-bed of innovation. But with enormous increase in wealth in China (and to an extent in India), I can see these companies being more and more ambitious. Not long ago Andrew Ng of Coursera and Stanford AI Lab fame joined Baidu to further their rival to the 'Google Brain' project. Xiaomi has long been positioning itself as a company with design chops of Apple, engineering chops of Google, and e-commerce chops of Amazon, all rolled into one-- and I can see where they are coming from. If they manage to pull it off, I guess that's when we'd start seeing the proverbial "Death of Silicon Valley" as in, it loosing its strange monopoly and strangle hold on tech world in terms of both talent and innovation. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9421471 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9421471
  • _t9ow 2y ago
    > for reasons beyond me It might help to understand that the resistance you have faced is probably driven by deep-seated biases and stubbornness.
  • selfmodruntime 2y ago
    Silicon Valley has stifled its own innovation by making too much use of regulatory capture and IP laws.
• stronglikedan 2y ago
  > Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. The vast majority of us were over that decades ago. Please catch up for the sake of all humanity.
  • Symbiote 2y ago
    Yesterday your vice president referred to the Chinese as "peasants".
    • greenchair 2y ago
      all part of the negotiations :)
      • prmoustache 2y ago
        I think the current US government is missing the negotiation part of the word negotiation.
    • IncreasePosts 2y ago
      Something like 35% of China's population works in the agriculture sector, many of whom are poor with little or no land holdings living in small villages. Is there a word for that kind of person?
      • blargey 2y ago
        That number has been falling since 2012 and was around 22% as of 2023 (ignoring the hand-wavy conflation of the entire agriculture sector and stereotypical rural farmers) https://tradingeconomics.com/china/employment-in-agriculture-percent-of-total-employment-wb-data.html https://tradingeconomics.com/china/employment-in-agriculture... You could just as easily massage statistics to call the US a nation of gig workers or something, but neither is productive or informative.
      • bbreier 2y ago
        Peasant has a more specific meaning than this. More importantly, it has been used as a pejorative for a very long time now and that is clearly the intent the vice president had in mind.
• profsummergig 2y ago
  > Americans need to get over their view of “Asia” as being about making shoes. I blame Peter Zeihan for this kind of thinking. His views are immensely popular in the very powerful and influential circles. And he constantly derides China's capabilities. Since 2014 he's been saying it's going to collapse any day now. He still says it.
  • vixen99 2y ago
    As does Gordon Chang "The Coming Collapse of China" (2001)
  • snerbles 2y ago
    There are rank-and-file members of the western intelligence community that watch/read Zeihan just so they know what their own leadership is ingesting.
    • profsummergig 2y ago
      Zeihan is a case of believing the message because the messenger is so articulate and charming. He's a tremendously interesting narrative builder (in the vein of Taleb's narrative fallacy). I've been tracking his predictions for a few years now. I want him to be right. Unfortunately, he's seldom right. He also seems to be veering into fabulism. He's recently said in multiple interviews that there's a clothing factory in North Carolina that is so automated that only 2 "guys" are needed to run it. Raw cotton comes in at one end, and finished clothing comes out at the other (hence Chinese labor is not needed to stitch clothes, hence China is going to collapse any day now). Why do I believe this is fabulism? He never names this company. And the story has evolved. In earlier interviews he used to say that cloth comes out at the other end. But in a couple of recent interviews he's said finished clothing comes out at the other end.
• Aaronstotle 2y ago
  Maybe it will come full circle and the US will commit IP theft to catch up to the dominant Chinese companies.
  • senderista 2y ago
    Then they’d just be back to where they started in the early 19th century, stealing Britain’s IP to become an industrial power. https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution-spies-europe https://www.history.com/articles/industrial-revolution-spies...
  • bilbo0s 2y ago
    All for it. We should be doing that right now.
  • yen223 2y ago
    See e.g. Youtube Shorts and Instagram Reels
• pbreit 2y ago
  These analyses always assume no margin compression which is wrong.
• ReptileMan 2y ago
  >What seems most likely to me in the future is that the US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now. Not quite. USA is big enough to be able to be self sufficient if they keep mexico and Canada tightly bound via NAFTA or military might. UK have no option but to trade. UK was rarely able to feed and fuel itself after the industrial revolution.
• Thaxll 2y ago
  Average American would be shocked to see a city like Shenzhen. It's like living in the future.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  • padolsey 2y ago
    Agree! I wish Americans would travel more and escape their media bubble. China is incredible. I was in Chonqing and then Shenzhen recently, and live in Beijing. Truly it's very divorced from what western people have grown to expect.
• throwaway48476 2y ago
  The average Brit is now poorer than the average Pole. Dominating finance hasn't worked out well for the citizens of the UK.
  • mercutio2 2y ago
    Dominating finance + Brexit. Brexit worked out fairly badly for rich folks. I'm not sure how well it worked for the folks who were voting for it, but it's possible "take the rich folks down a few notches" even if it lowers the median income, if you yourself don't earn the median income, is still seen as worth it.
• markus_zhang 2y ago
  > What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario? I'm sure that the US still has many edges over China in high-end technology. I remember I read a research article back in 2012/2013 which listed all fields that China were lagging behind, including pharma, computer chips and some other stuffs. It's a fairly long list. I'm sure China managed to catch up in some of the fields but I doubt all of them.
  • bilbo0s 2y ago
    I'm sure China managed to catch up in some of the fields but I doubt all of them. And if you could guarantee that they'll never catch up in the others, we'd all feel a bit better about the permanency of American superiority. Absent that guarantee, we need to bench test those scenarios and be prepared with plans that best serve American interests should those scenarios come to fruition.
    • bdangubic 2y ago
      american has superiority in like number of incarcerated people per capita and infant mortality - that’s about it :)
      • clown_strike 2y ago
        Consumer debt too.
        • bdangubic 2y ago
          I read “Rich Dad Poor Dad” and apparently debt is a great thing… My “poor” Dad just never thought me this
  • XorNot 2y ago
    China used to be lagging behind in all areas. Now it is not. The US pre-WW1 was an isolationist nation with few I'd any exports, not the global manufacturing powerhouse it became afterwards. Things change and always change.
• lanthissa 2y ago
  US wont end up in the situation that UK finds itself in because the land it occupies is some of the most productive land on earth and at a similar scale as china. The incredible wealth of america, is that its a land mass that in the old world would be supporting 500m-1.5b people, but is divided only amount 350m. The city at the center of the Missouri and Mississippi if it were in europe would be a major civilization. In the US its saint louis. The US, CA, and AU have an option few countries do -- at any point they want nominal gdp growth all they have to do is open the door. I agree with you though that china's incredibly impressive.
  • literalAardvark 2y ago
    I'm not super knowledgeable about AU, but my gut impression is that it doesn't have much in the way of natural advantages. Yes, it's lowpop, but that's about it. Somewhat similar for CA, but CA is a lot better off than AU.
    • avar 2y ago
      Out of those three, Australia's economy is proportionally the most reliant on natural resources. Its mining sector alone is a bit over 10% of overall GDP.
      • literalAardvark 2y ago
        Yeah but those don't exactly sustain a large, high HDI population. They bring money and wreck the environment, which gets less pushback in Australia because very few live in the mining areas.
• niemandhier 2y ago
  Nope. Well maybe, if trumpism continues. Point is: The best and brightest go where they think their life will be most fulfilling. Up to last year that was California for tech and New York for culture. Even the Chinese think china is oppressive. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping#:~:text=Tang%20ping%20means%20choosing%20to,%22low%2Ddesire%20life.%22&text=Novelist%20Liao%20Zenghu%20described%20%22lying,of%20a%20nascent%20Chinese%20counterculture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tang_ping#:~:text=Tang%20ping%...
  • decimalenough 2y ago
    It's not the best and the brightest who are lying flat, but those who lost the rat race. All things considered, most Chinese would prefer to stay in China, and if you're rich there you've got it made.
    • niemandhier 2y ago
      By all accounts, you do not get rich in china by work. I work with the most talented Chinese scientists and none of them expects to be wealthy at home, the best hope to be what would be middle class in the US. Unless they manage to get to the US they return, because they would not be safe from harassment anywhere else.
      • decimalenough 2y ago
        Scientists in most fields, sure, but that's the case anywhere. If you happen to be an AI expert though, pay at top Chinese companies is very competitive with Silicon Valley. Also, the structural inequalities of Chinese society dwarf the West, meaning that the Chinese middle class gets a lot more bang for their buck: ridiculously cheap delivery services, taxis, and other services.
        • niemandhier 2y ago
          Sure, but no Chinese person I know has forgotten that their government literally walled in people during Covid.
• encoderer 2y ago
  Do they not just steal our IP and then industrialize it better than us, partly because of their current demographics (which are rapidly changing), partly because of lax environmental standards, and partly because they need economic growth to support their oppressive regime?
• hemabe 2y ago
  China could not only be ‘equal’ but ‘better’ than the USA - we should get used to the idea. China has an average IQ of 104 out of 1.4 billion people, while the USA has an IQ of 97. In purely statistical terms, this means that the USA has around 700,000 people with an IQ >= 140. China has 11,480,000 people with this IQ. This human capital will make the difference.
  • ericmay 2y ago
    IQ isn't much of a proxy for anything, especially in this context.
    • nomel 2y ago
      It's especially related in this context, which is engineering success. IQ is directly related to academic achievement in STEM, which is directly related to engineering career success.
      • ericmay 2y ago
        Well we're not talking about career success, we were talking about comparisons of nation states. Having an IQ advantage there might prove marginally more helpful, but it's not really that important. I'd argue physical size and strength of a people are even more important than IQ when we're looking at across the board averages. Plus you have things like, idk, access to raw materials, geographic advantages, cultural advantages or disadvantages, systemic advantages or disadvantages including strong or weak institutions, training programs, etc. In fact, if you wanted to do a comparison between America and China you'd really have a lot better things to look at to show China as better than IQ. With respect to "career success" you can have 50 million people in your country with IQs >140 and there's still a limited market to sell to. There are diminishing returns on capacity - you can have business analysts or call center folks with the IQ of Einstein and they'll be limited by the systems they are placed in. The other side of this is that just because you are smart doesn't mean you are capable of doing well in the real world. Recall how there are a lot of "dumb rich people" and "smart poor people".
• ForOldHack 2y ago
  Korea, despite developing MRI, still has a large amount of farmers, that do not get paid a living wage: No one really knows, because its a souce of shame. "AI Overview It's difficult to provide a precise number of Asian countries where farmers don't earn a living wage without specific, up-to-date data and a clear definition of "living wage." However, many Asian countries face challenges in ensuring farmers receive sufficient income to cover basic needs." I will assure you, from being an eyewitness, its worse.
• seanmcdirmid 2y ago
  The US was going down the "let dominate IP/technology" angle for awhile, but we only accomplished it with imported labor (look at any SWE shop). China is obviously developing the talent to do the same, and they are rapidly automating manufacture work as they approach a demographic cliff. They are basically making all the right investments for the future while we try to go back to the 1950s. It is extremely frustrating.
  • bamboozled 2y ago
    Back to coal mines.
    • sterlind 2y ago
      it really seems like there's a push to de-skill Americans. like Bessent's remark that the laid-off civil servants could become factory workers as we bring back domestic manufacturing, and the recent corporate push towards vibe coding and integrating AI everywhere, and the purge of seasonal and unskilled migrant workers while keeping the H1B program. it almost seems like we're trying to clear immigrants out of the chicken plants to make room for laid-off graphic designers.
      • sorcerer-mar 2y ago
        Bessent et al’s plan isn’t even internally coherent. Yeah, Americans are going to go back to working in factories. But not for low wages, because errr ummm actually it’ll be robots doing the work! So where will Americans be working? Errr ummm well… in the factories! (??)
        • bamboozled 2y ago
          Yeah and another thing I’ve noticed is the current administration has won on negativity and victimhood. It’s damaged Americas confidence and super power branding tremendously . It seems to be the new image of America as some kind of wounded animal who is acting aggressively to protect itself from China. It might not be the case but perception is important and in my opinion it’s changing fast and in the wrong direction. It’s almost like Americans are now begging for low tier jobs or something.
• bamboozled 2y ago
  America is not going to get there and stay there by being stupid.
• runako 2y ago
  > We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is that a world where “Designed by Apple in California, Made in China” still makes sense? What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario? The likely answer lies in the fact that this would mean China & America are both high-income countries. There are likely to be other countries looking to be "the next China" to ascend the income ladder. As is now, rich countries will outsource work to those poorer countries. This doesn't have to be zero sum.
• yodsanklai 2y ago
  > We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is it even possible in terms of resources? there are limits to growth and it may not be feasible for 1.5 billions people to consume and pollute as much as an average American. Also are the US willing to lose their supremacy peacefully?
  • XorNot 2y ago
    It seems apparent that the answer is yes though. The US likes the idea of wars more then fighting them: the guy who talks about the greatest military on the planet is also not subject to the draft and never tried to join. In so much as generalizing a nation can still leave large exceptions, wars of conquest are useless to America: it hates running occupations, and it's own citizens are not going to move abroad in sufficient numbers to provide a labor force to utilize the conquests.
    • AstralStorm 2y ago
      Further, any hit it might want to take at the other powers would be either not cost effective (against Russia) or would harm them very badly in short and medium term (China or moves regarding Taiwan.) Moving against EU would not get them anything and the same bit as regarding China applies. Truth is, war is an expense. You need to count on a serious long term benefit to wage it.
  • refurb 2y ago
    That future is far, far off. China’s per capita GDP is 1/7th that of the US. To match the US GDP per capita would require China growing at 10%/yr for 35 years (while the US grows at 3-4% per year). Thats 35 years of phenomenal growth, with no recessions, no “slow” years of only 5% growth (like the past 3 years). Assume an average of 7% growth (and US 3%) and now it takes 50 years to match the US per capita GDP. This is why GDP growth of 5% is regarded as “bad” in China. They need double that. And China needs to do this all the while having massive debt overhang, a world moving away from free trade (which their economy is highly dependent on) and a shrinking and rapidly aging population (by 2050 it will be 1 worker per retiree). I don’t have a crystal ball, so who knows, but suffice to say if things stay relatively the same it’s going to be 2060-2070 before China is as rich as the US on a per capita basis.
• 9283409232 2y ago
  Even if you believe this, the way you do it is incentive manufacturing in the US not 200% tariffs. It takes time to build up domestic manufacturing.
• selfmodruntime 2y ago
  > When I was working in engineering in the early aughts, we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology Perhaps you should have considered that like in Art, the first step to proficiency in anything really is mimicry.
  • hermitShell 2y ago
    True, and now I believe China has kept their industrial might while also pursuing higher technology. So they have the mine and the steel plant and the car factory. I recall Musk commenting that through human history, it’s more normal for China to be the most advanced nation on the planet, not the USA. Still, brutal place to live and work. Ultimately you have to offer people a chance at happiness, or else internal failures tend to sabotage all external signs of success.
• gizajob 2y ago
  Designing the most stylish bevel radius on edges.
• 627467 2y ago
  > we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology As you state they haven't been "only" copying for a while and my problem with people keep repeating this "logic" (mea culpa) is precisely what's at stake right now: designing and "creating" is critical, but I'd argue that civilization is not made my design or one-off (or limited) editions. Civilization is the ability to innovate in mass production, in doing so, consistently in lower and lower costs. China excels (and will continue to excel) while they continue to appreciate this. The "service sector" world stopped caring about this.
• xivzgrev 2y ago
  Competitive edge is new innovation and I don’t see that changing anytime soon. The rules and culture favor it in the US, more so than anywhere else on earth. China didn’t invent the iPhone or chat gpt. But they excel at optimizing.
  • sien 2y ago
    DJI is the premier drone company in the world. Also in places where Chinese electric cars are not being blocked they are really taking off. In 20 years for billions of people the most common car will be a Chinese one. China is able to build nuclear reactors while the US is floundering. The Chinese may well be the first to produce electricity from fusion. People come back from Shenzhen now to the US and say that the US now feels less advanced. The US certainly leads in some areas. But not longer all areas and things are moving toward China.
    • horns4lyfe 2y ago
      Those things are all optimizing…
      • sien 2y ago
        Fusion would be something totally new. The other thing to look at is the number of high impact papers in Materials Science, Chemistry, Engineering, Comp Sci and Physics and look at where they are being written. Check the image from The Economist in the article below : https://asiatimes.com/2025/03/behold-chinas-innovative-golden-age/# https://asiatimes.com/2025/03/behold-chinas-innovative-golde... It's great for the world that China now has hundreds of millions of people who are able to have much better lives and tens of millions who are making great contributions to the world. China has done what the US did in copying Europe 150 years ago. The US copied Europe and then went further. China is now doing that. If fusion is successfully done in China rather than the US it will still be great for people in the US. The US can copy it. The only thing is that the US's dominance is ending.
        • numa7numa7 2y ago
• bonestamp2 2y ago
  The most shocking thing for Americans when TikTok was shutdown for half a day was when they switched to the Chinese version of the app and they saw the truth -- that the middle class in China is living a higher quality of life than they are.
  • horns4lyfe 2y ago
    I didn’t see that at all, but I also don’t consider flashy technology to define quality of life.
    • bonestamp2 2y ago
      Agreed. Some people saw it as quality of life, some people saw it as prosperity, etc. However you want to define it, the point is the same... many people were shocked that the Chinese middle class had more than they did.
  • dr-detroit 2y ago
    [dead]
• subsubzero 2y ago
  I see what you are getting at but I have to disagree with alot of what you are saying. > the US will find itself in the same position the UK is in now The US and UK are totally different animals at the height of their "empire". The UK currently has little land and alot of it is devoid of minerals(sans coal). They achieved most of their might subjecting other countries and extracting resources from their colonies. Once the colonies and the rest of the world objected the British empire began to crumble as the colonies broke off from the UK. Contrast that with the US which if it were to jettison its "colonies" (Puerto Rico, Samoa etc) you would see very little drop in GDP. The US has vast swaths of land which is excellent for farming, energy extraction and contains valuable minerals. It has widespread and diverse populations with wildly different ecologies and climates. In addition to a huge amount of resources it has a kings ransom of some of the best universities in the world(stanford, harvard, MIT, etc) and a highly educated society with living standards just below some small asian and european countries. The US also has a peerless military (we need hypersonic weapons however) and many aircraft carriers and nukes as well as world renown special forces groups. And lastly of the top largest 100 companies in the world, 65% are US based and this despite the US only having 4.2% of the worlds population, looking at GDP per country is almost comical as the US has 30T compared to the next largest economy China(19.5T), 3rd place is Germany at 4.9T.
  • williamDafoe 2y ago
    USA has three advantages that no place else in the world has. First we have the biggest oil deposit in the history of mankind with the Permian basin. Second we have more inland waterways in the Mississippi River system than the whole rest of the world combined and third this abuts the best farmland on the planet. I would say that the USA also has an advantage of open immigration for intellectuals to keep our universities strong but the anti-intellectual Trump administration is destroying this advantage as fast as it can! The greatest advantage that we ever had was to lead the free world in ideals. A friend of mine was telling me yesterday that every child in India when they reach the age of six wants to go to Harvard and settle in the USA. They want to stand up for freedom and for democracy and for putting down all the evil dictators in the world. We are losing this image very very quickly it could be gone in a matter of months! Don't brag about our aircraft carriers it would take us 25 years to build 11 more. We are nowhere in ship building we destroyed our domestic shipbuilding in the 1980s when we reoriented it for military shipbuilding and then the Berlin Wall fell down and we drastically cut the military shipbuilding budget and that caused our shipbuilding to go to almost zero overnight (3 heavy ships per year nationwide whereas China's largest ship builder does THIRTY!).
• emrah 2y ago
  China got to where it is by taking loooots of inspiration from American tech. And it's not their fault US doesn't like the Chinese gov yet won't stop using their facilities to manufacture because they are cheaper..
• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• kazinator 2y ago
  Businesses in a country that is a complete economic power house from plastic spoons to particle colliders and supercomputers are not going to outsource their finance to an overseas has-been. They have their own straight-C-plus high schoolers they can train in finance.
• yosito 2y ago
  > We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America I'm a US American living in Asia. I can't tell you with 100% certainty that in terms of technological progress, China is far far ahead of the US.
  • horns4lyfe 2y ago
    Can’t or can?
    • yosito 2y ago
      Can. Autocorrect.
• jtc331 2y ago
  That assumes that China’s population doesn’t collapse, which mathematically seems quite likely (and it’s already declining).
• alvah 2y ago
  "We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger" Four times bigger absolutely will not happen; China's demographic disaster is already baked into the cake. Forecasts suggest China's total population will be around 1.5x the USA by 2100, but the average age / working age population will be in the USA's favour.
  • deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
• doctorpangloss 2y ago
  Okay… what does this have to do with tariffs or shoes though? > …China equal to America on a per capital basis Hmm, what number do you mean will be equal? Income per capita? If the Chinese system paid Americans the same as the American system does, why would Nike operate its sweatshops there? Kind of tautological, no?
• johnalbertearle 2y ago
  Correct. USA will become like UK. Trump is trying to basically change the situation but he is pissing against the wind.
• johnalbertearle 2y ago
  Correct.
• vitorgrs 2y ago
  You actually talked about a point that I think most people forget. One thing is Japan or Korea being super good in tech. Another thing is when you basically have 10 Japan or 20 South Korea, which is what China is with the 1bi population. Which means not that they will have a lot of consumers, but way more competitive companies in general (if they continue growing as is).
• matheusmoreira 2y ago
  If it happens, the US will have nobody to blame other than itself. Industry is what generates wealth. The USA deindustrialized itself when it moved all of its manufacturing overseas for the sake of greater profits. It gave away its intellectual property on a silver platter so that things could be made cheaply. Other countries are only too happy to take advantage of american greed.
• marenkay 2y ago
  Hasn't that point already been reached given the US could not sustain itself in any reasonable way without Chinese labor and knowledge? There seem to be a lot of companies in the S&P500 that would dry out without access to Chinese workers and goods. Just take cloud providers. Where is their gear sourced from? Is there any realistic chance to provide that from within the US? Given the current state that would become necessary but seems highly unlikely to be achievable.
• pjdemers 2y ago
  Darn right. Lots of smart, hard working, innovative people in China. And every single one of them would get on plane tonight if they could get a visa to live in US or UK (and a few other countries). So, which countries offer a better future for our children?
  • dom3k 2y ago
    I'm from Poland, and I'm quite sure that 15 years ago you could say the very same thing here. Not anymore. Things change.
• magic_hamster 2y ago
  "Asia" is not about making shoes, but any company will manufacture where it makes the best economical sense. Currently if that's somewhere in Asia, so be it. It doesn't take anything away from Asian countries if they can offer lower labor rates. Some Asian countries are so big and has such staggering class differences that they might be able to continue offering cheap labor while being competitive in technology, because the people involved in both areas live in totally different ecosystems.
• wordofx 2y ago
  > Today, China is competitive with or ahead of America in key technology areas, including nuclear power, AI, EVs, and batteries. I can’t tell if you’re brainwashed by propaganda or just spreading propaganda. China is great at making things flashy. But the quality things like EVs is low. The battery quality is not good. The promise of long range cars is often 30% of the promise. Cars leaking. Rusting like American made cars.
  • herbst 2y ago
    Yet it took only 2 years and you see WAY more Chinese cars for example here in Switzerland than American ones (which was 95% Tesla anyway)
    • wordofx 2y ago
      The quality they export is higher than the quality they have in China. Thankfully there are standards that must be met for exported cars.
• victorbjorklund 2y ago
  Indeed. The primary reason to go to China is not that it is lowest cost (but of course lower cost than US) but rather that they have the skills and infrastructure for it.
• LightBug1 2y ago
  You might be right. The USA seems to be indulging in its own Brexit moment ... and looks where that got the UK (...irrelevance).
• cylemons 2y ago
  > We need to anticipate a future where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, but four times bigger. Is that a world where “Designed by Apple in California, Made in China” still makes sense? What will be America’s competitive edge in that scenario? Military
• ekianjo 2y ago
  > where China is equal to America on a per capita basis, China is super far away from that and its demography is a time bomb that will get there first
• dr-detroit 2y ago
  [dead]
• doubleencour 2y ago
  [dead]
• arminiusreturns 2y ago
  I'll never forget having to SSH into Bejing servers because nobody on that side could fix a problem... (working at a Chinese heavy company for a bit)... I walked away realizing they are still copying the tech (IP theft, etc), but don't understand it nearly as well. The main thing that changed was the time-gaps, and by bypassing safety and other regs/norms, they just get to market first, but with a subpar product, usually with major issues. I'm not nearly as afraid of this version of the future having experienced that, but of course, that was from a limited perspective. That said, the sheer amount of $ being pumped into infrastructure of all types in China is a sight to behold, and also woke me up to how much our own government and big business entrenchment is suppressing American ingenuity.
  • philipwhiuk 2y ago
    Europeans can tell the same story about Americans.
• numa7numa7 2y ago
  The question you're actually asking is: When will China start innovating instead of copying?
  • 34679 2y ago
    Who in America is China copying with their high speed rail? Who are they copying with their drone displays? What about their skylines that more closely resemble our sci-fi films than anything we've actually built? The truth is, China is already the most advanced country in the world and if we ever manage to modernize our infrastructure and manufacturing, we will be copying them.
    • numa7numa7 2y ago
      Those examples are optimizations. Trust me I would love for China and India to start innovating and advancing the human race but taking the idea of a train and making it faster is just an iteration on a previous technology.
• Wheaties466 2y ago
  I'm genuinely asking this out of curiosity and a bit of naivety — are there as many international students pursuing advanced degrees in China as there are in the U.S.? I don't know the answer and would love to hear from folks who do.
• 1-more 2y ago
  > we mocked the Chinese as being able only to copy American technology. Thing I disliked most about the movie Blackberry (and I liked the movie!): The Blackberry lost to a phone that could only have been made in China.
• anigbrowl 2y ago
  If you made it to the end of the thread, the author (a menswear/garment industry expert) explained that he was responding to comments along the lines of 'Nike pays $2 to make shoes in Asia and sells them at $150, earning a $148 profit, we should bring some of that money to American workers'. I did not get the impression that the writer was characterizing Asian industry in general, he just happens to be knowledgeable about this particular industry. I have been having similar discussions over the last week with people about synthesizers/pro audio gear (a topic I happen to be expert on), and the market dynamics are roughly the same. The goods themselves have a much smaller market and a much higher median cost than shoes, obviously. But components, assembly, and a significant amount of technical (PCB) design originates in China.
• Projectiboga 2y ago
  We still have much more raw materials, farm land and forests than the UK, and likely more of everything, even percapita.