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Foxconn: China's days as worlds factory are done
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Ed.Kloonk:

--- Quote from: SilverSolder on August 27, 2020, 11:09:01 pm ---
--- Quote from: bson on August 27, 2020, 08:40:06 pm ---
--- Quote from: EEVblog on August 22, 2020, 12:29:09 pm ---Yes, and companies have also been moving manufacturing back to their own countries for years now. It even has it's own name, "onshoring". We've been talking about it for several years at least on The Amp Hour.

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There's also the matter of China actively making an ass of itself in Australia and elsewhere.  Western businesses contract with Chinese manufacturers to make products they market and sell in the west, not in China, and with China's recent imperialist activities this is going to spell trouble when the hammer finally comes down.  The writing is on the wall, and it would be a huge problem not to have a plan B.

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I'm not convinced that China's "recent imperialist activities" makes it on to our purchasing manager's list of priorities.   I'll tell you what has made it on to the list:  Avoiding buying equipment that an American administration can render obsolete via a political decision, possibly because they feel they cannot compete with China, or whatever other reasons.  China will be pushed to make their own versions of, for example, chips they used to license from American companies.  The only losers in the long run might end up being those American companies...   what do you think?

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The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing. Back in 1997, in a vastly different world, the boss of Nike was asked to bring manufacturing back to small town America. His response? No. It's just too hard.

The world might have changed but I doubt that corporate opinion has changed. They just won't admit it anymore because it has consequences.

https://www.bizjournals.com/portland/stories/1997/10/20/newscolumn4.html



--- Quote ---In the movie, Moore tried to convince Knight to manufacture athletic footwear in his hometown rather than in Indonesia. He interviewed unemployed people in Flint who said they would love to work at a Nike factory. Knight refused the offer. His argument: Unemployed people will say anything, but the fact is U.S. residents didn't really want to make shoes.


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coppice:

--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:23:06 am ---The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing. Back in 1997, in a vastly different world, the boss of Nike was asked to bring manufacturing back to small town America. His response? No. It's just too hard.

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The people in Asia don't want to do manufacturing any more than western people do. What they want to do it eat and find shelter. They do what is demanded of them to achieve those things.
tooki:

--- Quote from: CJay on August 27, 2020, 05:34:59 pm ---
--- Quote from: Bud on August 17, 2020, 10:28:34 pm ---
--- Quote ---Foxconn chairman Young Liu, according to Bloomberg,... boldly proclaimed that while China will continue to be a key location for Foxconn's factories, the country's "days as the world's factory are done."
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https://www.macrumors.com/2020/08/12/foxconn-says-chinas-days-as-worlds-factory-done/

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It just means Apple's money will go to Vietnam, Africa or whichever other emerging economy is cheap enough to keep them in profit they've become accustomed to, it would be more worrying if the manufacturing 'came home' because that means either they've been bribed with your taxes or they think your standard of living is falling (or can be forced) below the level of the workers in the country they're leaving.

China will continue on and maybe it'll move a little upmarket, maybe it won't.

Macrumours and Bloomberg aren't always right (same as many other news outlets) and often regurgitate press or politically motivated 'news' releases that turn out to be quite far from reality

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It’s not that simple. Apple has never chased the cheapest manufacturing. If they did, they’d have left China years ago. Apple has said publicly that the reason for manufacturing in China isn’t cost, it’s flexibility: They can get a new plant up and running in no time, get custom parts in hours, etc. Literally in tiny fractions of the time it’d take in USA. China has managed to become incredibly nimble when it comes to large scale electronics manufacturing, and this alone is enough to make it very, very hard for many companies to move elsewhere.
coppice:

--- Quote from: tooki on August 29, 2020, 05:51:28 pm ---It’s not that simple. Apple has never chased the cheapest manufacturing. If they did, they’d have left China years ago. Apple has said publicly that the reason for manufacturing in China isn’t cost, it’s flexibility: They can get a new plant up and running in no time, get custom parts in hours, etc. Literally in tiny fractions of the time it’d take in USA. China has managed to become incredibly nimble when it comes to large scale electronics manufacturing, and this alone is enough to make it very, very hard for many companies to move elsewhere.

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I've seen a number of manufacturers in China move factories into the heartland, for lower costs, them move them back to the coast just a couple of years later because of logistics. These are in places where you can get large quantities of goods overnight, by low cost freight train, from suppliers in Shenzhen. That few hours delay is enough to get people to move. This doesn't always make sense to me, but it seems to make sense to the people moving.
SilverSolder:

--- Quote from: Ed.Kloonk on August 29, 2020, 11:23:06 am ---
[...] The thing that most are forgetting is that western workers don't -really- want to do manufacturing.  [...]


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Which begs the question...  what do Western workers -really- want to do?   

It would be nice if we could all live off unearned income on the Bahamas...

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