China-Plus-One Was Just China All Along (indiadispatch.com) 35
An anonymous reader shares a report: India's blueprint for displacing China as the world's electronics workshop contains a rather extraordinary feature: the entire Indian edifice requires Chinese companies to supply the technical architecture, manufacturing know-how and operational templates that would make such displacement theoretically possible.
Let's start with Dixon Technologies, India's flagship domestic electronics manufacturer. The company has systematically built indigenous capability through a growing constellation of Chinese partnerships: Longcheer provides the design intelligence, Kunshan Q-Tech delivers camera module expertise, Chongqing Yuhai supplies precision-molded components and HKC brings display technology. This pattern of structured dependence has become the organizing principle of India's electronics manufacturing push.
[...] The current architecture sees Chinese companies retain control of the critical knowledge while their Indian partners provide labour arbitrage and regulatory navigation. Under this arrangement, India isn't constructing an alternative to Chinese manufacturing so much as establishing Chinese manufacturing's most elaborate subsidiary operation, underwritten by Indian taxpayers and marketed as national renewal. Many countries, but most importantly India and Vietnam, have worked hard in recent years to attract businesses that decided to diversify away from China, a strategy analysts have dubbed as "China Plus One."
Let's start with Dixon Technologies, India's flagship domestic electronics manufacturer. The company has systematically built indigenous capability through a growing constellation of Chinese partnerships: Longcheer provides the design intelligence, Kunshan Q-Tech delivers camera module expertise, Chongqing Yuhai supplies precision-molded components and HKC brings display technology. This pattern of structured dependence has become the organizing principle of India's electronics manufacturing push.
[...] The current architecture sees Chinese companies retain control of the critical knowledge while their Indian partners provide labour arbitrage and regulatory navigation. Under this arrangement, India isn't constructing an alternative to Chinese manufacturing so much as establishing Chinese manufacturing's most elaborate subsidiary operation, underwritten by Indian taxpayers and marketed as national renewal. Many countries, but most importantly India and Vietnam, have worked hard in recent years to attract businesses that decided to diversify away from China, a strategy analysts have dubbed as "China Plus One."
They all start like that (Score:5, Insightful)
China started by doing this with Japanese investors building Japanese factories, managed by the Japanese. They eventually figured out how to do it themselves.
Whether India will try to do the second part remains to be seen. They can make plenty of money acting slapping a "Made in India" sticker on Chinese goods, so maybe the incentives aren't very strong.
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China still loses jobs, capacity (Score:4, Interesting)
Moving factories to India or Vietnam still means regular Chinese citizens lose those jobs. It also means the manufacturing capacity belongs to India or Vietnam, rather than China, despite China having nominal control of the output. India and Vietnam will be building their fortune the same way China did off the back of the United States decades ago.
China also has an overcapacity problem in several sectors, such as steel; automotive; and solar. Now imagine that the CCP "solves" this problem by moving capacity overseas (or simply shuttering factories) rather than by opening up new opportunities to sell their excess of product. Instant economic contraction.
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China is transitioning from manual labour to knowledge work, the same as all developed nations did. They are doing it much faster, and the government is making sure that the jobs are there for people to move into, although it's far from perfect.
It's inevitable, the same as moving from rural areas to cities was. Remember those huge "ghost cities" that were built and then "abandoned"? They were built in advance of the expected migration, which then happened, and now they are full of people. Here's the famous
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Here's the famous "ghost" station...
Before: https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnt... [reddit.com]
After: https://www.reddit.com/r/trans... [reddit.com]
I'm not contesting the point that significant development happened subsequent to the subway station, but for the factual record your two comparison pics do not show the exact same place.They show different exits. Line 6 exit 2 and Line 6 exit 1.
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Yes, they are two exits from the same station. Unfortunately I don't have a photo of exit 1 now. By law there have to be at least two exits, for fire safety reasons.
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Off topic, but does anyone else find the shadows in that second pic a bit off? Like, faked?
Note the direction of shadow from the vertical rectangle on the right side of the subway entrance. It is going south-south-west.
Note the person in tan pants and a blue hoodie. From their right ankle to head is nearly vertical. Now look at their shadow - south-south-east.
Maybe there's something wonky going on that explains it? The whole pic feels off, IMO. Not that it matters one iota.
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Reminds of when Sarah Palin was ranting and raving about that bridge to nowhere in Alaska. Of course there was nothing out where the bridge would have gone to. They couldn't expand the city and build out there without a way of getting to it. Good thing we don't live in such nonsensical, hypocritical times today. Oh wait.
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What China is doing is setting up factorie
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It also means the manufacturing capacity belongs to India or Vietnam, rather than China, despite China having nominal control of the output.
This is the part that drives me crazy about the "anti" side of onshoring/reshoring. "Oh, it'll be an automated factory that only has a dozen jobs at most, that's stupid." Maybe so, but at some point you have to realize that "but then we have the factory, not some at least nominally hostile government 10,000 miles away" has value on its own. Hell, if nothing else, the massive disruptions of supply chains during Covid should have taught people that.
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Remember, China has learned a lot from the US.. and one lession the US taught them is:
1: Steal the tech first.. (People bitch at China, but the US started it by stealing everyone else's tech to grow its nacent industries).
2: Focus on the high value items (Labor isn't high value, but design/architecture/marketing/sales IS high value.. those that "build" are the "necessary" step needed but can be replaced with anyone.
3: Create a dependancy on them by favorable terms (
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"1: Steal the tech first.. (People bitch at China, but the US started it by stealing everyone else's tech to grow its nacent industries)."
It's a good thing IP law didn't exist when that first caveman figured out how to start a fire or that other one who chiseled a wheel. What you describe is just an extension of natural evolution: someone comes up with a better way of doing something and others adopt it. You can't stop it.
overcapacity problem = enforced scarcity (Score:2)
D'oh! (Score:1)
The summary was going pretty good until they falsely dragged Vietnam into it.
Yep, that will work well... (Score:2)
It requires Chinese companies to play along. But guess what, Chinese companies are not at liberty to just make such decisions themselves. That is why the US has a lot of offshoring but China does not. Obviously, there is a moral problem here (in both cases), but guess which approach does result in the more stable domestic economy.
Re:Yep, that will work well... (Score:4, Interesting)
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And you have not understood at all what I wrote. Nice.
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That is why the US has a lot of offshoring but China does not.
And that throws your whole posting off.
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And still no understanding. Nice. Go on, dig yourself deeper.
Re: 1 in 2 Indians work in tax free agriculture (Score:3)
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Just like the US (Score:2)
Nothing new to see here. China is following other developed countries path, mainly the US one. The US moved manufacturing to other, cheaper countries, transitioned to a "knowledge economy" and became richer than ever. China has great chances to succeed, too. But only time will tell for sure.