Coronavirus Could Be The End Of China As Global Manufacturing Hub

[Taimoor Khan]

So who in their right frame of mind can take the baton from China, who has got the capability of the manufacturing scale that China got?

Look around you, your household, you may find that from your underwear to your iPhone, are all made in china. And then there is a small matter of Chinese work ethics, who is capable of replicating that working like robots society?

And , what's the guarantee that any nation which might want to fill into Chinese boots will not be at receiving end of biological attack from China and like minded nations? (Very odd that both China and Iran are struck badly by this virus!)

 

[Baba_Yaga]

So who in their right frame of mind can take the baton from China, who has got the capability of the manufacturing scale that China got?

Look around you, your household, you may find that from your underwear to your iPhone, are all made in china. And then there is a small matter of Chinese work ethics, who is capable of replicating that working like robots society?

And , what's the guarantee that any nation which might want to fill into Chinese boots will not be at receiving end of biological attack from China and like minded nations? (Very odd that both China and Iran are struck badly by this virus!)

Also very odd that Italy is stuck isn't it? Maybe getting punished for siding with hitler in WW2. Or maybe because Gucci and Prada, Versace taking money away from other American retailers. I hear that Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger are extremely pissed. Also very strange Japan is getting affected. Maybe this is payback for Japan ruining western society with Manga and Hentai. And finally South Korea. Of course, the west sees all bento box and korean bbq restaurants as a big threat, taking money away from Mcdonalds and KFC.

 

[UKBengali]

So who in their right frame of mind can take the baton from China, who has got the capability of the manufacturing scale that China got?

Look around you, your household, you may find that from your underwear to your iPhone, are all made in china. And then there is a small matter of Chinese work ethics, who is capable of replicating that working like robots society?

And , what's the guarantee that any nation which might want to fill into Chinese boots will not be at receiving end of biological attack from China and like minded nations? (Very odd that both China and Iran are struck badly by this virus!)

There is no conspiracy going on here.

China has had things like SARS back in 2003 when it was no threat to anyone. It is a combination of Chinese climate and eating habits that seem to be causing these outbreaks.

China is not that special. Vietnam has already taken a large chunk of FDI in manufacturing and BD is trying to attract 10s of billions of US dollars of FDI over this decade in manufacturing. The move away from China due to higher wages will only accelerate now.

It is best in the end to have multiple centres of global manufacturing so that risk is spread out.

 

[Taimoor Khan]

There is no conspiracy going on here.

China has had things like SARS back in 2003 when it was no threat to anyone. It is a combination of Chinese climate and eating habits that seem to be causing these outbreaks.

China is not that special. Vietnam has already taken a large chunk of FDI in manufacturing and BD is trying to attract 10s of billions of US dollars of FDI over this decade in manufacturing. The move away from China due to higher wages will only accelerate now.

It is best in the end to have multiple centres of global manufacturing so that risk is spread out.

This article is a clear proof of how a outbreak can be used as economic weapon. You have to be blind or just ignoring the reality.

Dont know how old are you or how long you been in UK. I am victim of swine flu when it broke out in british isles. No country evacuated its citizens, nor there was any cry of excluding UK from global economy. Around half a million people die with common flu each year, let that sink in!

There is a clear agenda going on and those who are nay sayers, need to get their head checked.

 

[UKBengali]

This article is a clear proof of how a outbreak can be used as economic weapon. You have to be blind or just ignoring the reality.

Dont know how old are you or how long you been in UK. I am victim of swine flu when it broke out in british isles. No country evacuated its citizens, nor there was any cry of excluding UK from global economy. Around half a million people die with common flu each year, let that sink in!

There is a clear agenda going on and those who are nay sayers, need to get their head checked.

No there is no "clear proof".
You are seeing what you want to see.

Was China a threat back in 2003 when SARS originated from it?


PS - As for "common flu", it is well "common" and is present all over the world and is nowhere near as deadly as this virus.

PSS - "Swine flu" is nothing new and occurs in different countries every few years.

 

[Taimoor Khan]

Also very odd that Italy is stuck isn't it? Maybe getting punished for siding with hitler in WW2. Or maybe because Gucci and Prada, Versace taking money away from other American retailers. I hear that Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger are extremely pissed. Also very strange Japan is getting affected. Maybe this is payback for Japan ruining western society with Manga and Hentai. And finally South Korea. Of course, the west sees all bento box and korean bbq restaurants as a big threat, taking money away from Mcdonalds and KFC.

Well smarty pants, I got news for you, no nation is evacuating its citizens from Italy, Japan or tamkabtu if you may like!

Half million people die each year with common flu, let's all pack our bags , go home and watch Netflix for the rest of our lives, what say you??

PS - As for "common flu", it is well common and is present all over the world and is nowhere near as deadly as this virus.

Which part of "half million people dieing" each year with common flu , you did not understand? How many have died with corona this winter, we are in march now?

 

[UKBengali]

Which part of "half million people dieing" each year with common flu , you did not understand? How many have died with corona this winter, we are in march now?

Dude, why are you so angry?

Corona is far more deadly if we look at the "kill rate" on the infected patients taking data from China. 3% of people that have got the virus have died.

The "common flu" has a "kill rate" of just 0.05% using estimates of 1 billion people world's population being infected every year.

So Corona virus is 60 times as deadly as the "common flu" which cannot be isolated like stopping contact with China to a large extent. I am actually being optimistic on recovery from Corona as China has better than world average healthcare and average worldwide deaths are likely to be higher.

I know you love China as Pakistan is allied with it but the evidence indicates that this virus outbreak is induced by Chinese climate and eating habits.

 

[Rasengan]

The bigger the arrogance the bigger the fall. America has no right in lecturing China when its own economy is tanking. Looking at the chart we can all clearly see the current bounce is just a correction and the bearish sentiment will continue. In fact since 2018 we are looking at a triangle or a flat forming.

 

[FedererExpress]

I’ve seen a lot of low-end products like clothes, shoes, toys, plastic products and other basic household items that in previous years had ‘Made in China’ label now have ‘Made in Vietnam/Bangladesh/India’ labels.

So yes, low cost manufacturing is definitely shifting out of China. I’ve seen it firsthand.

China still produces medium-end products like electronic products which will be the next products to shift out of China.

 

[Pandora]

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in china to turn it into a manufacturing hub mainly bcz of low labour cost and an excellent supply chain. Labour costs are already increasing in china coupled with increasingly old population with massive gender imbalance. So in light of everything China decided to venture on path of Belt and Road initiative to invest in countries with low cost labour diversifying its manufacturing to other developing countries. Even if coronavirus hadn't come this is inevitable considering chinese growth rate has already started to stablise around 6% amid huge consumer based economy forming as a base.

 

[PeaceGen]

Hundreds of billions of dollars have been invested in china to turn it into a manufacturing hub mainly bcz of low labour cost and an excellent supply chain. Labour costs are already increasing in china coupled with increasingly old population with massive gender imbalance. So in light of everything China decided to venture on path of Belt and Road initiative to invest in countries with low cost labour diversifying its manufacturing to other developing countries. Even if coronavirus hadn't come this is inevitable considering chinese growth rate has already started to stablise around 6% amid huge consumer based economy forming as a base.

well, it makes perfect legal sense for the Chinese government to want to pre-empt SECRET shifts in their societies demographics and social structures that evolve naturally under the UNpredictability of the future,
by diversifying their economy and their government's future funding in a manner that (A) ensures stability of goods produced and delivered and (B) does not cause any harm to other nations whatsoever.

it increasingly looks like (B) is a fact rather than a hope, or something to worry about.
but that's just my opinion.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

These guys writing these articles have never, ever been in an actual manufacturing plant.

do they even know the Mexican or Vietnamese production capability is for logic ICs or LEDs are? it's near zero. Mexico doesn't have a single fab. Not just leading edge 300 mm logic IC fabs... they don't have LED fabs, optoelectronics fabs or display fabs either.

does Mexico or Vietnam have capability to manufacture Li ion batteries like BYD?

does Mexico or Vietnam have the capability to manufacture electric cars and buses?

this is why Chinese aren't even close to threatened. The competition is Germany, South Korea and Japan, not Mexico and Vietnam.

Mexico doesn't ship software, electronics, precision machinery, heavy vehicles or ICs.

 

[gambit]

These guys writing these articles have never, ever been in an actual manufacturing plant.

I have. Several -- US, China, SKR, Taiwan, and Isr. All semicon.

do they even know the Mexican or Vietnamese production capability is for logic ICs or LEDs are? it's near zero. Mexico doesn't have a single fab. Not just leading edge 300 mm logic IC fabs... they don't have LED fabs, optoelectronics fabs or display fabs either.

But that is not the point, which is that mid level technicians and engineers can bring up a fab with production workers knowing nothing more than how to use Windows. How the hell do you think your China got started in the past that allowed you to talk nonsensical today?

this is why Chinese aren't even close to threatened. The competition is Germany, South Korea and Japan, not Mexico and Vietnam.

Mexico doesn't ship software, electronics, precision machinery, heavy vehicles or ICs.

Wrong. If Mexico and Vietnam can assemble cars, they can run a wafer fab. But never mind wafer processing. Both Mexico and Viet Nam can be Assembly and Test sites, meaning they can extract the dies from the wafers, package the dies according to customers specs, and perform functional test of these packaged dies before shipping to customers.

So yes, your China is very much threatened and the Chinese goobermint knows it.

 

[Zharang9]

So who in their right frame of mind can take the baton from China, who has got the capability of the manufacturing scale that China got?

Look around you, your household, you may find that from your underwear to your iPhone, are all made in china. And then there is a small matter of Chinese work ethics, who is capable of replicating that working like robots society?

And , what's the guarantee that any nation which might want to fill into Chinese boots will not be at receiving end of biological attack from China and like minded nations? (Very odd that both China and Iran are struck badly by this virus!)

Friend, thank you and other Pakistani friends for supporting China. However the current epidemic is unlikely a biological attack. You are right, that media is used to weaponise the epidemic against China just like this article. However I believe that this is also a good lesson for China not to rely too much on America or listen to their "expert advice".

China has been trying to move up the production chain and shifting from using low wage labour for some time. Factory jobs are becoming more automated. Factory workers can be retrained to work in other industries.

Most posts here talking about the quality of Chinese workers are correct. Japanese aside, Chinese workers have a unique motivation that cannot be found anywhere else. There was a documentary about this recently called 'American factory'

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

I have. Several -- US, China, SKR, Taiwan, and Isr. All semicon.


But that is not the point, which is that mid level technicians and engineers can bring up a fab with production workers knowing nothing more than how to use Windows. How the hell do you think your China got started in the past that allowed you to talk nonsensical today?


Wrong. If Mexico and Vietnam can assemble cars, they can run a wafer fab. But never mind wafer processing. Both Mexico and Viet Nam can be Assembly and Test sites, meaning they can extract the dies from the wafers, package the dies according to customers specs, and perform functional test of these packaged dies before shipping to customers.

So yes, your China is very much threatened and the Chinese goobermint knows it.

assembly and test are already dominated by mainland China and Taiwan. You know as well as I do that multinationals are extremely risk averse and will rarely switch from proven suppliers to unknown ones. Even for process supplies like chemicals, getting a company to switch from say, Entegris to Gelest, is very hard, and that's for essentially interchangable bulk commodities, not really specialized services.

speaking of process supplies, where are all the supplies going to be sourced from? Are there any chemical companies capable of the specifications that semicon requires in Mexico or Vietnam? What about machinery? Is there an Applied Materials facility in Mexico or Vietnam? There's 17 in China. No, you have to ship EVERYTHING in.

What if they need ultrapure cleaning? Is there a QuantumClean equivalent in Mexico or Vietnam? Ferrotec has a cleaning facility in China, so does CTG. When chamber maintenance need to be done, where do they go? They have to ship it elsewhere - China, US or South Korea.

At that point what's the point of building in Mexico or Vietnam? You have more lead time for supplies and machinery, you have to fly people in to get maintenance, you have no local customers so your only business is export, at a time where export markets have already been cornered. So the only possible reason is cheap labor, cheap land, low taxes. CHEAP and LOW means no value capture.

the other thing is that Mexico and Vietnam won't own any of the IP. As an example, BOE owns its own fabs, is there a wholy owned Mexican or Vietnamese fab? Is there a Mexican or Vietnamese SMIC? No, they need foreign owners who take all the profits, leaving crumbs for the local workers.

so even if Mexico or Vietnam somehow succeeds in attracting multinationals, which they can't because they don't have the ecosystem, they STILL don't have their own IP. they'll still be making crumbs compared to Chinese companies that have their own IP, never mind Western companies which command even higher profits.