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Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

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Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#91

Post by systemvoltage »

ubermon wrote: post #46
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Actually this pandemic has shown some true colors of many nations. 1) US trying to unsuccessfully hoard supplies, issues with the German testing company 2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. 3) European countries are in-fighting for supplies. Switzer…

2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. I am curious what will be considered not fake and genuine support? Damned if they and damned if they don’t. AFAIK Dutch issued a article clarify the mistake they made which nobody seems to care. I don’t think any…

There are a ton of sources here:

https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/china-floods-europe-d...

China is trying the same thing that US did for many decades after WWII - to rally up global support through humanitarian aid: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_foreign_aid

The problem is that the whole thing feels fake for 2 reasons (this is my personal opinion):

1) They are an authoritarian state using soft power for a democratic nation (Italy, Netherlands) - there is a real conflict of interest.

2) It is "pull" rather than "push" when it comes to soft power. You cannot muscle your way through it. As a superpower, you need to influence other nations such that those nations "want" to collaborate and be influenced - leading by example, helping them gain foothold after the catastrophy, long term investments in shared interests, etc. You can't buy your way into it.

IMO - China has a branding and goodwill problem :-). You're seeing that in HK. People outside of this propaganda sphere have no trust in the CCP.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#92

Post by RedBeetDeadpool »

tomp wrote: post #37
jennyyang wrote: post #4

At the very least, medical supplies and drugs manufacturing will get pulled back into each country. The 3M spat between Canada and the US makes it abundantly clear that in a time of true crisis, you can't even trust your closest friends when something terrifying happens to the world like this pandemic. Whether it means all manufacturing will move away from China or if it means that they will spread it globally, is an…

To be honest, I don't understand what efficiency gains this kind of globalization was supposed to bring anyways... A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. Obviously, cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency , (1) more a question of fairness, (2) can be done domestically (low-cost immigrant workers) and (3) there's plenty of cheap workers worldwide, not just in Chi…

> cheaper workers work for less, but that's not exactly efficiency

Never thought of it this way, but you're right, at least in spirit. Efficiency is probably not the right word but I couldn't agree more. This drive towards ruthless efficiency actually hurts us in being more productive. We all need to rethink the endgame that capitalism, low cost - high efficiency systems inevitably leads us towards.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#93

Post by Medicalidiot »

philliphaydon wrote: post #17
hkmurakami wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I personally enjoyed the hypocrisy of China initially requesting Nations to not "overreact" and close borders to its travelers (mid February), then proceeding to do exactly this towards these same nations (mid March) when things became worse overseas.

During Swine Flu outbreak in 2009 china closed it's borders to Mexico, but turns around and says it's unfair when people close their borders to china. Then proceeded to close their borders AGAIN. facepalm

SARS happened in 2002-2004, no?

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#94

Post by numpad0 »

henearkr wrote: post #10

I'm surprised that Japan's government is feeling this as a priority right now... There are no problems for goods importation between Japan and China now, and as in China the pandemics has been largely reduced, there should not be in the near future neither. PS: Japan and more precisely Tokyo is on the brink to imitate the human tragedy of Italy and US, so maybe they could vote some different budgets for now... (like,…

From my personal Japanese perspective the issue is clear: the situation isn’t tangibly horrible, so the higher up politicians aren’t amused. They’re feeling underwhelmed, betrayed even, that the experts they think who represent the virus are still demanding more out of the government.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#95

Post by antigirl »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #42
rorykoehler wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CCP don't have a great track record of giving a shit about people at home. What makes you think they care for anything but the opportunity/ability to project more power abroad?

I will also have to disagree on that one. I was born in China, I now live in Europe, and "CCP doesn't give a shit about people" is a bad western stereotype. Of course, define "caring". Does any other government, including democratic ones, truly care about people? Debatable. But what I'm saying is that CCP is not the mass-murdering villain that Hacker News makes it out to be. What about censorship, etc? Yes bad things…

Agree but not the good hero you make them out to be either. Does any other nation have Muslim concentration camps. Invasive tracking? And extreme sensorships measures?

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#96

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

ubermon wrote: post #46
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Actually this pandemic has shown some true colors of many nations. 1) US trying to unsuccessfully hoard supplies, issues with the German testing company 2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. 3) European countries are in-fighting for supplies. Switzer…

2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. I am curious what will be considered not fake and genuine support? Damned if they and damned if they don’t. AFAIK Dutch issued a article clarify the mistake they made which nobody seems to care. I don’t think any…

The issue with faulty PPE is that demand has surged and tons of Chinese factories are trying to retool to meet that demand.

At the same time, international demand for other types of goods is dropping off a cliff, so Chinese factories have an even greater incentive to retool and produce PPE. With so many inexperienced manufacturers and such a rush to get to market, quality suffers.

There are also all sorts of unscrupulous middlemen and faudsters who are taking advantage of the crisis to sell non-existent, mislabeled or shoddy supplies. Buyers are desperate to obtain PPE quickly, and are willing to spend enormous amounts to get it, so it's a seller's market and fraud is easy. There's an interesting account of the current situation here: [1].

Allowing foreigners to get defrauded is bad for China's brand, so the government recently (in the last few days) issued new regulations on exports of medical equipment.[2] The regulations should improve quality, but will also make it more difficult to obtain PPE from China. Pick your poison: more PPE with poor quality control, or less PPE with better quality control.

1. https://www.chinalawblog.com/2020/03/buying-face-masks-and-o...

2. https://www.chinalawblog.com/2020/04/buying-face-masks-and-o...

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#97

Post by nlfwhulsdhouv »

FooBarWidget wrote: post #22
systemvoltage wrote: post #9

Actually this pandemic has shown some true colors of many nations. 1) US trying to unsuccessfully hoard supplies, issues with the German testing company 2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. 3) European countries are in-fighting for supplies. Switzer…

> 2) China trying to use soft power, but the whole drama feels fake. It is good that they are sending supplies (often faulty and not up to the quality, see dutch story around this) but it doesn't feel genuine. Allow me to disagree with this one. I see people questioning China's motives on helping other countries, but in my opinion this is a baseless and overly cynical view of things, not truth. People want to buy int…

Anytime the CCP does something bad it's some systemic issue with insane conspiratorial motivation that every citizen is complacent in. Anytime the US does something bad it's 'realpolitik', or 'just a bad government, not everyone believes that'.

If you enumerate all the domestic human rights abuses of the US it doesn't look much better. Internationally, it's much worse. Hell, the US barely has 'democracy'. The chance of your vote _actually_ counting is small, and the two parties are barely better than a strict illusion of choice.

It's nothing more than another red scare. And before people jump down my throat... I don't think the CCP is _good_ either, I would dissolve both governments if it was up to me.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#98

Post by catalogia »

astronautjones wrote: post #88
stronglikedan wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that, in XXI century, we're realizing that the human race is not yet ready for globalization. Heck, we still can't even assimilate into respective cultures properly. People emigrate from places with problems, then insist the place they immigrated to should be like the place they emigrated from.

> People emigrate from places with problems, then insist the place they immigrated to should be like the place they emigrated from. the majority of the time, the problems you speak of were caused by the big western powers in the first place

I think that comment was about Californians moving to other states.

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#99

Post by mmm_grayons »

TazeTSchnitzel wrote: post #21
rsweeney21 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nations exist to protect it's citizens. So yeah, as they should, each country is prioritizing their own needs before exporting any surplus to other countries. The challenge is no one really has any idea how much of the supplies they actually need. It's interesting to me that you find this surprising or view it as bad behavior.

States use serving a “nation” as a retroactive justification for doing what they have always done. In a global crisis, selfish actions help nobody.

Leaders face a rather difficult situation: the governments of nations exist to protect their own citizens. Were they to export supplies to others, citizens wouldn't be happy. Even were it to save twice as many citizens in a foreign nation as it would have saved in the exporting one. Would you be happy with a national government that placed the lives of foreigners above yours? Even if you would, most people wouldn't be.

This isn't limited to international relations, of course. The federal stockpiles of PPE are nearly depleted [0]. If the virus situation in America worsens, some states will be extremely pissed that the early states got a large chunk of the federal stockpiles, leaving none later on for them. Were the federal government to reserve supplies for states that were affected later, they would face anger from those that are peaking now.

> In a global crisis, selfish actions help nobody.

This is untrue. Keeping supplies does help some people, the ones with whom they are kept. It may hurt others, but it does help people.

I wonder if this is something like a prisoners' dilemma situation. A co-ordinated global response might be the best option, but it would require a sacrifice from each nation. Even if they might benefit in the end, in the days of non-stop media coverage, no government is willing to take the heat for making that sacrifice.

[0]: https://nypost.com/2020/04/09/federal-government-stockpile-o...

Re: Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

#100

Post by TeMPOraL »

elliekelly wrote: post #73
muro wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taleb describes this well: globalism allows for optimization (cost, efficiency), but increases risk. To reduce risk, add redundancy (locally).

In some ways it decreases risk though, too. The risk of war, specifically. The US and Chinese governments are far from friends but our economies are much too interconnected to allow either side to instigate too much of a disagreement. For the most part globalization is good but the pandemic has certainly highlighted the value of strategic redundancy or at least an emergency plan B.

Isn't WWI the usual counterargument to globalization reducing the risk of war? Or were the countries back then not interconnected enough?
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