Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China • Hacker News Board

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

#121

Post by bigpumpkin » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

AtomicOrbital wrote: post #60

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.

when china shutdown domestic movement into/out of Wuhan they kept open international movement into/out of Wuhan ... at the same time neighbor countries with china tried to block cross boarder movement yet china forced those trade routes to stay open well after Wuhan had entered lockdown - pure evil

This is false, by the time they shut down movement out of Wuhan, the airport was closed.

There were, however, people who already left Wuhan who then left the country.

There were also repatriation flights out of Wuhan.

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

#122

Post by JoeAltmaier » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:29 PM UTC

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…

Unsurprising. The whole concept of 'state' is a group with its own interests.

And not a lot different from the century-old pandemic "Spanish Flu". Essentially civilized reciprocity broke down then too.

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

#123

Post by FooBarWidget » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:30 PM UTC

systemvoltage wrote: post #91

ubermon wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pow…

Those sources are not being honest. Yes countries initially claimed that kits and masks were defective. But later researches showed that countries made wrong orders because of haste, not understanding Chinese standards, etc. I already said elsewhere that the Dutch ordered wrong masks. In case of the Spanish: they ordered kits for testing whether a recovered patient had the virus, not for testing whether one is infected.

Those sources are not being honest because they still present the initial claims as the final truth. No word about later research results that invalidate those claims.

China has now put in stricter export regulations in order to ensure that quality is as expected. But not much mention of that in mainstream western media either.

As for pull rather than push: did the Chinese force aid on countries? No: countries accepted and allowed aid on their own will. In my opinion, this "pull vs push" perception is based on prejudice that China must be pushing something, rather than what is actually happening.

Sources: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22825391

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

#124

Post by Papirola » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:31 PM UTC

magicsmoke wrote: post #48

not_exactly__ wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The soft power only works on those that haven’t been exposed to it long enough. If you’ve dealt with China for a while, you know the real deal.

Want to give which geographical region you're from so I can put it down as an anecdotal datapoint?

Care to give yours?

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

#125

Post by billfruit » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

atonse wrote: post #24

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…

As it should be. A nation's government should ABSOLUTELY put its citizens over everything else. Not sure what you would have them do instead? What is happening is unfair to some, but the individual governments are doing exactly what they should be doing, valuing their people above all else.

Some countries behave even more strangely. India barred entry of its own citizens into India. One KLM flight was turned back from Delhi because it had Indian citizens on board.

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

#126

Post by mytailorisrich » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

hkmurakami wrote: post #12

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…

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.

I don't think it's hypocrisy.

At the time the vast majority of the cases in China were in Wuhan and Hubei, which had been put on lockdown with airports closed, but the rest of the country has much fewer cases.

No country imposed full ban on travels with countries that had the number of cases seen in China outside Wuhan/Hubei.

Whether this was the right or wrong decision to make is another issue.

The same discussion can be had about travellers from Italy just a few weeks later.

At the end of the day it is also down to each country to make its own decision on who to accept.

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

#127

Post by jorblumesea » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

Easier said than done, given that the Chinese government is pretty much writing blank checks to attract, retain and gather just about every form of IP and manufacturing processes known. You see the same thing with 5G, where the goals of the Chinese government isn't so much to produce a price competitive product but crush global competition in the marketplace by whatever means possible.

How can you compete with subsidies so heavy it's basically free?

The game they're playing isn't free market.

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

#128

Post by zepto » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

tren-hard wrote: post #106

zepto wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Isn’t it good to bring the jobs back?

I don't think the citizens of Japan should fund that. If Japan wants manufacturing in their country and it isn't appealing enough on its own then it should be done through regulation, not tax payer subsides.

If you do it through regulation, the tax payers would still fund it through increased prices. You also risk business failing, which again the tax payers would pay for.

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

#129

Post by catalogia » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:33 PM UTC

zepto wrote: post #74

tren-hard wrote: post #5

So Japanese companies move operations to China because it's cheaper, leaving Japanese jobs behinds. Those businesses profit from cheap labor, emissions, and materials. Now Japan is subsidizing their return to Japan with $2.2 billion. I really hope the US doesn't adopt this (narrator: they will). It's a slap in the face to tax payers.

Why? Isn’t it good to bring the jobs back?

It's a "socialize the losses, privatize the profits" sort of deal. That said, it may nevertheless be for the best in the long run, given that they can't change the past.

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

#130

Post by TeMPOraL » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 4:34 PM UTC

lotsofpulp wrote: post #101

TeMPOraL wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's interesting to me that you find this surprising or view it as bad behavior. It's not surprising in the sense that it fits the definition of a "nation state". It's surprising because one would think that in XXI century, people understood that global problems require global coordination; competition of selfish actors fails spectacularly in such cases.

Coordination (or cooperation) only works up to a point. If resources are truly scarce, then being selfish may be the only way to survive no matter what century you’re in.

If resources are truly scarce, then competition means most players won't survive - whatever resources they manage to hoard for themselves won't be enough for their needs. Cooperation means more will be saved.

(A simple thought experiment: imagine there are 10 equally capable competitors, each needing 2 units of resources to survive, and there are only 10 available globally. Under cooperation, 5 competitors will need to be sacrificed, but 5 will live. Under competition, all 10 will perish, each holding their hard-won single unit of resources.)