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

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

#321

Post by blackrock » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:22 PM UTC

DiogenesKynikos wrote: post #96

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…

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 unscrupu…

> The regulations should improve quality, but will also make it more difficult to obtain PPE from China.

This is actually a great idea! We should all be finally supporting this.

People have been complaining for the past 20 years of poor quality from China made goods. But, what do they expect?

They want to buy a $1 USD dollar item, and expect it to be as good quality as a $10 USD dollar item.

What kind of moron failed at basic math, that they can't understand this?

By having all China made goods be labeled as: "Made in China", then you mix the crap with the spectacular. It tarnishes the national brand. There needs to be more distinction.

The China government, should now create 2 or 3 classes.

1) High Quality Products, certified by the China Government

2) International Products, certified by foreign companies

3) Low Quality Products, not certified by anyone, so buy it at your own damn risk, and don't blame China for it

This can actually help shift poor products to other countries. Then, the new "Made in OtherCountry" products, can be known as the crap products. Or, every country should probably do this, if they want to avoid being known as a low quality manufacturer.

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

#322

Post by cmrdporcupine » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

Mountain_Skies wrote: post #273

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not at all applicable in this case. Some federal authorities in the US attempted to halt some 3 million (or 500,000 depending on reports, it seems) purchased shipments destined for Canada from 3M. It was only the intervention at the highest level of the Canadian government that stopped this. It's worth pointing out that without Canadian nurses from Windsor who cross the border every day to work in Detroit hospitals,…

Which is why Canada keeps losing. Canada loses more than the U.S. does it they stop exporting pulpwood. The U.S. can replace Canadian forestry products easily. Canada can't find a new buyer so easily. Detroit makes up one fifth of one percent of the US population. Windsor nurses aren't going to set national policy for the United States. Chrystia Freeland keeps bargaining from positions of absurd weakness and gets the…

Having 1/10th the population of the United States, and correspondingly smaller economy, puts us in a weak position no matter what.

I never voted Liberal, never have, but honestly, Freeland is decent.

Trudeau's dad said it best, to Nixon, in 1969:

"Living next to you is in some ways like sleeping with an elephant. No matter how friendly and even-tempered is the beast, if I can call it that, one is affected by every twitch and grunt," said the late Pierre Trudeau.

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

#323

Post by smacktoward » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:24 PM UTC

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…

> Another potential advantage could be, factories are closer to natural resources, but it seems to me that that's not as much a question of efficiency, as it is of lax (enforcement of) environmental standards.

Not at all. Being close to your inputs means you don’t have to ship them as far to make use of them. And the shorter the distance you have to ship them, the less you will pay for shipping. Lower overhead equals higher efficiency.

It’s like, why were car factories in the U.S. clustered around the Great Lakes? Because car factories need steel, and the steel mills were in Pennsylvania. And why were the steel mills in Pennsylvania? Because steel mills need coal, and the coal mines were in Appalachia. You could theoretically build these factories anywhere, but the company that built close to their inputs would have an economic edge over the company that didn’t.

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

#324

Post by dang » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:26 PM UTC

ubermon wrote: post #66

philliphaydon wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was born in China Did you earn your red scarf?

I am quite surprised to see those stereotypes on hacker news . Looking at all the accounts with names like systemxxx and throwawayxxx, I feel conspiracy theory is no joke

Unfortunately, this kind of thing makes it on to HN. That's inevitable when a forum has millions of users, anonymity is ok, and the topic is divisive. We do what we can to try to convince people to follow the rules (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html), and we ban accounts that violate them repeatedly.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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

#325

Post by jacques_chester » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:41 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #312

elliekelly wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The economist Norman Angell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell ) published a highly influential book, The Great Illusion , making this exact argument. In 1909. It has, let’s say, not aged gracefully.

The problem with this argument is ignoring the counterfactual cases: the wars that have not occurred, that would have occurred otherwise.

Europe was mired in endless wars for millenia. It's now in the longest stretch of peace in centuries and, by sheer coincidence, at its highest levels of trade.

In the rest of the world trade has steadily risen and wars and deaths from wars have fallen steadily. Correlation might not be causation, but it would interesting know what third factor explains both "more trade" and "fewer wars" other than "it's hard to fight a war with the people who feed you".

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

#326

Post by credit_guy » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:44 PM UTC

smacktoward wrote: post #312

elliekelly wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The economist Norman Angell ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norman_Angell ) published a highly influential book, The Great Illusion , making this exact argument. In 1909. It has, let’s say, not aged gracefully.

It did quite well for its author though. It appears he got a Nobel Prize in 1933. Maybe he was pulling the illusion thing.

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

#327

Post by novok » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:45 PM UTC

showbufire wrote: post #161

systemvoltage wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CCP does not understand that playing asymmetric games from business laws (booting Uber off of China for example), diplomacy and global influence, etc is damaging long term brand and goodwill. In this pandemic, democratic nations are suffering more than authoritarian regimes purely by choice - complete Wuhan style measures are unacceptable say in Sweden. This asymmetry is going to give a short term boost to China. Lon…

booting off Uber? Have you ever used Uber and its local competitor Didi in China? I've used both multiple times. The competition was just too much, both companies were losing money at a pace that's not sustainable. The Uber China business was acquired, and in return Uber received cash and stakes in Didi.

If you look into the details you'll find out that in typical CCP fashion they were tipping the scales on Didi.

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

#328

Post by mchaver » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:46 PM UTC

FooBarWidget wrote: post #285

systemvoltage wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In addition, WHO is heavily influenced by China; here is an interview with a senior WHO official who was asked about Taiwan - he simply hangs up the phone: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UlCYFh8U2xM

WHO does not officially recognize Taiwan because the UN does not officially recognize Taiwan, and the WHO is a UN organization. It is as simple as that. If you disagree then you gotta take it to the UN. The poor guys at the WHO just want to focus on fighting diseases, and yet everybody is trying to use them for political agendas. If I was that guy I would be inclined to shut down too.

Unfortunately for him life is political, and the UN and WHO very much so. I think those organizations should have space for governing entities that might not have complete international support or they aren’t really representing the world population as the name might lead one to believe.

Taiwan is clearly a self governing entity with that is not governed by the CCP. Whatever policy and assistance WHO is giving to CCP does not go to Taiwan. Taiwan has taken a very different approach to coronavirus and the world has a lot to learn from them.

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

#329

Post by tly_alex » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:49 PM UTC

chillacy wrote: post #222

tomp wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> A factory in China is just as efficient as a factory in Spain or USA. I'm not sure how you're defining efficiency, but in the Netflix special American Factory, it would seem like the chinese workers were not only cheaper but also more productive.

Totally agree. It take time and management skills to be a efficient factory.

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

#330

Post by willyt » Thu, Apr 09, 2020, 9:50 PM UTC

TeMPOraL wrote: post #100

elliekelly wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 ?

Back then every component of a battleship, the most powerful and advanced weapon of the time could be built independently by Britain, France, Germany, Italy, USA, Japan etc. Today, there are very few weapons systems that do not depend on allied countries for a critical component. E.g. it is quite well known that Britain's nuclear powered subs use US reactors and US missiles, but even the steel plate for the hull is likely sourced from another country as there is only one steelworks left in the UK which probably is not able to produce the right alloy in the desired thicknesses. In fact, industry in the UK has declined to the extent that we could not independantly produce a WW1 era battleship any more without a vast restructuring of the economy which would take decades.