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Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

wsj.com

111–120 of 358 posts

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#111
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Apple and many westerners never understand the risk and the ethics implication of doing business in China. Apple industrial partners are all asians. Samsung and the like don't do any better regarding ethics. Not sure why the divide with the "ignorant west" is necessary in your argument. Of course people at Apple understand the risk, and it is taken into account to generate as much profit as possible.

> Apple industrial partners are all asians. Samsung and the like don't do any better regarding ethics. You can rightfully complain about labor practices in other Asian countries, but forced labor from concentration camps is a uniquely Chinese atrocity.

> uniquely Chinese

No. It’s not. See also: the US prison labor system.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reads oddly like propaganda and flies against any and all of the evidence that we regularly observe, including the protests against working conditions that we are observing now

China does have some of the best worker protection laws. The protests we’re observing now, including the one in the iphone city, are against the government. Let’s not conflate the two.

Wow, "are against the government", that's really some typical CCP talk seen in their smear campaign.

From what I can see people just want a bit of freedom and get their promised compensation. I doubt any of the workers has interest in overthrowing the government.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#113
post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm surprised it's so low. I know that they already have very established processes in China, and their contractors have probably invested a lot in tooling for those factories, but it seems interesting that they would still prefer to move less that 50% of their capacity there. Maybe they see India as carrying its own risks?

India has serious regulatory issues. Their govt is very interventionist too. Production cost is probably higher than China.

I have serious reservations about India also ... but even if what you say is true (about production cost), isn't it very telling that companies are willing to move to higher production cost enviroments?

It's the price of relative independence and potentially less human rights issues.

It's simple isn't it: want less of a sh!t world, pay a price which doesn't exclude these externalities.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#114
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know where people get the idea people are semi-enslaved in factories.. Having lived in China, in my second hand experience Chinese worker protection laws are quite strict. Somewhere between US and Europe. It's not really easy to fire people and people regularly sue their employers and win. The legal system is generally very heavily biased towards the little guy I just feel really bad for these people. They pr…

Born and raised in China, I stopped reading this after the first paragraph. Laws are meaningless if they are never enforced or are simply ignored. Which happens all the time in China. It is not easy to fire people. Sure, in normal situations. But when appropriate, government is going to ignore all these and do whatever necessary, and maybe even threaten to put you or your family in jail. Want to go to court? Good luc…

> Born and raised in China.

The OP made a good point that applies to all poor countries I've lived in: those jobs are the only (even the best) way out for most people to get out of poverty, which they do to help their families/children/themselves.

Maybe you were raised in a family that did not need to go through such hard labor, but that doesn't mean your right in your view of your own world ;)

P.S. I was also born and raised in a poor country.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#115

People love to give Jony Ive and Steve Jobs credit for the iPhone but no one gives Tim Cook credit for keep making the iPhone the most desirable product in the world in 2022.

A lot of people like to give Leonardo da Vinci credit for the Mona Lisa, but no one gives credit to Laurence des Cars (President of Louvre) for getting 10million people to visit to see it in 2022.

The louvre doesn't repaint the Mona Lisa each year. They don't even directly make the exhibitions on rotation that keeps people returning.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#116
post #114
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born and raised in China, I stopped reading this after the first paragraph. Laws are meaningless if they are never enforced or are simply ignored. Which happens all the time in China. It is not easy to fire people. Sure, in normal situations. But when appropriate, government is going to ignore all these and do whatever necessary, and maybe even threaten to put you or your family in jail. Want to go to court? Good luc…

> Born and raised in China. The OP made a good point that applies to all poor countries I've lived in: those jobs are the only (even the best) way out for most people to get out of poverty, which they do to help their families/children/themselves. Maybe you were raised in a family that did not need to go through such hard labor, but that doesn't mean your right in your view of your own world ;) P.S. I was also born a…

The point that “those jobs are the only (even the best) way out for most people to get out of poverty" stands. But the point that China has strict labor laws is laughable. The laws are indeed strict but seldom enforced.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#117
post #91
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People never see the harm done so they are basically ignorant. Most people wouldn't eat meat if they had to kill an animal either.

Plenty of people live on farms and grow animals, kill them and then eat them. I haven't killed one myself, but I have been at pig butchering "parties" at my grandparents or uncles and saw how the sausage is made. Still tastes yummy.

I bet if you ask city people to either kill an animal or grab a shrink-wrapped package containing a vegetarian meat substitute, by far the majority would choose the latter.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#118
post #80

What was unthinkable in 2020 is now thinkable in 2022. Can Russia just start a major land war in Europe, wiping out whole cities? Sounds crazy. Nnnope. "Chinese President Xi Jinping has ordered the country’s military to develop the ability to take control of Taiwan by 2027, according to CIA official David Cohen." https://www.thedefensepost.com/2022/09/21/china-seize-taiwan... Tim Cook is not an idiot. He knows that t…

China started going downhill few years after Xi took power. Musk knew it and invested in China anyway. If he was 10% as smart as media portrayed him until recently, he would build factory in Vietnam, Thailand or Mexico.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#119
post #94
post #79

If Apple want to exit China for geopolitical reason it should move to Vietnam. Western manufacturers have set up shops in India before and there were few successful stories and many have exit eventually. Ford for example exit India after not turning a profit for decades. When people point out India's problem it is the usual suspect like government red tapes, poor infrastructure, unreliable electric grid...etc. Some e…

So exist communist China for communist Vietnam, right, that's really an improvement. Only reason companies are moving from China is because of too high cost already while Vietnam, Indonesia or India are way poorer. Plus if you would read the article you would notice Vietnam is just too small with not enough labor to replace China.

Vietnam with 98 million population is too small? Vietnam is completely different than Indonesia and India. It is like smaller China before Xi took power.

Re: Apple to move 40-45% iPhone production to India

#120
post #114
post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Born and raised in China, I stopped reading this after the first paragraph. Laws are meaningless if they are never enforced or are simply ignored. Which happens all the time in China. It is not easy to fire people. Sure, in normal situations. But when appropriate, government is going to ignore all these and do whatever necessary, and maybe even threaten to put you or your family in jail. Want to go to court? Good luc…

> Born and raised in China. The OP made a good point that applies to all poor countries I've lived in: those jobs are the only (even the best) way out for most people to get out of poverty, which they do to help their families/children/themselves. Maybe you were raised in a family that did not need to go through such hard labor, but that doesn't mean your right in your view of your own world ;) P.S. I was also born a…

So I grew up in China and I can agree that the law is applied selectively. If you are a foreign corporation and have not paid the right bribes or in good books of the ccp official in your area in charge woe behold if you violate any labor rights. On the other hand if you're friends with the right people you can basically operate a slave camp.

That being said I do agree that our attitude of "lets shut down here cuz it doesnt work for us" does more harm than good. It's not like this will solve corruption. If anything, this will give Chinese people more reason to hate on USA and India, thus further cementing their governments power.

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