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China is the manufacturing superpower

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Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#41

Post by coliveira »

echelon wrote: post #12
Animats wrote: post #10

The US can't even make cell phones any more. What would it take to get that capability back?

Moving it to Mexico, Vietnam, and India. Mexico is ideal since you can ship partially assembled goods via truck or rail to and from Texas. It's easy to manage logistics and partnerships due to the close proximity. The future of the US is Mexico. Vietnam and India can absorb SEA manufacturing.

Mexico is now a hub for Chinese manufacturers. Just look at how they're developing the relationship: the materials are all from China and the market is the US. Vietnam is even more like that.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#42

Post by MaxPock »

fakedang wrote: post #31
defrost wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Port capacity and equipment scale, willingness to engage in toxic processing, etc carry far more weight, IMHO. China has a lock on various electronic production streams by having a lock on most of the rare earth processing and dealing with the low level radioactive waste by products. One billion tonnes of raw iron ore per year flows from my state of Western Australia to China for steel production - the machinery, dig…

I can't help but say that Australia is basically the stupidest country on the planet (at least amongst Western democracies, since one could say modern Russia is stupider, but that's a whole another cultural debate). It's like the degenerate alcoholic who's willing to prostitute their mother for a bar tab. A country so blessed with some of the most important natural resources, a country whose geography is synonymous w…

Do you have another market for them where they can sell 1 billion tons of iron ore a year ?

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#43

Post by buckle8017 »

_1tem wrote: post #11

> The US is the world’s sole military superpower. It spends more on its military than the ten next highest spending countries combined. Dubious claim. Military power is not measured in “spending”. Manufacturing is in fact a basis for modern military power, as it was the basis for US military power in WW2. The fact that China can produce 10k+ precisely controlled drone swarms in massive quantities and produces more hy…

[flagged]

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#44

Post by kayewiggin »

advael wrote: post #34
kayewiggin wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

1.) The article is from January 2024. 2.) Some of the data that it's based on is up to 2023. And some are up to 2020 3.) There has been massive movement of manufacturing out of China between 2020 and 2024. I won't provide the references here, as there are too many to mention, from Japanese/Taiwanese/South Korean/European/American companies. They are easily chatgpted/googled. Also the reason why Shenzhen and Guangzhou…

Again, I really don't feel qualified to weigh in on most of these matters, though I will say that I generally do prefer direct citations if you'd like me to take the epistemic credibility of a claim more seriously than any other thing someone on the internet said (in other words, saying "go look it up" provides no more additional credibility than simply making the statement, and is thus kind of pointless, and in fact…

Very comprehensive list of how China has lost export power to US over the years. Remember that US has the largest consumer market in the world, more than double the second place, EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_marke...

https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2024/06/25/us-import...

- Chinese imports into the United States are down 19.78% from April of 2018 — when Trump first started imposing tariffs — to today, or $31.88 billion.

- Cell phones: Big winner is India. China has gone from a market share of 63.59% in 2018 to a still strong 42.14%. That’s a decline of 33.73%.

- Computers: Big winners are Taiwan, Vietnam. China has gone from a market share from 53.45% in the first four months of 2018 to 28.11%, a decline of 47.40%.

- Furniture: Big winner is Vietnam. China, meanwhile, accounted for 23.55% this year, down from 48.54% in 2018, a decline of 51.49% compared to a gain of 88.67% for Vietnam.

- TVs and monitors: Big winner is Vietnam. Mexico overtook China as the import leader in this category just before the pandemic and has remained on top. It gained market share from China, which fell from 53.68% in 2018, when it was No. 1, to 33.64%, a 37.32% decline.

- Digital storage devices: Big winners are Korea, Vietnam. China accounted for 39.50% of those imports in 2018, more than double that of any other nation. In 2024, its percentage is 4.23% and it ranks No. 9.

- Digital cameras: Yep, Vietnam again. China, meanwhile, has seen its share go from a majority, at 50.09%, to 17.57%, a decline of 64.92%.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#45

Post by jandrewrogers »

echelon wrote: post #15
_1tem wrote: post #11

> The US is the world’s sole military superpower. It spends more on its military than the ten next highest spending countries combined. Dubious claim. Military power is not measured in “spending”. Manufacturing is in fact a basis for modern military power, as it was the basis for US military power in WW2. The fact that China can produce 10k+ precisely controlled drone swarms in massive quantities and produces more hy…

It won't take long for China to catch up. And in a hot war, they're the ones who can rapidly rebuild. Lots of reports say that Chinese military spending has exceeded our own if you account for their cheaper cost of labor and material goods. China also recently (just days ago) flew two new sixth gen fighters. The US has yet to demonstrate one. The tactical move for the West to counter is to move as much manufacturing…

> China also recently (just days ago) flew two new sixth gen fighters.

China doesn’t really have a 5th generation fighter yet, it is more a roadmap item than a finished product. There is zero evidence they have 6th generation systems. These terms have meaning. The US has been flying 6th generation prototypes for years, they just don’t post photographs. The US has been flying production 5th generation fighters for 20 years. They have a long lead and it isn’t like they stopped development.

Also, appearances are largely immaterial to being classified as 5th or 6th generation. Most of the relevant properties for classification are not casually observable.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#46

Post by maxglute »

advael wrote: post #3

Huh. For all the claims that US manufacturing is down, it does seem that if we adjusted per-capita it's on par with China based on the figures presented here, which I really didn't expect to see I'm no expert and of course I have no clue if it even makes sense to measure per-capita manufacturing share, and also assume a lot of other factors matter here - what kinds of things we're manufacturing, how much those produc…

Gross production is sales $$$, it's not actual output of widgets. I imagine if measure gross production by some units of stuff made, PRC would be far ahead.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#47

Post by gorgoiler »

I bought two things recently: some temperature sensors for a smart home and some cable clips to hide some wiring under a cabinet.

Both were mass produced in China and both shipped with 3M branded adhesive mounting pads. An apt and literal representation of global manufacturing — US made chemicals, Chinese electronics, one clinging to the other.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#48

Post by pm90 »

coliveira wrote: post #33
echelon wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It won't take long for China to catch up. And in a hot war, they're the ones who can rapidly rebuild. Lots of reports say that Chinese military spending has exceeded our own if you account for their cheaper cost of labor and material goods. China also recently (just days ago) flew two new sixth gen fighters. The US has yet to demonstrate one. The tactical move for the West to counter is to move as much manufacturing…

> Even if China was 100% a friend, you wouldn't want one country with this much outsized control over manufacturing It's not up to the US to decide this. China is the largest car market. It is also the largest car producing country. It is the largest manufacturing country. It also has the largest number of consumers in any country, and this market is still growing. It has the largest number of engineers. The numbers…

Certainly. The reality of the political situation though is that China is an authoritarian country ruled by the PRC, increasingly acting more like a dictatorship. While China’s economy, society and people have 100% the right to grow as much as they would like, those of us living in (sonewhat) liberal democracies would still want to contain the power of the PRC (and the cult of Xi Jinping).

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#49

Post by riku_iki »

kayewiggin wrote: post #44
advael wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again, I really don't feel qualified to weigh in on most of these matters, though I will say that I generally do prefer direct citations if you'd like me to take the epistemic credibility of a claim more seriously than any other thing someone on the internet said (in other words, saying "go look it up" provides no more additional credibility than simply making the statement, and is thus kind of pointless, and in fact…

Very comprehensive list of how China has lost export power to US over the years. Remember that US has the largest consumer market in the world, more than double the second place, EU. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_consumer_marke... https://www.forbes.com/sites/kenroberts/2024/06/25/us-import... - Chinese imports into the United States are down 19.78% from April of 2018 — when Trump first started imposi…

> TVs and monitors: Big winner is Vietnam. Mexico overtook China as the import leader

This doesn't make sense to me, do they do some high level assembly of components? I think China took over global market of TV panels manufacturing for example:

With this transaction, Chinese manufacturers’ market share of the LCD panels used in TVs will increase from 66% to 72%, with nearly 100% share in ultra-large 90 – 115 inch screens.

The market share of Chinese OLED panel manufacturers is forecasted to increase from 47.9% this year to 50.2% next year, surpassing the OLED shipment share of Korean companies.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willyshih/2024/10/13/chinese-ma...

It sounds like it could be that China losing in cheap assembling tasks, but significantly gaining in high tech manufacturing.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#50

Post by rat87 »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #26
danans wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> All the while Beijing did everything in its power to enrich the Chinese worker, no matter the cost to outsiders. The results speak for themselves. In fairness, during this period, the US did everything it could to suppress the wages and benefits of its own manufacturing workers. Recall that the first rounds of manufacturing outsourcing were to US states with non-existent labor protections, mostly in the South.

The only way to protect wages in the face of competition that works for 1/10 to 1/3 the rate is to institute protectionist policies. That has also been unpopular because there's money to be made in offshoring as well. Americans are getting the worst at both ends, and only experiencing short-term benefits of having cheaper goods.

Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries. You have a short term benefit of protecting a handful of jobs in exchange for vastly more expensive goods for everyone as well as more expensive inputs to your other products undercutting other local industries. Protectionism is popular because the benifits for the few are visible while the downsides are diffuse but add up. And in the end your business ends up going out of business anyway like the Soviet factories
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