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China is the manufacturing superpower

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Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#161

Post by VHRanger »

SirHumphrey wrote: post #151
TriangleEdge wrote: post #150

Forgive my ignorance, but how does a country with a strong military turn that into GDP? I don't understand how military > manufacturing in terms of GDP. In my mind, manufacturing > military, but my knowledge of economics isn't great.

GDP includes government spending. If a country spends a lot of money on military, that reflects in GDP figures.

Correct. But military spending only *grows* GDP if the money is invested properly. In, say, research/infrastructure/training, etc.

Malinvested money will pump GDP for a few years before growth stops and potentially reverses.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#163

Post by AnthonyMouse »

The premise that China does around a third of the world's manufacturing isn't really that surprising, they have more than a sixth of the world's population and there are a lot of areas (e.g. India and Africa) that have large populations and a disproportionately small share of manufacturing.

The real problem isn't that it's a third, it's that it will be something like 2% of commercial aircraft and 98% of PCs, and then the second one is bad. Single point of failure. That's the part that needs to be addressed.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#164

Post by AnthonyMouse »

cipher_accompt wrote: post #157
ChumpGPT wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both Canada and Mexico are guilty of this. For years they would import products and do some light assembly and label it as Made in Canada or Mexico. Since Canada gives China Most Favored Nation status, importers can avoid duties and export into the USA since there is a Free Trade Agreement(NAFTA). It took a while for US Customs to crack down on this but it finally did and they now pay very close attention to where th…

Is the problem Canada and Mexico, or is it corporations and business elites exploiting loopholes and abusing the system? Manufacturing in Canada was destroyed by competition in China. The root issue is the unchecked market power of businesses and the complete lack of repercussions for corporations and business elites that destroy industries, social systems, and deplete natural resources—without accountability for lon…

You could also make the opposite argument. If you want to manufacture things in the US, the real estate costs too much because of artificial housing scarcity, the tax system favors international supply chains over domestic ones, the regulatory environment favors large incumbents over small/new companies, etc. And if you make it disfavorable to manufacture things in the US, you create the incentive for corporations to do whatever they have to do to manufacture it somewhere else.

Don't think of corporations as having agency. Think of them like beasts that have to be herded into the field where you want them. If all your cows are in the neighbor's field, it's not the cows that you should blame and yelling at the cows is not going to help you.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#165

Post by rainsford »

rat87 wrote: post #50
wakawaka28 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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. A…

> Some people don't like protectionism because in the long term it's worse for both countries.

That is a good argument from a purely economic perspective, but the ability of a country to manufacture things on their own is a long-term benefit to the country from a security and sovereignty perspective. It's hard to prevail in a war if a potential enemy is making all your stuff for you.

China understands this very well, which is why they spend an enormous amount of effort and resources building up domestic alternatives to manufactured products they still rely on non-Chinese sources for. Comac may or may not become globally competitive with Boeing or Airbus, but that's not really the point of the venture. China wants domestic aircraft expertise and capacity because it's critical to have and they don't want to be reliant on the US or Europe for it.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#166

Post by baxtr »

maxglute wrote: post #79
baxtr wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe true. But how do you get quality into the equation. Is all the garbage on temu/shein also part of the gross production KPI? I couldn’t care less about these cheap plastic widgets.

Some don't, but many do. Does a 600k NVIDIA AI rack provide as much value as 600k worth of commodity solar panels, or 10,000 entry level mopeds? Most of the world (developing) benefits more from commodity widgets.

Fair. But isn’t that exactly what money is there for?

You can objectively compare the value (to the world in this case) of two very different set of items.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#167

Post by cipher_accompt »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #164
cipher_accompt wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is the problem Canada and Mexico, or is it corporations and business elites exploiting loopholes and abusing the system? Manufacturing in Canada was destroyed by competition in China. The root issue is the unchecked market power of businesses and the complete lack of repercussions for corporations and business elites that destroy industries, social systems, and deplete natural resources—without accountability for lon…

You could also make the opposite argument. If you want to manufacture things in the US, the real estate costs too much because of artificial housing scarcity, the tax system favors international supply chains over domestic ones, the regulatory environment favors large incumbents over small/new companies, etc. And if you make it disfavorable to manufacture things in the US, you create the incentive for corporations to…

You're speaking my language. Incentive-based programming of behavior drives optimization for rewards. For example, giant anticompetitive firms dominating our economies create corporate environments that shape executives to prioritize short-term profits by exploiting their undue influence to inflate their own compensation. This behavior depletes natural wealth, sacrifices long-term opportunities to more competitive firms abroad, and even jeopardizes their companies’ sustainability. Boeing and Intel are prime examples of how executives optimizing for short-term gains leave behind destructive long-term legacies.

Governments, too, create regulatory, taxation, and broader economic frameworks that influence incentives and shape behavior.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#168

Post by randomname93857 »

wakawaka28 wrote: post #27
_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…

Indeed, we spend more than anyone else but also get less for our money than anyone else. It would likely be an underestimate to say that our gear and labor costs double that of any of our competition.

labor cost contributes to higher prices, but why we always ignore corporate America and middlemen contributions to price gauging?

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#169

Post by gruez »

csomar wrote: post #159
fooker wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look around from a rooftop, do you see many factories with smoke coming out of chimneys?

Yes: https://maps.app.goo.gl/1ZDRiQdhr3Ngf5qP6 I'd not be surprised if this activity is quite limited in Singapore given that they have been under a tight microscope lately. Money laundering used to be their business but now they are rich and make money "legitimately" and within the "international" framework.

To be fair, having an industrial district doesn't preclude tariff laundering either. If you're trying to pass chinese goods as singaporean, you'd want your address to be a factory, rather than an office in a business park somewhere. Even if that wasn't a consideration, at the very least you'd need warehouse space to repackage/reship goods, so you'd need to rent out a warehouse/factory anyways.

Re: China is the manufacturing superpower

#170

Post by msabalau »

mahirsaid wrote: post #73

this is amazing and filled with facts that i wish everyone arguing the point that china cant overtake U.S. in economy or world superpowers would read. The facts are there, there is not much hiding around the corner, all of the true indication is in front of us. Yes. the article states U.S. still holds the title for world superpower by military size and capabilities. That's not to say that china cant catch up in no ti…

China had everything going for it for couple of decades. Other countries were happy to outsource manufacturing and invest for the sake of access to the the Chinese market and under the assumption that great power conflict with China was very unlikely. None of those things, broadly is true any more.
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