Live data from Hacker News

Japan to fund firms to shift production out of China

bloomberg.com

1–10 of 464 posts

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

#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 interesting question. China will have more incidents of pandemics for sure, because they haven't learned from the last one, and they won't learn from this one. It's certainly less efficient to have the same products being produced everywhere, but maybe ruthless efficiency isn't good for the world or its citizens, especially when it comes to income inequality.

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

#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.

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

#8

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…

Got a link detailing what happened between Canada and the US? My understanding of the 3M debacle is that they use a distributor model for their consumables, and essentially "wash their hands" of what their distributors do once they have product in hand - and in the 3M case, the PPE was just going to the highest bidder, regardless of national origin.

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

#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. Switzerland wants supplies from Germany who is unwilling to supply them. Austria and Germany butt heads.

4) India banning critical medical exports

There are so many stories of how each nation is behaving. Even within the US, states are bidding against each other and the federal government has not shown solid leadership.

When times are grim, humans tend to invoke strong tribal instincts (for e.g. brotherhood that forms between soldiers). If we hypothetically had a more deadly virus than Coronavirus, say with a CFR of 50% and we were unable to stop it, there would be in-fighting between counties and neighborhoods.

There are some good stories too, especially the sacrifice of the healthcare workers, delivery staff and politicians.

When times are great -> Globalism

When times are tough -> Isolation and tribalism

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

#10
I'm surprised that Japan's government is feeling this as a priority right now... There are no problems for goods importation between Japan and China now, and as in China the pandemics has been largely reduced, there should not be in the near future neither.

PS: Japan and more precisely Tokyo is on the brink to imitate the human tragedy of Italy and US, so maybe they could vote some different budgets for now... (like, BUYING TESTS)

PPS: economical decoupling is typically building the path for war, instead of reinforcing cooperation. Humanity needs to cooperate to progress swiftly, and the more there are wars the more the efforts of everybody are wasted (or worse destroy others).

psst: for people downvoting, I'd love your counter-arguments

Post reply on HN