China's manufacturers are going broke

I regularly read The Economist and it is not a flawless outlet but it does not and has not attempted to perpetuate any sort of collapse narrative about China. Individual opinion pieces with negative outlooks based on current global market context? Perhaps, but an overarching narrative of collapse just doesn't exist.

China's manufactures finding the winners. This is the system working as intended - create many producers in xyz sector via subsidies, hardcore (involution) competition from 1000s in different provinces innovate manufacturing to bare margins, losers go out of business/ get bought up by better competitors and consolidate like _intended_ outcome of other PRC industrial policy. TLDR Set up competitive environment to force producers speed run to a $250 model-T while everyone else could only make cars for $1000. Have so much competition to force manufactures to improve processes/drive down prices/affordability in short time and then settle with a few large but sustainable survivors that are globally competitive / can (out)compete with western incumbents.

> When you miss sales targets by 99.9% it’s got to be more than a competition problem

It's fairly common across the EV industry in China.

BYD is an amazing product and makes good cars. The other manufacturers not so much, as is reflected in Chinese EV car sales [0].

That's why manufacturers like SAIC (MG Motors), GAG (Wuling Motors), etc have resorted to trying to export abroad because they cannot beat BYD domestically, but this faces hurdles as most other major markets abroad (VN, JP, SK, ID, IN, Brazil, EU, MX, etc) place tariffs on autumotiive exports, forcing Chinese manufacturers to either open entire factories abroad with JVs or quit those markets

Every factory SAIC, GAG, GAC, etc opens with a foreign JV is an equivalent set of jobs and IP lost in China.

[0] - https://autovista24.autovistagroup.com/news/big-boost-chines...

The title of the article is a bit misleading. Manufacturers are going broke because there's too many of them, which is arguably a nice problem to have.

> Not a good example because Boeing didn’t outsource.

No, that's precisely my point actually. Boeing is one of the very few companies that maintained its local manufacturing capacity. (to say that they "didn't outsource" is not remotely accurate)

Despite everything that was pointing in Boeing's favor -- culture, financials, market, reputation; it was taken over by the MBAs that put McDonnell-Douglas into a nosedive and now all of that is gone.

So now, let's assume that Boeing sees the light and wants to rebuild their manufacturing chops. Who do they hire? Who can they hire, who has the manufacturing expertise? When I worked at Boeing 25 years ago, the old-timers were invaluable. Most of those folks are dead and gone; my generation should be graduating into old-timer-hood in the next couple of decades but Boeing hasn't invested in us. Wages have been stagnant, software is easier, tiktok is more exciting, and the young generation is used to being bossed around by MBAs who don't understand the work.

If not Boeing, the once-shining-example of American manufacturing what didn't outsource, who can bootstrap our manufacturing renaissance?