Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible • Hacker News Board

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#41

Post by runn1ng » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:49 AM UTC

LeanderK wrote: post #13

whatshisface wrote: post #2

This tariff situation is quickly becoming an amazing opportunity for developing countries. The labor shortages being talked about can only be resolved through higher wages, which means that the people at the bottom will get a cut of the new money. In the end the world will be a lot richer and the money will be in the hands of relatively livable countries like Vietnam. (The Vietnamese government is actually pretty goo…

> The Vietnamese government is actually pretty good in terms of freedoms. Wait, what? They recently kidnapped an ex-party member in germany. It was 2017 or so. I can't believe that a country which honors you freedom would do something like this.

The freedom here is... weird.

There is much more freedom of speech than in China, or compared to other SEA countries (maybe except for Thailand, but that has a military coup every 2 years in average).

There is no censorship of foreign media, internet is basically free. You can say whatever you want and nobody cares, people complain about party and officials on Facebook constantly.

On the other hand, they keep arresting people for public protests (google “formosa protests vietnam”), for crazy numbers of years (10, 20 years for protesting). And there are rumors censorship of internet is coming - they made a new law just this January that will allow them to censor Facebook or Google unless they host data here and give data about citizens to the government. It is a question how will they proceed; the party is similarly opaque to Chinese party.

All in all though, it’s around better than other countries in region on average or China but worse than Europe, US, or even Taiwan

You can complain about Party, but once you start actually organizing protests, they will come knocking. But since the economy is growing so crazy, people are generally happy.

and of course as a white expat you are put on a pedestal here and a bit untouchable. It’s bad but that’s how it is.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#42

Post by ThrustVectoring » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:54 AM UTC

josephpmay wrote: post #17

1) For anyone wondering, yes, many of these companies would have the same (or worse) problems if they tried to manufacture in the US. Our domestic supply chains for a lot of industries have dried up (or never developed). US factories also usually have higher minimum quantities and take much longer to tool up. 2) I'm surprised the article didn't mention Africa at all. A lot of Chinese industrialists are investing in A…

The "natural" distribution of manufacturing capacity roughly mirrors the population distribution, and Africa is definitely under-provisioned in this respect.

Respect for property rights and political stability is definitely a downside, though. The first industrialists that manage to build out after the last land war or socio-political upheaval are going to get some really nice returns, though.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#43

Post by hn_throwaway_99 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 4:58 AM UTC

latchkey wrote: post #28

I'm from the bay area and moved to Vietnam 3 years ago. I'm watching all of this happen in realtime. I've recently completed a 8500km motorbike trip around all of Vietnam, southern Cambodia and Northern Laos. In the south of Vietnam, HCMC, there is massive growth. Huge amounts of construction. The city is over populated and growing rapidly. Millions of kids work for $200 a month. In the north of Vietnam, there is man…

> All over Vietnam, people are making babies in huge numbers. There is a lot of family pressure to do so. They may only have 100m people now, but every single shack and house has 2-3 babies in it. It will be very interesting to see what happens to all these humans over the next 20 years as this country grows at a rapid pace.

This statement isn't really supported by the population data. Vietnam's population is projected to peak in 2055, https://www.populationpyramid.net/viet-nam/2017/ . Thats about 20-25 years out from China's peak, but still nothing like the absolute population explosion predicted for Africa.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#44

Post by 9nGQluzmnq3M » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:11 AM UTC

josephpmay wrote: post #17

1) For anyone wondering, yes, many of these companies would have the same (or worse) problems if they tried to manufacture in the US. Our domestic supply chains for a lot of industries have dried up (or never developed). US factories also usually have higher minimum quantities and take much longer to tool up. 2) I'm surprised the article didn't mention Africa at all. A lot of Chinese industrialists are investing in A…

The problem there is the plural in "countries": there's no obvious one place to invest, and cross-border trade is limited by borders, tariffs and terrible infrastructure.

- South Africa is the richest/most advanced on most metrics, but it's also wracked by crime and labor unrest, and set for continuing major political unrest.

- Nigeria is huge and growing, but corrupt to the point of making legitimate business near-impossible.

- Ethiopia is run by a Communist junta whose commitment to reform is questionable at best.

- Rwanda likes to think they're the next Singapore, but they're tiny, landlocked and in a really bad neighborhood.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#45

Post by jjakque » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:14 AM UTC

bduerst wrote: post #20

whatshisface wrote: post #2

This tariff situation is quickly becoming an amazing opportunity for developing countries. The labor shortages being talked about can only be resolved through higher wages, which means that the people at the bottom will get a cut of the new money. In the end the world will be a lot richer and the money will be in the hands of relatively livable countries like Vietnam. (The Vietnamese government is actually pretty goo…

Which would be the case if the tariffs were China-only, but the current presidential administration is enacting tariffs on many other countries, like Mexico, Brazil, and S Korea. Also, the upcoming Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) meeting in November could be used by China to unify most of APAC against the U.S. The U.S. TPP was a blocking move to prevent the RCEP, which in it's current form covers h…

> ...but the current presidential administration is enacting tariffs on many other countries...

I'm quite curious to know possible rationals behind that?

To layman like myself, it make absolute no sense, but on some level it got to have a purpose right? even if it's ulterior motive or personal agenda.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#46

Post by trickstra » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:19 AM UTC

runn1ng wrote: post #41

LeanderK wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Vietnamese government is actually pretty good in terms of freedoms. Wait, what? They recently kidnapped an ex-party member in germany. It was 2017 or so. I can't believe that a country which honors you freedom would do something like this.

The freedom here is... weird. There is much more freedom of speech than in China, or compared to other SEA countries (maybe except for Thailand, but that has a military coup every 2 years in average). There is no censorship of foreign media, internet is basically free. You can say whatever you want and nobody cares, people complain about party and officials on Facebook constantly. On the other hand, they keep arresti…

Correction - some websites are blocked - like bbc.co.uk, but I encountered others. But it's easy to circumvent. The freedom in Vietnam is largely based on the fact that the government doesn't have the means to censor and catch all the small fish. So unless you go on a big public protest, you can basically do whatever you want. Officially, the freedoms are very much limited and yes, internet censorship is on the rise.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#47

Post by megaremote » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:20 AM UTC

dirtyid wrote: post #21

It took China almost 30 years to cultivate economic development zones into the logistics chain to build the first iPhone. That kind of development can't be replicated in a few years, is likely out of reach for smaller nations (read anyone except India) or viable in a geographically distributed fashion. The problem isn't just moving factories but have a geographically centralized logistics chain where thousands of com…

> That kind of development can't be replicated in a few years, is likely out of reach for smaller nations (read anyone except India) or viable in a geographically distributed fashion.

Vietnam started a long time ago. And it doesn't have to replace China, just part of the manufacturing process.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#48

Post by demxzy » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:31 AM UTC

9nGQluzmnq3M wrote: post #44

josephpmay wrote: post #17

1) For anyone wondering, yes, many of these companies would have the same (or worse) problems if they tried to manufacture in the US. Our domestic supply chains for a lot of industries have dried up (or never developed). US factories also usually have higher minimum quantities and take much longer to tool up. 2) I'm surprised the article didn't mention Africa at all. A lot of Chinese industrialists are investing in A…

The problem there is the plural in "countries": there's no obvious one place to invest, and cross-border trade is limited by borders, tariffs and terrible infrastructure. - South Africa is the richest/most advanced on most metrics, but it's also wracked by crime and labor unrest, and set for continuing major political unrest. - Nigeria is huge and growing, but corrupt to the point of making legitimate business near-i…

Nigeria is corrupt but over the past few years, the country has seen a lot investments from Chinese industrialist. Usually small and medium sized one trying to get ahead of the curve. I believe the Chinese can deal with the local corruption in Nigeria. Maybe even thrive in it in the short term

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#49

Post by SenHeng » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:36 AM UTC

Low tech manufacturing isn't the only thing they're exporting.

Japanese IT firms have been training offshore dev teams in Vietnam/Myanmar for ages and sometimes on-shoring those entire devs team back into Japan.

Some of the larger companies even recruit directly in Vietnam.

Re: Manufacturers want to quit China for Vietnam, but find it impossible

#50

Post by panda88888 » Thu, Aug 22, 2019, 5:45 AM UTC

dmix wrote: post #39

bduerst wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which would be the case if the tariffs were China-only, but the current presidential administration is enacting tariffs on many other countries, like Mexico, Brazil, and S Korea. Also, the upcoming Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP) meeting in November could be used by China to unify most of APAC against the U.S. The U.S. TPP was a blocking move to prevent the RCEP, which in it's current form covers h…

I've never understood how Asian regional free trade agreements and China providing loans to developing countries is really a threat to the west. Why exactly should the World Bank and the US/Europe be the only top players in the game again? Has all the strings attached to that help really made the world a better place? As far as I'm concerned extreme poverty or simply poverty is enough of a goal to target. Attempting…

> I've never understood how Asian regional free trade agreements and China providing loans to developing countries is really a threat to the west.

It’s a threat from the US perspective, in the US national interest. Currently, the US is the top dog internationally, both economically and politically. As China increases its influence especially in the Asia and Africa region via economic investment and, potentially, demonstration of military prowess, it necessarily means US influence in said region decreases. This decrease in soft power of US means it is more difficult for the US to push for US-friendly policy in said region/country, which is detrimental to the US national interest.