China’s Sharp Aim At US Manufacturing
The Article: China Takes Aim at the Profitable Heart of U.S. Manufacturing by Jordan Weissman in The Atlantic.
The Text: For a long time, Americans have channeled their fear about China’s factories into an exasperated, four-word refrain: They’re stealing our jobs! By offering low-wage competition to U.S. workers, the Chinese picked off low-end manufacturing work for multinational corporations, whether it was stitching shoes for Nike or assembling iPads for Apple.
In the last few years, though, the anxiety has shifted a bit. Instead of worrying we’ll be undercut on the price of manual labor, the concern is we could actually be out-competed in higher-end markets. You hear it when Democrats like President Obama talk about China winning the race on green jobs. And it came to my mind this week, thanks to a piece in Bloomberg Businessweek on China’s growing prowess in heavy industry.
While China transformed itself into the world’s top exporter by building light goods and electronics, the biggest chunk of its exports are now large, high-margin goods such as ships, locomotives, and construction equipment, as illustrated in this graph from Businessweek.
