How to compete with Chinese manufacturing

David Heacock with I Run a US Factory. What I Just Saw in China Should Terrify You.

Basically:

• China is looking to the next two decades, not the next quarterly earnings report
• China has built an ecosystem to support manufacturing, they have agglomeration
• China is a competence factory with systems optimised for industrial learning speed
• Everyone in Chinese manufacturing is used to moving quickly
• China's advantage is in industries where speed to iterate matters most
• To compete with Chinese factories look to produce products where you have a competitive advantage, eg. products that are bulky and expensive to ship, or where proximity matters most

 

Chinese corruption

The Bronte Capital blog has an interesting post on China: The Macroeconomics of Chinese kleptocracy. It argues that "China is a kleptocracy of a scale never seen before in human history" and that low inflation is a threat to this kleptocracy. I don't know China well enough to comment. The blog contains a link to a presentation by Australian journalist John Garnaut Is China Becoming a Mafia State? John Garnaut has some interesting things to say.