Chinese Manufacturing Is Quickly Collapsing | Eastern North Carolina Now

    Publisher's Note: This post appears here courtesy of the The Daily Wire. The author of this post is Ben Zeisloft.

    One of the most noteworthy geopolitical and economic developments in modern history has been the emergence of China as a superpower. The miraculous rise of the once-ascendent communist nation, however, could lose tremendous momentum as the strength of its manufacturing sector rapidly dissipates.

    China's gross domestic product has expanded at an average of 9% since the country opened and reformed its economy more than four decades ago, according to data from the World Bank, enabling more than 800 million residents to escape poverty. Over the past two years, however, the Chinese government has been among the most zealous enforcers of COVID lockdown policies on the planet.

    Quarantines mandated under the nation's zero-COVID policy have fostered unpredictable supply chain shocks for foreign companies in recent months, causing a push to build manufacturing and logistics capabilities elsewhere. American manufacturing orders from China have plummeted as much as 40%, according to data from the CNBC Supply Chain Heat Map.

    "The fall in demand is a combination of persistent COVID-19 related shutdowns in China leading to bottlenecks in the export of products out of China, lower American consumer spending on merchandise goods, and supply chains gradually moving out of or diversifying away from China," Hudson Institute senior fellow John Lee told The Daily Wire. "The latter reason will be a major cause of lower American demand for Chinese goods in structural terms as more goods into America will come from other markets."

    In one high-profile example, an iPhone manufacturing facility in Zhengzhou was rocked by protests over zero-COVID restrictions, severely disrupting operations and leading Apple to accelerate production shifts to economies such as India and Vietnam, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal. The world's most valuable technology company had already moved some iPad production earlier this year to Vietnam, where the AirPod earbud series is manufactured, in reaction to lockdowns in Shanghai.

    Lee, who formerly worked as senior national security adviser to Australian Foreign Minister Julie Bishop, remarked that "permanent geopolitical tensions" are another factor behind the "deliberate decoupling" of manufacturing deals between the United States and China. The trend is especially apparent in the technology sector, which has been the subject of increased scrutiny over American regulators' unease regarding Chinese espionage and intellectual property theft.

    "In most merchandise goods which are not high-tech products, the supply chains moving out of China due to firms hedging against geopolitical tensions will continue to be a cause for lower American demand of Chinese goods into the future," Lee commented. "Hence, it is geopolitical tensions leading to lower American demand for Chinese goods rather than lower American demand being the cause of geopolitical tensions."

    Staunch geopolitical aggression will likely be a central tenet of the nation's foreign policy in the foreseeable future. Chinese President Xi Jinping, who recently began an unprecedented third term, lauded the defeat of democratic aspirations in Hong Kong and forecasted the imminent conquest of Taiwan in a speech at the Chinese Communist Party's twice-per-decade meeting of senior legislators. The executive has largely staked his reputation as a leader on the zero-COVID policy over the past two years.
Go Back


Leave a Guest Comment

Your Name or Alias
Your Email Address ( your email address will not be published)
Enter Your Comment ( no code or urls allowed, text only please )




Indiana Sues TikTok Over Data Sharing, Mature Content Concerns Business Trends, Daily Wire, Guest Editorial, Editorials, Business, Op-Ed & Politics, Regional Business In The Name Of ‘Equality,’ Nantucket Beaches Go Topless


HbAD0

Latest Regional Business

WASHINGTON, NC— The Beaufort County Community College Foundation received a $40,000 donation from the First Annual Belhaven Trout Tournament and Festival.
Coming on the heels of a second-quarter report that saw losses of $526.7 million, VinFast reported Thursday that it lost an additional $623 million for the third quarter of 2023.
Charlotte has joined a list of major US cities who recently placed a formal bid to designate the Queen City as a nationally recognized regional tech hub.
As North Carolina is America’s ninth most populous state, film and television producers are working with the Tarheel State in mind.
Beaufort County officials on Thursday helped the Beaufort County Committee of 100 welcome renowned e-commerce, digital marketing, and consulting firm BTW Global, LLC to its new headquarters in Washington.
Disney plans to eliminate thousands of jobs next week, dismissing as many as 15% of entertainment staffers, according to a recent report from Bloomberg.
Neuralink founder Elon Musk said he hopes implanting wireless brain-computer chips in humans will play a role in the existential risk of population reduction posed by artificial intelligence.
Ford announced on Monday that it is pausing construction on a multi-billion dollar battery plant in Marshall, Michigan that had drawn scrutiny from U.S. lawmakers over the company’s partnership with Chinese battery-maker Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Ltd., or CATL.
On Tuesday, for the second year in a row, North Carolina earned the top spot in CNBC’s annual “America’s Top States for Business” rankings out of all 50 states.

HbAD1

North Carolina is one of six southern states that, together, have become an economic powerhouse, overtaking the once dominant Northeast region of the United States. That’s according to a new analysis from Bloomberg.
North Carolina is set to receive over $1.53 billion in federal funding to help with expanding high-speed internet across the state. The U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) made the announcement Monday.
It’s not just young people who are getting screwed by the current economy.
The Federal Reserve hiked interest rates to the highest level in 22 years on Wednesday, despite easing inflationary pressures.
David Stevens, a senior housing official under former President Barack Obama, condemned a proposal from President Joe Biden that will effectively penalize financially stable homebuyers to subsidize those with higher risk.
North Carolina benefitted from the COVID-19 pandemic in terms of small business migration. That’s according to a new Bureau of Labor Statistics report.
Last week, Beer Serves America reported that the beer industry contributes 75,082 jobs and brings in about $1.8 billion in taxes to the state of North Carolina.

HbAD2

 
Back to Top