Companies are considering moving out of China because of tougher politics and higher wages. The Economist looks at an alternative:
The question for Dell, Samsung, Sony and their peers is: where to make stuff instead? No single country offers China’s vast manufacturing base. Yet taken together, a patchwork of economies across Asia presents a formidable alternative. It stretches in a crescent from Hokkaido, in northern Japan, through South Korea, Taiwan, the Philippines, Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia and Bangladesh, all the way to Gujarat, in north-western India. Its members have distinct strengths, from Japan’s high skills and deep pockets to India’s low wages. On paper, this is an opportunity for a useful division of labour, with some countries making sophisticated components and others assembling them into finished gadgets. Whether it can work in practice is a big test of the nascent geopolitical order. This alternative Asian supply chain—call it Altasia—looks evenly matched with China in heft, or better.
Do read the whole thing. It’s an interesting take but I don’t think a China v. alternative binary helps us understand what’s going on. But more on that tomorrow.
Something Interesting. Most Days. 
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