Production in China

[linguofreak]

OFFTOPIC
How did the communist China defeat the capitalist West in their own game?

1. a new innovation is developed in the western world (US, UK, EU etc.), let's call it ACMESTUFF
2. taking advatage of capitalist's unlimited greed, China offers cheap labor for quick profit
3. China builds factory to produce ACMESTUFF with minimal cost
4. when the original quantity is shipped and the market is ready for the new product, the Chinese factory began to produce surplus, sold behind the back of the original creator of ACMESTUFF

Result: while the capitalists spend enormous amounts of money on research and marketing, China invests minimal but gets the most profit on the long run. I really doubt that China is paying any license fee after Adibas or Star Wrns.
/OFFTOPIC

In short, they beat the capitalist West at its own game because, in having strong IP law, the capitalist West wasn't actually playing its own game.

[bzt]

In short, they beat the capitalist West at its own game because, in having strong IP law, the capitalist West wasn't actually playing its own game.

Nobody forced them to move the production to China, but their own greed (as profit motive is indeed their game). They shouldn't have let the Chinese to manufacture and have the blueprints in the first place, there would be no IP issue at all.
Same stands for other electronics as well, the US factories weren't good enough for Apple, so they moved the iPhone production overseas and look at now, Xiaomi and the others all producting not just cheaper, but much better smartphones.

And to be honest, if I could buy a Chinese board reliably with shipping guarantee and warranty, then I would. With Rpi the local reseller takes the risk (of lost package and faulty product), not me, which is very important, but that's all. I suppose I'm not alone with this, that's why the Rpi has the most documentation and biggest community of all the micro-boards. For example, have you ever tried to get a detailed description of the boot sequence of (let's say) an OrangePi? On the other hand, googling for "raspberry pi boot sequence" results in literally dozens of useful pages and tutorial videos. (Yes I know they supposed to be compatible with the RPi boards, but for a newbie that's not obvious at all.)

Cheers,
bzt

[AshleyEchols]

While the Americans are increasing verbal pressure on China, the yuan is losing strength, which stimulates the growth of Chinese industry, supports the economy and allows it to deal effectively with the structural slowdown.

In addition, the slowdown opens up opportunities for the Chinese government to stimulate the economy through easing monetary policy, as we saw earlier this week.

If the degree of trade wars grows, China simply needs to let the market put pressure on the yuan. An increase in USDCHY above 7.0 could be the reason for a new wave of sales.

[AndrewAPrice]

There are other factors at play than just the cost of labour. For example, Shenzen has huge industrial infrastructure. What this means, is if Apple is producing their iPhones and run out of some custom component, they can put out a request and within hours have a dozen nearby factories ready to start producing it.

It also helps for factories being located close to where the company is that built your factory's machines. If something breaks down or needs to be customized, they can send somebody out (perhaps even in an emergency an engineer who helped design the machine) right away, who can quickly call their company to bring replacement parts.

If your factory machine acts up in Texas, the Chinese engineer has to try to remotely provide support. To bring the engineer to Texas from China means waiting weeks for a visa to be approved, flying then out, paying for their hotel and meals, etc. If they need to bring a part over, that means additional days of being out of commission while the visiting engineer waits for it to arrive.

The government and companies have also invested heavily into shipping infrastructure, so that as soon as the products roll off the assembly line they're loaded into giant ships ready to distribute products around the world.

This is not ideal, but choosing to manufacturer things in China instead of Texas involves a lot more than "I can pay Chinese workers $1.50/hr or American workers $15/hr" even if that started it. The heavily developed industrial base makes factories in certain regions much more efficient than anywhere else.