Manufacturing

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Explains unravels the ideas and context behind the headlines to help you understand news about China. When China started locking down cities and towns in early 2020 to combat the coronavirus pandemic, it created a ripple effect that forced companies around the world to halt their production of items ranging from car components, chemicals and smartphones to surgical masks and toys. The pandemic alerted people to the danger of relying solely on China to make their products, a phenomenon that earned China the nickname “the world’s factory.” But now the situation is changing right before our eyes. Rising wages and tougher environmental rules in China, plus pu

Every Tuesday and Thursday, Inkstone Index features one important number about China to give you insight into the rising power. 24.6%: The percentage of Chinese factory workers that are older than 50. China’s factory workers are aging quickly. In 2009, 12.2% of factory workers in China were aged 50 years or older. By 2019, that number had grown to 24.6%.  At the same time, the percentage of young people – aged between 21 to 30 – fell from 35.8% to 23.1%, according to data compiled by the 21st Century Business Herald, a Chinese newspaper. The numbers point to an economy that is shifting away from its manufacturing core and toward a service-based model.   Furthermore, the changing demographics

A “wild feeding frenzy” is under way in China for medical equipment crucial to containing the spread of the coronavirus around the world. Scalpers stake out factories with suitcases loaded with cash to secure millions of surgical masks hot off the production line. Dealers trade ventilators back and forth as if they were cargos of coal before they finally reach the end buyer carrying eye-watering mark-ups. Governments wire eight-figure sums of money for vital equipment only to lose out to another government that was quicker to produce the cash. We are slap bang in the middle of a gold rush for the year’s most sought-after commodities – masks, gloves, thermometers, ventilators, hospital beds,

The Liu family factory has been making diapers and baby products in the Chinese city of Quanzhou for over 10 years. In February, for the first time, it started making face masks, as demand soared spectacularly due to the coronavirus outbreak. The business – which employs 100 people in the southeastern province of Fujian – has added two production lines to make up to 200,000 masks a day. And while the decision was primarily commercial, “encouragement” from the Chinese government – in the form of subsidies, lower taxes, interest-free loans, fast-track approvals for expansion and help to alleviate labor shortages – made the decision an obvious one, said Mr Liu, who preferred only to give his fa

Back in 2014, the Chinese entrepreneur Cao Dewang looked like a savior to the people of Dayton, Ohio. Cao is the founder and CEO of Fuyao, which makes glass such as windshields. The Chinese billionaire promised to bring an abandoned General Motors factory in the American state back to life, providing thousands of jobs to an area that desperately needed them. Filmmakers Steven Bognar and Julia Reichert were there in 2008 to document the GM factory closing.  They returned in 2014 to make American Factory, which has been nominated for best documentary feature at this year’s Academy Awards and won accolades at film festivals around the world. Given full access to the plant and its workers, the

As China battles a trade war-fuelled economic slowdown, one of its main growth engines – the “new economy” – is stalling. The “new economy” has never been officially defined, but it is a concept loosely applied to a wide range of industries, from artificial intelligence and advanced manufacturing to fintech and web-based tourism. Beijing had hoped these industries would propel China from a traditional economy powered by unsustainable infrastructure investment and low-end manufacturing to a modern services-based economy. New research suggests this is not happening. Compared to 2014, the share of Chinese companies concentrated in the new economy has fallen.  Those companies that are in the ne