It's also lack of environmental regulation adherence. China has environmental regulations but they don't always demand compliance. I read about companies paying for scrubbers to be installed in factories and when a team comes to take a tour, still with original filters and low run hours.
Maybe 20 years ago? Wages are rising salaries and employers are playing nice so their employees don't jump ship elsewhere. The day of your employer keeping your ID card captive is long gone (unless you are a naked official).
> China has environmental regulations but they don't always demand compliance.
That was also a lot more common 20 years ago than today. These days, cities/provinces are held accountable for AQI reductions, so pretend inspections no longer help their metrics. But I totally get it, there is a lot of material from 2000 to 2015 or so, and they basically live forever on the internet.
>The study, which focuses on 2023 and early this year(2024), adds to a growing body of evidence that Beijing is using forced labor and mass internment camps to control the Uyghurs — and ramps up pressure on the European Union to finalize plans for a bloc-wide ban on imports of products made with forced labor.
Your comment: >Maybe 20 years ago?
Unless it is suddenly 2030 and I missed the time shift, I am talking the past year or two.
While China does have an advantage over northern states in labor prices it's not why it's so cheap.
Chinese turbocharger suppliers have lower labor costs and therefore BYD, Changan, Great Wall and others have more pricing power vs GM and Ford products.
But my broader point is that their entire supply chain is comprised of lower labor cost inputs. Whether it be the EV batteries, the windshield, or the air valve in each of the four tires.
Pretty sure that only applies to the ICE versions of those cars and not the purely electric ones.
Tangentially related China is located in the region with largest economic growth. Power is shifting from Europe and North America.
You'd be surprised. One of the things that really raised my eyebrows in Thailand was slum shacks with a gleaming new muscle pickup parked beside it. For some reason these are really popular and people spend an inordinate amount of income on them.
Counterpoint: China is the undisputed leader in renewable energy technology, including battery storage. I don't think they are doing it purely for environmental reasons, but they are doing it.
I had a friend move his factory to China because the packaging and other costs were so much cheaper. I wish I'd asked for a breakdown. He didn't factor in/expect wages to be much of a savings.
Or you can look from it from the opposite direction and imagine what would have happened if there was full freedom of movement between China and US (i.e. no visas etc) and thus an actual free market for labor. If you expect workers in such situation to steadily migrate from China to US but not vice versa (at least until cost of labor equalizes), this implies that the workers in China are somehow worse off in absolute quality of life even when accounting for relative cost-of-life differences. That is, if the relationship between two countries wasn't economically exploitative in some way, we wouldn't need to restrict the free flow of labor at the border.
That's a really bizarre take that is obviously false. The disenfranchised migrant laborer or prison slave producing your American groceries is earning approximately as much as a Chinese peasant, i.e. basically nothing.
There is however a vast difference in what the organization looks like above the laborer. In America: vast profits and consolidation. By contrast, China has more small businesses (think street food) and large enterprises are SOE or otherwise constrained by the political system.
In any case, if those were the main two reasons for the disparity, then we wouldn't see the same for other first world countries which have neither cheap migrant labor nor prison slaves. Yet cost of living is still significantly more expensive in, say, Finland than it is in China.
If you pay less in wages, goods cost less.
If you have less environmental regulations/ignore them, goods cost less.
Yes, they are the leader in renewable energy tech. They have also cornered the market with regards to the rare minerals that are some/most of the inputs. The link is not a coincidence.
I don't know if that is also the case in China.
it is exactly the case in china - just with different numbers. It's why shanghai and beijing has some of the highest property price to income ratios. Just like in san fran.
There's cheap property in the USA - rural areas and lower populated areas. Just like there are in china.
Sounds like average American gig worker.