By 2030, China will account for a whopping 45% of all global manufacturing. According to graphic by Visual Capitalist, this is due to ‘Low-Cost Labor,’ which is writtin on China’s share of the graph.¹ But nothing could be further from the truth. And even American CEO of Apple said as much in 2024. He said “The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labour costs. The truth is China stopped being a low labour costs country many years ago.”² While there is a popular memory from more than a decade ago of China having low cost labor, that simply isn’t true any longer. Chinese workers are paid far more than others in the developing world. So from where does their competetive advantage come?

China has a comlex multiplicity of factors which give it a considerable edge.

China’s successes come from:
Integrated logistics and infrastructure like HSR
50%+ of global manufacturing robots
Technological innovation
5G integration
Vertically integrated manufacturing processes
Domestic market strength for scaling new products
A massive domestic consumer base
Heavy R&D investments
And fiercely competitive market systems with
LOow-cost inputs via State Managed Utilities as SOEs

1. https://www.visualcapitalist.com/charted-chinas-rise-to-manufacturing-dominance-over-30-years/ ↩︎
2. https://www.indiatimes.com/trending/social-relevance/tim-cooks-old-video-on-choosing-china-for-manufacturing-goes-viral-641403.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThe%20popular%20conception%20is%20that,it%20is%2C%E2%80%9D%20he%20added. ↩︎