U.S. trade policy toward China under the Trump Administration is heavily focused on addressing the perceived unfairness and competitive disadvantages created by China’s industrial policies, chief among them, Made in China 2025. Here’s your Essential graphic on the policy’s core components.
Made in China 2025 calls for achieving “self-sufficiency” through technology substitution while becoming a “manufacturing superpower” that dominates the global market in critical high-tech industries. That could be a problem for countries that rely on exporting high-tech products or the global supply chain for high-tech components.
The super powers of the materials in our jeans, suits, and mattresses require textile innovation, something at which American researchers, engineers, and designers in the textile industry excel.
Europe, North America, Japan and Russia are the biggest traditional markets for snowboarding. As the Olympic Winter Games kick off, the industry is hoping new events and even more spectacular tricks will provide “big air” to the sport’s popularity, particularly in Asia.
The operator’s manual for the popular entry-level Honda Civic is 601 pages. It doesn’t fit in the glove box; it comes in the form of an electronic document to download, which seems appropriate considering the number of electronic components in the car. High-tech, high-cost, components are lightweight and positioned to move long distances on a just-in-time basis.
Every January, the global automobile industry gathers in the Motor City for the North American International Auto Show (NAIAS). In a celebration of ingenuity, companies display futuristic concept cars, present cutting-edge technologies, and promote their latest offerings.
“I, Pencil, simple though I appear to be…have a profound lesson to teach. And I can teach this lesson better than can an automobile or an airplane or a mechanical dishwasher because—well, because I am seemingly so simple. Simple? Yet, not a single person on the face of this earth knows how to make me.”
Changes are underway which could substantially diminish the relevance of export-led development strategies for countries in East Asia.
The global production of goods can be charted by each stage at which activity occurs and value is added. The great news is that Americans excel at the activities on the production curve that require the most creativity and know-how, and that generate the most profit.
Most products today are the result of creative, physical, and intellectual efforts by people in different roles across the globe—they are designed in one country, their materials are procured in another, their components may be made and assembled somewhere else. Their “Made in…” labels only tell us the country where that product last underwent some significant change or “substantial transformation”. That’s just a snapshot of one stop on their journey