In the past two days, the news of Foxconn's investment in India has flooded the screen.
On March 2, when the G20 Foreign Ministers' Summit in New Delhi was stirred up by Blinken and Lavrov into a super quarrel, Modi met with Liu Yangwei, chairman of Foxconn, and announced that Foxconn will invest one billion US dollars to build a factory in the Indian state of Telangana to produce Apple mobile phones and electric vehicle parts, which is expected to bring 100,000 local jobs!
Public opinion circles began to discuss whether Foxconn was going to run away.
This is actually a good phenomenon, after all, in the current public opinion circle, either celebrity plastic surgery, marriage and other parents are short, or the left and right factions are salivating around the topic of big country games.
There are two sensitive points of this message:
The first sensitive point, it is Foxconn, which has two major characteristics.
First of all, Foxconn is a typical labor-intensive and capital-intensive manufacturing industry. As the world's largest foundry company, Foxconn can create many jobs and solve the problem of feeding many people; It has made a huge contribution to the regional economy. Taking Zhengzhou Foxconn as an example, it produces nearly half of the world's Apple mobile phones, absorbs hundreds of thousands of jobs, and contributes 80% of Zhengzhou's exports and 60% of Henan's exports; In addition, there is an industrial chain layout.
Secondly, in addition to being a manufacturing industry, Foxconn is also a topical enterprise, from the previous Shenzhen Foxconn N consecutive jump, to last year's Zhengzhou Foxconn epidemic evacuation. It has always been said that it is a sweatshop, representing the oppression of the proletariat by capitalists; Hope to improve the treatment.
The second sensitive point, Foxconn went to India.
India is also a highly controversial topic.
The view of optimism about India is that India is between the five permanent members of the United Nations, has the most abundant labor resources in the world, can fully enjoy the so-called demographic dividend, and thus establish a complete industrial chain, and even copy China's successful history. So many countries and companies are betting on India.
The view that India is not optimistic is that the proportion of India's main ethnic groups is too low and may collapse at any time; The lack of land reform has resulted in the internal religions and clans becoming kings and making it difficult to harmonize; Because Indians have not experienced revolution and their thinking is limited to the afterlife, India will never be able to develop and achieve the success of China.
This time Foxconn went to India to invest, which once again aroused the enthusiasm of public opinion to discuss India and Foxconn.
According to public information, Foxconn's new factory in India covers an area of 300 acres, roughly equivalent to more than 1,800 acres. Compared with Zhengzhou Foxconn, which covers an area of 9,000 acres, India's new factory is only about one-fifth of it. In other words, even if the Indian plant comes online, Foxconn's production center will still be in China for the foreseeable future.
So Foxconn's investment in India is at most part of the job outflow. But even so, public opinion is still worried about Foxconn's investment in India, mainly for the following reasons.
Reason 1: Worry about the outward migration of the industrial chain.
China is still the world's largest industrial production base, but in recent years, as high housing prices have led to higher hard operating costs in China, part of the industrial chain has shifted to Southeast Asia and South Asia.
This transfer is partly due to normal phenomena in development. At the beginning, the United Kingdom, and later the United States and Japan, there was a phenomenon of industrial chain transfer. But China is different from other countries, because China has not yet become a developed country, and the population base is extremely large, and many people's incomes are still very low; In this case, the pain of industrial chain transfer will be greater.
Taking the salary of Foxconn employees as an example, although it is incomparable with the group that earns millions a year in Internet public opinion, it is not low for grassroots people, at least higher than many sweatshops. So the outflow of some jobs from Foxconn still stung the nerves of some groups. Because these jobs, if in China, can solve the livelihood of many grassroots families.
Foxconn is also the vane of the manufacturing industry, which can not only directly create many jobs, but also indirectly promote the development of many industrial chains.
Reason 2: Worry about the Sino-US game.
The Sino-US game is already a clear card. The United States has now identified China as its number one strategic competitor and has gone to great lengths to contain it.
U.S. hawks are trying to push for decoupling between China and the United States. Therefore, public opinion circles believe that another important reason for the outward migration of China's industrial chain is that the United States is promoting.
Taking Foxconn's investment in India as an example, it is to provide OEM for American giants in the Indian market. In fact, this kind of foundry demand can also be met in China, but because the United States wants to transfer the industrial chain, Foxconn has to set up factories in India.
Since China and the United States have been relatively harmonious in economic and trade relations in the past few decades, both sides have benefited a lot. Many worry that as U.S. hawks continue to mess around, it will cause more jobs to be lost from China.
Especially during the epidemic period, it is not easy for many people to find a job, and they are not very optimistic about the future.
Reason 3: Concern about India's threat to China.
If Foxconn invests in new factories in other countries, the public opinion response will be smaller. What does India say, maybe there are many flaws of one kind or another, and many people look down on India and think that it must not develop.
But back to history and reality, India, which has not developed, has always been a threat to China. From the Sino-Indian war to the border conflicts, India has basically provoked China. In reality, India also often stumbles on Chinese companies.
Once India grows and successfully integrates more competitive industrial chains, the threat to China will inevitably increase. India itself is also a nuclear power, with aircraft carriers, missiles, and fighters, coupled with the support of the United States and Russia, which has led to India becoming a very difficult role.
Now India's ambition is very large, and it wants to take the opportunity of the Sino-US game to undertake the industrial chain transferred from Europe and the United States, trying to replace China as a new generation of world factories. Located just off Bangalore, Foxconn's new plant is India's most dynamic tech hub.
Bangalore, known as "India's Silicon Valley", is China's Shenzhen. According to the data, Karnataka has a population of more than 60 million, abundant human resources, and low urbanization, and theoretically has great potential for the future. Looking back that year, Foxconn's first production base in Chinese mainland was also in Shenzhen.
The United States is also taking advantage of India's inflated ambitions to encourage India to often look to China for fault. Under this circumstance, Foxconn to set up a factory in India will undoubtedly make the public opinion circles worried. In fact, not only Foxconn, any manufacturing industry chain landing in India will become the driving force of India's development and indirectly become a threat to China.
In short, for India, ridicule is ridicule, but its strategic threat to China in reality and in the future is also real.