Because if you don't then your company ceases to be competitive. Somebody else will and will be able to undercut your prices. So you have to. You have to maximize profits when you are a CEO.
You can not put the interests of the country first. Public policy has got to set the rules. As long as public policy allows any CEO to invest in China and take advantage of almost free labor, then no CEO can ignore China.
The only way to stop the drain is government regulation, or tarriffs.
If that is their excuse, then they just exposing themselves as fools. Sort of like you've gotta be in teck stocks in the 90s. I remember that a broker called me and asked me if I was in tech stocks. I said, "No, they scare me to death." He laughed. But he who laughs last laughs best.
Not exactly.
Those are some options of course, but there are many more options than that.
I say developing alternative destinations is one HUGE one. Not regulation, but DE-regulation is another (aka fta agreements). I am for a combination of the two.
If we sent emmissaries to Africa or India and really hammered out a preferential treatment deal, or to the Phillippines, or especially Vietnam...then China all the sudden has competition that it can't hang with.
There are several, many, destinations that have cheaper labor than China.
Doing what I am talking about is not done mainly because of politics.