Posted on 02/28/2020 10:02:59 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Until about the third week of January, only a few pharmaceutical executives, drug-safety inspectors and dogged China hawks cared that a large share of the world’s supply of antibiotics depends on a handful of Chinese factories. These include a cluster in Inner Mongolia, a northern province of windswept deserts, grasslands and unlovely industrial towns. Then came the covid-19 outbreak, and quarantine controls that locked down factories, ports and whole cities across China.
Chinese leaders insist that they are well on the way to conquering the virus, allowing them to reopen “leading enterprises and key links with important influence” in global supply chains. A victory over the novel coronavirus will once again demonstrate “the notable advantages of leadership by the Communist Party of China”, President Xi Jinping told 170,000 officials by video-conference on February 23rd. But even if all those boasts come true, foreign governments and business bosses will not quickly forget a frightening lesson: for some vital products, they depend on one country.
Where once only a few specialists worried about the market share enjoyed by the industrial chemists of Hohhot or Shijiazhuang, China’s dominance of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (api) sector is now the subject of hard questions in Washington’s corridors of power and the chancelleries of Europe.
Ending the world’s dependence on Chinese apis would not be a technical challenge. China has not been dominant for long. America’s last penicillin fermenter closed in 2004, as clusters of Chinese factories, many state-owned or subsidised, offered efficiencies that foreign rivals could not match. Rather, change would involve upending well-established political and economic theories, starting with the wisdom of allowing private companies to seek out the best-value goods, with little heed paid to their origin.
(Excerpt) Read more at economist.com ...
Laughing is good for the soul.
The just-in-time China supply chain was going to be a chapter in my book about how MBA’s are destroying the world.
“How would you have had them stop it? Government takeover of the pharmaceutical industry?”
No, Place critical medical supplies and drugs under Defense Production Act of 1950 just as we do for critical military supplies and defense technology. It is a national security issue.
Have a little imagination. How about a large tariff on Chinese imports? How about requiring all imported drugs, and precursor chemicals to be tested for quality and purity (add more cost to outsourcing). How about reducing tax and regulation on US manufacturing?
Hey at least the PRCs are sending fentanyl to US unabated.
Finally. Many of us have been talking about this for years. Trump warned about it and started bringing manufacturing back. Now, even the corps have to recognize the value of alternate supply chains. China Inc. as a monolithic force is dead.
Made in America, I prefer American made products. I guess those who want some cheapo China product might be disrupted.
The only thing “business” has learned is that Trump will only be president for 8 years. The GOPe and their cohorts are just going to wait it out the best they can.
By some miracle of God, the Chinese are not so smart. Satan has commanded that they “Dance!”, and that’s just what they’re doing. Throw US reporters out. Crush Hong Kong. Hide this disease and what they’re doing about it. Fortunately, it looks like they’re as incompetent as they are oppressive.
It’s like the little devils just can’t help themselves, which is mercy for us.
me too, twice. I'm proud to say I ever voted for a Bush.
Oops, I voted for #41 in '88. I was hoping he'd continue in RRs footsteps.
Millions of Americans are taking prescription drugs made in China and don't know it--and pharmaceutical companies are not eager to tell them.
This is a disturbing, well-researched wake-up call for improving the current system of drug supply and manufacturing.Several decades ago, penicillin, vitamin C, and many other prescription and over-the-counter products were manufactured in the United States.
But with the rise of globalization, antibiotics, antidepressants, birth control pills, blood pressure medicines, cancer drugs, among many others are made in China and sold in the United States.
China's biggest impact on the US drug supply is making essential ingredients for thousands of medicines found in American homes and used in hospital intensive care units and operating rooms. The authors convincingly argue that there are at least two major problems with this scenario.
First, it is inherently risky for the United States to become dependent on any one country as a source for vital medicines, especially given the uncertainties of geopolitics. For example, if an altercation in the South China Sea causes military personnel to be wounded, doctors may rely upon medicines with essential ingredients made by the adversary.
Second, lapses in safety standards and quality control in Chinese manufacturing are a risk. Citing the concerns of FDA officials and insiders within the pharmaceutical industry, the authors document incidents of illness and death caused by contaminated medications that prompted reform.
This probing book examines the implications of our reliance on China on the quality and availability of vital medicines.
The first to warn about this was Ross Perot. And that was simply about what NAFTA could do.
Then Pat Buchanan picked up the baton, including the WTO and China trade.
And finally in Trump we elected someone who doesn’t worship free trade and globalization as the highest and most important of all ideals.
How does everyone think Dollar Stores could otherwise exist?
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Customers overwhelmingly shop by price.
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Now the Chinese are dirt cheap but many products are the highest of quality for a third of the price.
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American productivity is the highest in the world. Much of that productivity is fueled by affordable electronics from China.
“America’s last penicillin fermenter closed in 2004”
That reminds me.. I should clean out my fridge..
and do my laundry. although, it keeps moving around on me.
Apple has already been creating new plants in the US and elsewhere.
The only assembled-in-USA computer you can buy right now with anything resembling decent US parts content is a Mac Pro. And the non-US parts are parts that nobody makes in the US (thanks to China’s stranglehold on rare earths due to US industry being regulated out of existence.)
Many US products require Chinese ingredients/components. There are zero 100% made in USA cars, for example.
(Snicker, snicker)
Outstanding suggestion! I’ve been sitting here steaming about how this panic is so fabricated, but that would be a perfect way to turn it back around on the media!
Somebody that has an ear in the Trump campaign put this out there!
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