To: MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Just after WW II manufacturing shifted towards Japan. Then it shifted towards the "Asian Tiger" economies from South Korea to Singapore. Now it has shifted to China.
But there are still a lot of other countries that it can go to, once wages get too high in China. For example, Vietnam, Burma, India, Africa ...
To: Lessismore
Not likely, the problem is China's population. They have a 700 million strong reserve of cheap labor. The other east asian nations had to switich to higher and higher sophistication of their products because their small population's GDPs quickly rose with the induction of any industry. But the Chinese and maintain the low wages because of their huge population. So any industry they expand into(e.g textiles, cothing, toys, machinery, electronics, shipbuilding, semiconductor) they'll be able to dominate until they run out of people whose per capital GDP is below the industry's profitability margin. Thats not happening until at least the 2040s at current rates.
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