Still made in China

Still made in China

AMID ALL THE excitement about high tech and the push into services, it is easy to forget that China’s modern economy was built on the strength of a solid and often low-tech manufacturing sector. Now manufacturing is widely thought to be in trouble. Factories are squeezed, labour costs are rising and jobs are being reshored to America. Competitors such as Germany are said to be leaving China behind by using robotics.

Chinese offcials have responded（v.作出回应） in the only way they know. In May the State Council（n.会议）, China’s ruling body（执政主体）, approved “Made in China 2025”, a costly scheme that will use mandates（vt.托管，代理）, subsidies（n.补贴，津贴） and other methods to persuade manufacturers to upgrade（v.更新，升级） their factories. The plan is for China to become a green and innovative（adj.创新的，革新的） “world manufacturing power” by2025.

China is already the world’s largest manufacturer, accounting for nearly a quarter of global value added in this sector. Research by Morris Cohen of the Wharton Business School finds that the country leads in many industries and that“reshoring to the developed economies is not happening on a large scale.” Even though some production is moving to countries nearer its consumers, China remains at the heart of a network known as Factory Asia. It has an excellent infrastructure and an

enormous, hard-working and skilled workforce. Though wages are rising, its labour productivity is far higher than that of India, Vietnam and other rivals, and is forecast to keep growingat6-7% a year to 2025.

Manufacturing （adj. 制造的；制造业的 n. 制造业；工业 v. 制造；生

产（manufacture的ing形式））is almost entirely controlled

（v. 控制；约束

?rms,

（control的过去式）；指挥 adj. 受控制的；受约束的；克制的）by private

both Chinese and foreign, which unlike SOEs国有企业（State-owned

Enterprises）

will not be pushed by bureaucrats（官僚） into making

unprofitable (adj. 无益的，没有用的；没有利润的)investments(n投资、投入、封

锁). Marjorie Yang, Esquel’s boss, says that subsidies(补助金，补贴，津贴（subsidy的名词复数) may feel good but distort(vt. 扭曲；使失真；曲解)

investment decisions: “The government loves to fund ?ashy hardware and robotics, but there’s no money for the software and data analytics needed to make proper use of it.” And in any case most of these private(n. 列兵；二等兵 adj. 私人的；私有的；私下的) ?rms are already innovating(n. 创新 v. 革新) at a cracking pace without prompting from government.

Michael McNamara, the boss of Flex, a big American contract manufacturer, says product cycles have become much faster. Factories in China used to serve export markets, but are now Chinese manufacturing remains second to none

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