Alarmed by India’s growing success in electronics manufacturing, especially by Apple’s production under the “Make in India” initiative, China is attempting to hinder the progress by halting the export of high-tech machinery and equipment necessary for production, reports the Economic Times Spotlight Team. They write:
Alarmed by quick progress of the Make in India project of the Indian government, China is trying to scuttle the progress of the showpiece of India’s domestic manufacturing story: Apple production. Since India’s electronics manufacturing has picked up pace only in recent years, it relies on China for intermediate goods, the high-tech machinery used to produce electronic items which is not available readily in India yet. It seems China is now not willing to send those machines to India.
Sectors with heavy reliance on China, such as electronics, solar panels and electric vehicles (EVs), are facing severe challenges in getting capital equipment including hi-tech machinery, with China almost halting supplies, industry executives have told ET. Beijing’s move, experts said, is aimed at stalling the manufacturing expansion of the likes of Apple supplier Foxconn, EV maker BYD and laptop major Lenovo in India. China’s protectionist move not only increases costs for the manufacturers here, but also hurts the whole expansion exercise, another executive told ET. […]
“Currently, the equipment and manpower are not allowed to go over [to India],” one of the sources told ‘Rest of World’. “And India doesn’t have the technology to produce the equipment.”
In recent weeks, Foxconn’s Chinese employees who were set to travel to India were told to cancel their trips, the sources told ‘Rest of World’. […]
It took China decades to build its high-tech manufacturing ecosystem, and India too can develop strong local capabilities only over time, though possibly much sooner despite short-term setbacks.
“Foxconn’s slow pace of migration outside China, until now, especially the cautious expansion in India, can easily be viewed as reticence or even setback,” tech columnist Tim Culpan had written in Bloomberg last year. “Instead, what needs to be remembered is that Foxconn built its significant footprint in Shenzhen and later Zhengzhou over 40 years, with continued and unified support across all levels of the Chinese government. It’s fanciful to expect any company to replicate such success within a far more raucous and unpredictable nation within a few years. But with China’s grip on the global supply chain loosening, and worldwide demand in retreat, now is an opportune time to move forward with plans to rewrite its business model.”
Read more here.
