Largely ignored by lame-stream media, tensions have been rising between Japan & China. Against that background, Japanese manufacturer Canon has suddenly decided to shut down a plant in China making printers. The factory was launched about 25 years ago and once employed over 10,000 people. Now it is down to around 1,600 people, shortly to be zero.
Of course, part of this is the move of Japanese companies to lower wage countries like Vietnam and the Philippines – a move which Chinese companies themselves are also following, perhaps explaining China’s growing youth unemployment problem.
Interestingly, Japanese companies are still investing in China, but their new highly automated factories require many fewer workers.
Of course, all of these efforts to move production to low-wage countries are based on the willingness of the formerly-wealthy West to keep importing the products. “Free Traders” import willingly with no compensating tariffs, since they completely ignore the other side of the transaction – the consumers in the formerly wealthy Western countries need jobs to be able to buy these cheaper imported products.
Strangely, the worsening situation facing workers in Western “democratic” countries does not seem to be a concern of the Political Class. It will be interesting to see if China’s form of rule does a better job of balancing society … although so far the Communist leadership does not seem to be doing a better job than the Western grifter Political Class.
Is Canon’s factory closure tied to strains in China-Japan ties? - Asia Times