[tristor]

I am making a concerted effort in my life to avoid buying things made in China. It’s harder than it sounds, and in the case of consumer electronics, impossible. If the point of this article is to make the reader feel bad for buying an iPhone, they’ve failed. Nearly every electronics device sold in the US is made or assembled in China, and most under even worse conditions than FoxConn.

[zeven7]

> If the point of this article is to make the reader feel bad for buying an iPhone, they’ve failed. Nearly every electronics device sold in the US is made or assembled in China

I would still say it's good to call attention to the problem even if there's no real solution for consumers.

[jfvinueza]

Well, customers actually can buy less stuff and replace current technologic devices at a slower pace.

[AstralStorm]

Unfortunately cheap lithium ion batteries literally carry an expiration date. Few years and you operate on fraction of capacity and it's getting ever harder to replace the cells.

[boplicity]

The best you can do, I think, is to make sure to support Taiwanese brands as much as possible, as opposed to direct Chinese brands. Asus, Acer, Gigabyte are a few of them. Yes, they're still quite intermingled with the mainland, but it's better than nothing!

[floren]

It's been "fun" to see tankie twitter rush to point out that Foxconn is a Taiwanese company (not a Chinese one), after years of denying that Taiwan is separate from China:

https://i.ibb.co/TqdYf4y/image.png

https://i.ibb.co/k8yPg48/image.png

https://i.ibb.co/bgQmJ99/image.png

[fmajid]

My new Mac Studo was made in Malaysia, and the computer I bought before, a Gigabyte Aorus 17G, in Taiwan. The workers at this factory rioted because they had been held there against their will due to a Covid lockdown, as opposed to the more usual being locked out of your workplace and livelihood. Ironically Xi Jinping’s inflexible zero-Covid policy is making the Chinese supply chain unreliable and doing what no amount of human-rights abuse or US government pressure could do, forcing Apple to move production out of China to places like Vietnam and India.

[dirtyid]

> The workers at this factory rioted because they had been held there against their will due to a Covid lockdown

Literally the opposite.

Foxconn was trying to kick workers OUT of factory which had to shutter due to covid - the riot was over lack of compensation + bonuses. Which is about Foxconn who is infamous for mistreating workers in plants across east Asia, hence Apple doing +1 shift with Foxconn doesn't change anything, see Indian plant riotting over similar issue. Mac Studio still assembled by Foxconn. Root of problem is TW business culture, the shit practices in PRC are learned from OG TW base manufacturers who hasn't changed much, Gigabyte isn't spared.

[dirtyid]

>assembled in China, and most under even worse conditions than FoxConn

Citation needed. There's a reason Honhai / Foxconn / TW businesses have decades old bad rep in East Asia, in terms of working conditions, mistreating workers, withholding compensation and passports. Much of the China-bad meme of rampant gulag capitalism applies and were imported from TW by TW business culture (granted at invitation of PRC), from gutteroil to tofu construction, distant fishing slavery etc. Poor TW workers rights get exported abroad (i.e. Indian plant) where they're generally invited and hence have leverage to mistreat. If anything, from my experience, working conditions in PRC manufacturing sectors comparable to Foxconn are now generally better, more abide by rights and laws simply because PRC nationals can be easily held accountable vs. Foxconn getting immunity from local gov due to cross strait cooperation perks, or whatever regional equivalent to draw Foxconn investment. Labour issue will persist regardless of where you buy from, because likely you'll still be buying from the same global manufacturing company known for not having scruples.

[andsoitis]

Who decides to make it in China? Who demands that companies be highly highly profitable?

[BurningFrog]

Profitable companies outcompete less competitive ones.

No one decided that, it's just a fact.

[tsimionescu]

Actually, a company that accrues a lot of profit could always be outcompeted by one willing to make less profits. Profit is a cost to the company itself, it is only beneficial to shareholders.

On the other hand, it's true that companies with lower costs will tend to outcompete others, so moving to China is sort of dictated by the market.

[AstralStorm]

To a point. You cannot go lower than base cost, and can be made irrelevant by sheer volume.

[colechristensen]

What is decided are the rules of the game, the outcome is then somewhat obvious.