[ZeroTalent]

There is no more "as QoL in China improves."

The majority of parts of "Swiss Made" watches are made in China, utilizing a loophole that requires 60% of the watch's cost to be manufactured and assembled in Switzerland. So they make a rotor made out of gold in Switzerland, which accounts for 60% of the COGS of the watch, pop the rotor on the movement, and the sapphire glass on the watch, and it's "Swiss Made."

Best source, a rabbit hole: https://monochrome-watches.com/h-moser-cie-launches-swiss-ma...

Replicas are also manufactured in the same factories as "authentic" watches, but are fully assembled in China. (my personal insider anecdote)

"Investigators who work for Rolex and others say high-end fakes are “made in the same industrial parks and on cloned CNC machines”": https://www.businessinsider.com/how-counterfeit-rolexes-work...

"2025 “superfake” TAG Heuer Aquaracers used real Swiss Sellita movements inside Chinese-made cases—proof of parts leakage, if not identical factory floors": https://www.heddels.com/2025/03/spotting-a-superfake-4-real-...

[rafram]

> There is no more "as QoL in China improves."

You start with this, but then the rest of your comment is totally unrelated. Could you elaborate?

[phil21]

China is already producing top-tier parts at the current set wages. Wages are unlikely to increase as quality of production goes up - it's already world class.

That's the argument as I see it at least. I tend to mostly agree, with some carve-outs for highly specialized industry and general "social" differences in how business is typically done.

At this point, if you need basic manufacturing - China seems unbeatable on both price and quality for the vast majority of items. Not to mention lead times and iteration speed.

[nebula8804]

That will only last as long as their current generation is not in retirement age (10-20 years left). They have among the worst replacement rates in the world. Its too late to fix that. Afterwards China either becomes fully automated in an extreme fashion or they exit from the world stage as a manufacturing powerhouse. If they become robotic everyone else can as well.

Also on that note Robots are going to have to become real cheap, I suspect the reason they are so good at everything is because there is so much competition from 1+ billion people its that cutthroat

Robots will have to become cheaper than all these people assembling a generic bluetooth speaker or the price will go up eventually tariffs or not...go ahead count the number of people: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFYxSX6xP2U

[rafram]

In what economic model is wage growth determined by the quality of the work? That sounds very unrealistic to me.

[ZeroTalent]

I read the parent comment totally wrong.

[ZeroTalent]

Oh my... I read this as QC, quality of manufacturing, not QoL.

Disregard my comment.