https://issuesinsights.com/2022/12/12/the-donald-makes-tim-cook-do-the-right-thing-again/
A popular game and teaching tool in various forms and guises – “What’s Missing from this Picture?” – seems highly applicable to a Wall Street Journal report that Apple Inc. “has accelerated plans to shift some of its production outside China.” The goal: “ship 40% to 45% of iPhones from India,” with manufacturing of “products such as AirPods, smartwatches and laptops” heading to Vietnam.
It seems Apple is perturbed – and judging by CEO Tim Cook’s studied reticence, embarrassed – by goings-on at factories of Chinese supplier Foxconn.
The Journal helpfully embedded video of authorities beating workers protesting weeks of COVID-driven imprisonment in their facility, closed-off break areas, and dining halls, and carryout meals they schlepped to dormitories a half-hour walk away. Workers jumped fences to escape.
The article also cataloged the shortcomings of Vietnam – too small population-wise to match China’s manufacturing sites with hundreds of thousands of workers – and India – patchwork regulations that “saddle (Apple) with obligations.”
And, apparently, neither offers China’s “literate and diligent workforce, political stability” and “huge local market for Apple’s products.” Per an ex-Foxconn executive, “They’re not doing high-end phones in India and Vietnam. No other places can do them.”
“No other places,” eh? Catching on to “what’s missing in this picture?” Maybe a country with traditions of large-scale manufacturing and global leadership in “high-end phone” development? High levels of literacy, and laborers clocking some of the world’s longest workweeks? Not to mention the historically “hugest” market for Apple products?