The general population of the Western world has no idea, or even a reflexive reaction to deny, the fact that Chinese companies in “strategic” industries are intentionally subsidized to the point that their competitors look ridiculously expensive in comparison.
There are 100.000’s pcb fabs in China, why would JlC be strategic?!
The industry is strategic. jlc and all those others exist because China has decided it wants them to exist, and did things to see to it that they exist.
There are 1000's of corn farmers in the US, because the US has decided it was strategic and sees to it that there is always a lot of corn production capacity, even if it means buying the corn itself or artificially disposing it in some other way like making a law to use ethanol.
Facts. But this has been the case for almost 70 years.
Is this really unique to China? I thought that the problem was that prices become more arbitrary and subjective than representative of cost of labor, with inter-continental trades.
... wait, does this also explain apparent advantages in software as well as disadvantages in hardware that the US has?