Still "Made in China"!?

In today's episode we look at the Chinese manufacturing miracle and how it differs to prior episodes like Japan in the 1980s. China's impact is being felt in all sectors of industry including solar panels, AI and is already being felt in Europe, especially the German car market.

Warning: This podcast does not constitute financial or tax advice.  Please contact a financial advisor or tax advisor to discuss your own individual circumstances, taking into account your needs and objectives, knowledge and experience and financial situation.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:01

Welcome to Cash Lads. My name is Paul Malloy from BoxcoverTax.ie and this is Marcus Doyle from Clear Financial. We're here to take the mystery out of money and finance with some history, some stories, and plenty of humor too.

SPEAKER_02 0:20

Hello there everyone. Marcus, how are you? How are you getting on today? I'm hot. Good. Is it the the the weather? The weather, yeah. No, not the not the other hot. Did you ever notice in Ireland at the moment the weather gets good? People saying it's fierce hot, isn't it? Too hot, yeah. Once it's it's like once it goes over 25 degrees, we get a bit etchy. After the worst winter ever, but anyway. So today uh folks, we're going to talk a little bit about uh China. China. Uh Pump's a big fan. Well, he he he he's kind of hot and cold, isn't he? Because for the last couple of years he's been criticizing China, and then he goes over and he meets uh Ji Jinping and he can't praise him enough. Yeah. He also came back with nothing more than nothing more than sandwich uh in terms of a deal, but uh on Iran. But there we there we go. But China certainly is you know, for some of our some of our older listeners, and I guess that would be me and anyone older, you know, we don't put yourself down, Paul. You're not that old. You know, growing up we didn't know much about China.

SPEAKER_00 1:18

So just everything here or something. Everything you bought had made in China on it.

SPEAKER_02 1:22

Um made in Taiwan as well. Is that part of China? Very controversial. Controversial. Um, but you know, Japan was the big thing. Japan was there was even a song about it, or you're big in Japan. Everything you were hearing was all about how Japan was taking over and it was making everything smaller. Yeah, it was very, very, very uh strong on technology. And then, of course, in 1990, they had their massive, massive property bust. And that really did for Japan for a very, very long time.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

Paul Milo bought a lot of property in Japan, that's why.

SPEAKER_02 1:56

Well, if you'd bought it afterwards, uh it would have taken quite some time to come back because long-term investment. Yeah, the Japanese were very, very slow to you see, shame is a big thing in in Asian culture, but especially in Japan, and they were very slow to admit that companies, big companies, had failed. You know, whereas you know, you think of the states after 2008, they just literally just said you're done, you know, they just moved on. Um, so that was one of the things that made things worse in uh in Japan. But uh China certainly um it has taken over, and and and just to look at kind of one sector, which and Mark's I think you know a bit a bit more about this than I do, would be the whole area of renewables and and solar. Um, China makes 80% of the world's solar panels, which is just dramatic. Some other country would be making them. Yeah, yeah. No, they've really, really embraced it as a way, I suppose, of trying to get away from the whole area of I suppose of of oil, um, you know, uh carbons like that. So um so they've really really embraced it, and and the Chinese market is the big market in terms of solar panels. But China have, and I I just think this is a good example of what happens in China, they just overdo it. You know, they build up way too much capacity. And some of these companies, like you know, Trina Solar and Tongwe, they they they're they they could bang out so many more more solar panels, but demand has started to drop. Uh domestically, demand has dropped. Um overseas, you know, in Europe we're making it harder for for um Chinese solar companies to to get involved. You know, the the margin they would now this age with the oil crisis that they would allow. You think you you you you you'd think they would. It's definitely something to there's there's things that were are pulling Europe in different directions, I think. Um, but you know, there's this massive overcapacity. And what happened, of course, happens in in many industries in China that the government gets very, very excited about this kind of hot new sector. And they throw money at them, they make it easy to get onto because obviously for solar panels, you need land and you need a lot of it, you need a lot of space. So they made it easy to get access to kind of cheap land, cheap and it's cheap loans given. That's all tightened up, and it's just an example of the kind of thing that happens with with this uh with this country and their their manufacturing capabilities. Uh I I think it was during COVID. Did they build a hospital in a week or something? Yeah, they were building all this stuff for the statistics like that. Uh while the rest of the yeah, I think that was that was that a dig a children hospital. Was that a dig at our children's hospital, yeah. But um, you know, if you if you if you go back to to Japan, as we were just talking about, like in the 1980s, um, especially as as the decade went on, wages started to get very high in Japan. And this has happened, so we're seeing it here now. A bit like Ireland, the Celtic Tiger. As as an economy gets stronger, wages go up, you know. Um and so Japan, many Japanese companies decided that it was too expensive to manufacture at home. And what they would do is they would uh you know build plants, new plants in South Korea, in Taiwan. Cheap labor. Cheap labor over there, make some more money. And this is this is exactly what this this pattern is not unusual. Like this has happened to to Britain, it's happened to Germany, it's happened to America as well. But uh what's unusual about China is that this hasn't happened. They don't come to other countries. There's there's kind of, you know, when it comes to manufacturing, there's kind of low-value, you're talking kind of biscuit tins, more medium, then more high-tech, the kind of the you know, the special machinery that the Germans make, for example, or the Swiss. Um and then you have kind of commodity type manufacturing around oil refinery, um, you know, things like that, taking commodities, working on them, turning them into something. Over the last 15 years, they have increased their market share worldwide in all four of those sectors. And that's very, very unusual. It wouldn't have surprised anyone if they'd gotten very strong in high-tech and and more of the more medium ones, but the low ones were expected to go to Vietnam, to go to Indonesia, to go to Thailand, to all places like this. Cambodi, Cambodian allows now, you know, labour would be very, very cheap there. Hasn't happened. And the reason, the main reason is that that you know, there's kind of two Chinas. So I mean, I don't know if our listeners have a uh you know an idea of what China, the map of China looks like, but if you want for a moment, if the map of America is more familiar, all the action is on is on like the equivalent of the east coast of like New York, all the way down to Washington and then to Florida. This is where all the the coastal coastal cities, I mean some of these cities have 20 million people, and people have never even heard of them, you know. Yeah. Guangzhou and Hangzhou and places like this. So um, so these cities have gotten very, very, very wealthy, you know, and and Shanghai. Too expensive to live. Too expensive. So there was recently enough, uh, there was a house in Shanghai. I was just reading this now. I don't know the precise number, but it was something like it was a mansion, but it went for $35 million, which is you know, it kind of defies the perception of China being this kind of cheap place.

SPEAKER_00 7:10

That's not cheap. It's it's meant to be copiedists, but they do seem to have a middle class and upper class.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Oh, very much so, even though everyone's meant to be the same. They have embraced the economy, just don't uh just don't criticize the government. Yeah, but um, you know, so so so this kind of uh dividend that Vietnam who's just on the doorstep, Indonesia not too far away, Philippines, you know, could close enough, they haven't got that manufacturing. It stayed in China, and and and there's there's there's a couple there's a couple of reasons. The the the main one being that you know if work gets too expensive on the east coast, you think of America and all those big cities, well, what would their business have done? They would have gone to Kansas, you know, to Utah, to Wisconsin, to places like this. And this is what's happening in China. That manufacturing is not leaving the country, it's just moving to another part of China where the labor is is a lot cheaper. And you know, it's also easier to move around China if you're Chinese, you know, and this is one of the great advantages that America has. Then if someone wants to move from you know San Francisco to Florida or Texas, they can do it. No problem. You know, you don't need a passport. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:20

Um, just jump on a flight. And they've got the numbers to do it because they've got the even though I think Didn't you have surpassed them in the population recently? It has, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 8:27

Yeah, so I don't always have the morning that actually the Indians are terrified that they're going to run out of people. Their people are not uh, or their their women are not producing as many babies as they were because they spent the last 20 years telling them to stop making so many babies. Oh god. But for now, certainly India is is is China were doing that as well. Yeah, if you're a young man looking for a date on a Friday night, the numbers are against you, you know. Uh there's no doubt about it. But uh over time I think these countries will fellas the stuff. As if it wasn't hard enough.

SPEAKER_00 9:04

Or a man. Whatever you want.

SPEAKER_02 9:07

Well, uh I suppose the more open-minded you are. Yeah, it's in the more you know, less less uh just that's a bit of a veer away. So um, one of the other things that has happened to China that probably our listeners not might not be that closely aware of is they had this enormous property crash. So in 2020, literally just as COVID was kicking off, uh property at that time, property activity was 20% of the economy, which sounds familiar, doesn't it? In terms of us and and so China had a property oh my god, they just couldn't make enough because it was the usual thing, prices won't go up, go down. Let's just you know make as much as the demand is is is unreal. We can't produce enough the usual supply and demand, the usual supply and demand, and you know, in our in the Irish system, like you know, we we we wait until typically wait until the house is is built before we put down deposit. Now, in saying that, there were people that were uh putting down deposits on properties, particularly in nice locations, um, that weren't completed.

SPEAKER_00 10:13

It's back to the Celtic Tiger days.

SPEAKER_02 10:15

But you know, they were put what were they putting down? Five, ten percent. In China, it was common to put down at least 50 50% deposit. 50% deposit. So um you put down your 50 deposit and you you think 35 million mansion out just sounds a lot. You drive by uh three, four weeks later to see how it's going on, and there's not another brick laid, and you're like, whoa, what is going to happen? And there were just it was just you know, to go back to the solar example, a massive, massive, massive oversupply. And all these millions of apartments um that weren't sold. But you know, these days in the bigger in the bigger cities like Beijing, you know, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, people are coming back to these cities. So the those unbuilt properties are now being snapped up.

SPEAKER_00 11:06

They'll be filled if they're built in the property.

SPEAKER_02 11:07

They're being filled because that there's a lot of employment there and there's a lot of good employment there, and they're being built less so um in the country. But you know, one one interesting thing um about China was that in 2020, just before the crash, the government were quite worried that the sector was getting too hot, the property sector was getting too hot. And they said to themselves, you know, we've got to do something about this. And they kind of tightened credit, made it harder for banks or local authorities to lend to developers. And of course, this led to a massive panic about the solvency of uh, you know, of developers, and it's now kind of going the other way, you know, because the the IMF came out with a study that um and I I think this reflects our I I don't think we quite meet this, but it's similar to us, but that it takes about four years for an economy to recover from a property crash. Because, you know, we've talked about this before. Um that when when when the developers run out of road, when they they can't build anymore, um they have a load of debt and they've no ability to service it. Yeah. So what happens? What happens to the banks? Suddenly they've got all these debts.

SPEAKER_00 12:32

Yeah, and they have to nearly wipe them off.

SPEAKER_02 12:35

And they literally have to, you know, the process is, you know, this was I suppose what you know what NAMO was trying to do, uh, and did I suppose in the end quite successfully, is is to take those loans or those properties and the loans off the developer and um I suppose over time wait for things to you know to start to pick up again. So that's that's that's something that that that Beijing, uh the government in China are are are are looking to do. But um I as a younger person than than me, Marcus, what has been your experience of of China?

SPEAKER_00 13:11

China, well I suppose when you were younger, it was like uh well, as you say, it was either Taiwan or China. Every toy in the world seemed to be made by and obviously going back to your point, cheap labour, they can make it really easily. They just exported and cheap wages as well. Uh but you're right, there was that Japan thing, kind of all your God, I'm really shot on my age. Remember your walkmans, your then it came CD players, many discs came out for a while. They all your technical stuff, whereas China was banging out all the the kind of more or your your your spatula for for cooking was all China. And then, but obviously more recently you see they've grown and grown and got bigger, and it's not just toys anymore, but yeah, especially probably me being an electric car driver, the amount of new electric cars and all CB Chinese like BYD, all these ones like you've never heard of. Is it leap motor or something one of them's called? But just like before, you knew your cars, yeah. It's usually the Germans, the Americans, the Japanese, like of all these a few other different ones, but and the French ones, but now it's China seemed to be taking over in the electric cars.

SPEAKER_02 14:14

Well, you in Germany, you know, I mean Germany is the land of high, high, high-quality, you know, motor manufacturing. And you know, it has led it has it has led the world in terms of you know, not you know, it's a really important part of German exports. Yeah, it's the luxury vehicle of of most most countries. Because the German economy, you know, uh, unlike the Americans, very unlike the Americans, Germans don't spend money kind of willy-nilly, you know, like to save America. You know, we're probably it's more probably more like the Americans than the Germans, I think. As as a nation as a whole, we're we're much fonder of spending some some some money.

SPEAKER_00 14:49

Instead of about 200 million on in accounts and deposit doing nothing. Well, it's true, true. That yeah, well, yeah. We have saved way more than I think I think that may be a reaction to the 2008 crash. That's why that's yeah, I think there's some caution there. Yeah. I'd I think it'd be interesting to see the age profile that's a good thing. But you're right, if this if we were talking to Irish people back 2006, 2007, you're right. It was spend spend spend on whatever you want.

SPEAKER_02 15:11

But that's that is very, very good for for for the economy. And I, you know, I've spoken about uh America in the past that has these very, very liberal um bankruptcy rules. You know, that's actually not that difficult. Like if you've overdone it, not that difficult to get your debt written down or your your payments re reworked. And you kind of think, why are they letting people do this? Like, you know, if you borrow the money, you should pay it back. But the Americans know that if you if they lock someone up in terms of they can't literally, you know, they're in in straight channel. You're paying for them to house them and paying for them for the driver. You are, um, but they're also not spending money. Yeah. And that's not good for the economy as a whole. So the Americans really understand that if the it once the once the American consumer stops spending money, then you're relying on exports alone, literally. And and it's very, very tough or business investment. So it's very, very tough. Like, you know, we're so that that is something that you know um China has been trying to, and I I think probably succeeding to get people to spend more money. And and you know, the the Germans have this problem as well, you know, they just don't spend that money. But Germany are now facing this just massive, very, very competitive, um, over competitive, they would argue, demand or so sorry, competition from um China, you know, for especially around the EVs, the electric vehicles.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

Yeah, see, some of those, because I remember when I bought my some of those companies were very slow to come into it. When I was buying mine, the only real ones were uh the the Tesla, obviously, um Hyundai and Bakia, which which is the one I went with. But now they're such and I think all the other cars were kind of oh, we'll go hybrid first and all this kind of stuff, but China seems to have gone full throttle. Yeah, yeah. And I I think the Germans are trying to catch up now.

SPEAKER_02 17:03

You see, in in in China, you read anecdotally about uh any sectors that they have, you know, it's so competitive. It's so competitive that when they're when they're over there, you know, the margins are really, really tight, you know, two, three, four percent, really, really, really tight. And when when things are that tight, you've to really you know perform, you know, your your operations have to be stellar, you know, because any waste is all is going to end your center market. So when they so by the time these companies get over to to Europe or to North America or you know Australia or you know, Brazil or something like somewhere, you know, some of the more affluent countries in the world, like um they're so lean and they're so tough to compete against. And the the the the consumer doesn't really care, you know. I don't think they're putting on the green jersey that much anymore.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Um, in terms of buying Irish and Yeah, I remember when when we were younger, it was all guaranteed Irish by that. And and that was that was logical. If you buy Irish products, it goes directly to Irish. Like, and obviously no, there's companies in Ireland that you still have to pay tax, but if you buy Irish, it's Irish companies that they're hardly going to go abroad or anything like that with with with certain stuff with supports big. Yeah, that was a big thing when we were younger, it's probably not as much anymore. I do like to always try and buy where I can buy Irish because it does support Irish jobs and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 18:23

Yeah, well, I mean if it's a domestic, like so like like buying our Irish at the hairdressers. We all know that or the barbers, we know not that you can't compete internationally like with that, you know.

SPEAKER_00 18:33

We're not like you, Paul, flying to China to get your hair cut. Well, that would be that would be quite a waste.

SPEAKER_02 18:39

But Donald Trump, I won't be doing that again. China won't be doing that again.

SPEAKER_00 18:42

Yeah, um I think your haircut's quite similar to Donald Trump's actually looking at it. Must be mods ago off my head.

SPEAKER_02 18:47

Like the Simpsons. But um even though it was with a fake tan. So look, China is here to stay, and you know, America have slapped on the tariffs pretty hard, and that has refocused a lot of our uh Japanese or sorry, Chinese companies on Europe. Do you think then obviously Europe is gonna do it? I think Europe's gonna have to do something because you know, if the if the German um market gets you know throttled, German car market gets throttled by the Chinese, all the countries around Germany, you know, especially Hungary, Poland, Austria, Switzerland, um, you know, that sell into Germany or are part of the supply chain for for cars. If they suffer, then you're talking about like a mini depression in Europe. So at at one level, you know, Europe, and I'm sure they're they're they're very conscious of this, are going to have to do something against uh China. But we we we've talked about protectionism being a disaster. But look, it's easy to say that in theory, but if people are losing jobs to uh to Chinese products, then we have to have to have a think about it. So look, I think that probably covers us um for for today. Marcus, thanks very much for your time and hope everyone else uh listening in uh enjoyed it too. We'll see you next time.

SPEAKER_00 19:57

See you next time.