And, a recent tour of one of the Asian powerhouse’s vehicle plants has proved this beyond a shadow of a doubt, at least to Honda President and CEO Toshihiro Mibe.
“We have no chance against this,” Mibe said upon a visit to a Shanghai parts factory, commenting on its seamless automation across all levels of production. Logistics, procurement and all aspects of the process were so automated, in fact, that he did not spot a single human worker on the supplier’s floor.
Ford executives saying even three years ago that China was way ahead of the game
Toyota’s CEO has likewise said regarding not just his company, but the industry in general, “unless things change, we will not survive”
I dunno how the Japanese and Koreans will do, but I 100% guarantee that the American companies will do absolutely nothing, whine about it to their child rapist in chief and then get a massive government bailout paid for by ordinary Americans.
They’re equally freaked out, as they’ve been lashed to the same Wall Street piloted sinking ship as the rest of the US periphery. If you check out the politics in Japan and Korea over the last fifteen years, its been on a reactionary bent of increasing domestic militarization amid a continuous “Why aren’t our naturally superior native peoples making more babies?!” eugenics freak-out.
You can throw in The Philippines, Taiwan, India, and Australia while you’re at it. None of these countries seem to have a serious long term plan for their economic futures. Everything revolves around “containment” of the Chinese super-economy, even as individual plutocrats demand carve outs for their own supply lines and revenue streams.
In the US they’ll just keep banning Chinese cars, not sure how that’ll pan out elsewhere though since other countries have started or had existing import agreements.