Will the China Cycle Come for Airbus and Boeing?

When development of large wind-farms in China began in the late 1990s, all turbines were imported. But Chinese manufacturers acquired wind turbine technology through joint ventures, licensing, and acquisitions, and by 2009 China’s market was dominated by locally-produced turbines. Today, China’s Goldwind is one of the largest wind turbine manufactu

... See more

One is simply the sheer difficulty of building a modern commercial aircraft, which is probably one of the five or six most complex technical achievements of modern civilization (along with jet engines, leading-edge semiconductor fabrication, and nuclear submarines). Commercial aircraft must couple a high level of performance in some of the most adv... See more

Noah Smith, author of the economics Substack Noahpinion, often refers to a common trajectory in Chinese manufacturing as the “China Cycle”1:

1. A multinational company puts its factories in China, lured by some combination of cheap production, big contracts, and the dream of huge market opportunities.




2. China appropriates the multinational company’s te

... See more