Why China’s Ability to Make a $6 Toaster is a Big Problem for the Global South – 12 November 2025

China is breaking the rules of development. Typically, as countries progress up the value chain, they transition from agriculture to light industry, then to heavy industry, and ultimately to high-technology and services. And as they move up the value chain, this creates opportunities for less-developed countries to advance.

But China’s not doing that. Chinese manufacturers are holding on to their immense productive capacity, enabling them to produce both low-tech sneakers and high-tech semiconductors at a scale and cost that are unrivaled.

Now, as developing countries around the world seek to move up the value chain, they will have to compete head-on against the dreaded “China Price.”

James Kynge, who covered China for nearly 30 years at the Financial Times, delved into this challenge in a fascinating audiobook that came out earlier this year, “Global Tech Wars: China’s Race to Dominate.” James joins Eric from London to explain how China’s ability to produce a $6 toaster exemplifies the country’s enormous manufacturing advantage that will be very difficult, if not impossible, for other countries to match.

CHAPTERS:

• Introduction – The $6 toaster and the global value chain crisis
• The Flying Geese Model – How automation broke development’s old path
• China’s Dual Reality – A continent-sized economy of billionaires and low-wage labor
• Industrial Clusters – The unbeatable advantage of Shenzhen and the Pearl River Delta
• The Global South’s Dilemma – Competing against the “China price”
• Automation and Inequality – Why manufacturing isn’t moving offshore
• The $1 Trillion Surplus – Trade backlash and global tensions
• Searching for Solutions – Industrial policy and self-strengthening in the Global South
• Winners and Losers – Cheap exports, consumer gains, and producer pain
• Political Risk – Xi Jinping’s lesson from Western deindustrialization
• The Humanoid Robot Moment – From $6 toasters to $6,000 robots
• China’s Auto Revolution – BYD and the new wave of affordable EVs
• The Double-Edged Future – Opportunity and disruption in China’s rise

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