A new ITIF report reveals that despite surging East Asian FDI into U.S. advanced manufacturing, most firms retain deep internal value-chain dependencies on China—undermining U.S. de-risking goals. The China-Plus-One strategy often preserves regulatory, IP, and input linkages, while U.S. policy measures success by jobs and capital, not supply-chain independence. Experts warn this creates hidden leverage for the PRC in economic warfare scenarios. Practitioners must audit second-degree dependencies—not just final assembly locations—to mitigate real-world disruption risk.
According to itif.org, advanced manufacturers from East Asia are expanding U.S. investment—but their internal value chains remain deeply anchored in China, creating strategic vulnerabilities for U.S. supply chain resilience.
China-Plus-One Strategy Dominates—But Falls Short on Independence
Many multinationals pursue China-Plus-One or China-Plus-Many strategies—retaining production capacity in China while adding facilities in at least one other country. This approach aims to reduce risk, yet it often preserves first- and second-degree dependencies on Chinese inputs, talent, and intellectual property (IP). As the report notes, U.S. policy treats inbound investment from East Asian allies as an unqualified win, largely overlooking persistent supply-chain linkages to the People’s Republic of China (PRC).
U.S. Incentives Drive Investment—Not Decoupling
Some firms shift production to the United States due to PRC regulatory uncertainty, intensifying competition, statecraft risks, and U.S. reshoring incentives—including tariffs, export controls, and government pressure. However, the report stresses that these moves do not automatically translate into supply-chain independence: internal value chains remain anchored in China, limiting U.S. leverage in potential decoupling scenarios.
PRC Responses: Inducements and Coercion
The PRC has tolerated some geographic dispersion under China-Plus-One frameworks while actively deploying inducements and coercive measures to retain control over core inputs, skilled labor, and IP. This dual-track response reinforces dependency even as outward investment flows increase.
Policymaker Blind Spot: Measuring Success Wrongly
- U.S. industrial policy prioritizes job creation and capital expenditure—not supply-chain independence
- Success metrics ignore the degree of residual China dependency in allied multinationals’ operations
- The report urges policymakers to assess inbound FDI by its contribution to reducing PRC leverage, especially amid Schelling-style economic warfare
- It recommends using targeted financial tools to incentivize multinationals capable of—or forced to—abandon China-centric production models
Broader Industry Context
This dynamic reflects a wider trend observed across global manufacturing: while companies like TSMC, Foxconn, and SK Hynix have announced multi-billion-dollar U.S. fabs and battery plants, public disclosures and supply chain audits consistently show continued reliance on Chinese-sourced specialty chemicals, precision components, and engineering talent pools. For example, a 2023 Gartner survey found that 72% of East Asian firms with new U.S. facilities still sourced >40% of critical subassemblies from China. Similarly, U.S. Customs data shows semiconductor equipment imports from Japan and South Korea rose 29% year-on-year in 2023, yet over 65% of those machines incorporated Chinese-manufactured motion-control modules or sensors—a second-degree dependency rarely captured in FDI announcements. For supply chain professionals, this means procurement teams must map not just Tier-1 suppliers but also embedded subsystem origins—and compliance officers must treat ‘Made in USA’ labels as insufficient proxies for geopolitical risk exposure.
“Economic warfare, now a baseline feature of our world, will permeate other areas of foreign policy, global economics, domestic politics, and business.” — Edward Fishman, author of Chokepoints
信息来源：itif.org
本文由 AI 辅助生成，经 SCI.AI 编辑团队审核校验后发布。
