India

"The new frontier is Asia. In Asian countries and regions, including Taiwan, the Chinese region including Hong Kong, Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, and Vietnam, a tremendous amount of capital began to pour in from all over the world around the start of the 21st century. As a result, new industries emerged, regions prospered, and cities developed. Cities attracted people, economic activity became lively, and that in turn attracted more new investments. For people and companies who have ideas and motivation and are not afraid of hard work, Asia today is the same as California in the 19th century. While we Japanese were idly passing the time as if taking a nap during the lost two decades, the neighboring countries were undergoing remarkable transformations. This can be aptly called a "paradigm shift" in the economy. The Industrial Revolution allowed Britain to rule the center of the world. After World War II, the supremacy shifted to America. After Japan's bubble economy, the focus is shifting towards China and India, and other Asian countries, in the 21st century. Historically, China and India have not been at the center of the world only for a very short period. These cradles of civilization have had a massive influence on the world in terms of ideology, religion, academics, culture, and political systems. Of course, Japan is one of the countries that has been strongly influenced by them. If we unravel world history, the Western systems did not become global standards until after the Industrial Revolution."

"But Cook’s email to the board was a model of transparency relative to what he and Maestri would tell analysts on the earnings call just a few hours later. They informed Wall Street that Apple was expecting $89 billion to $93 billion of revenue in the holiday quarter, underwhelming investors. But they didn’t say a word about the muted sales of the XR, or the difficulties of forecasting, or that Cupertino now expected China revenues to shrink. Instead, they soothed investors with cheery sentiment. The obfuscation was brazen. Asked specifically about the XR, Cook replied that it’d been on sale for just five days so “we have very, very little data there.” Asked about “deceleration” in emerging markets including China, Cook said it was a “great question” and mentioned “we’re seeing pressure in… markets like Turkey, India, Brazil, Russia.” Then he switched to China, subtly moving from present tense—the nature of the question—and looked back a quarter: “In relation to China specifically, I would not put China in that category. Our business in China was very strong last quarter. We grew 16 percent, which we’re very happy with. iPhone in particular was very strong, very strong double-digit growth there.”"

"“You have to add in that time cycle—from that part coming from China and into India,” this person says, pointing out that the lower labor costs of India get offset by the added logistics of sending freight from China. Historically, this engineer points out that when Japan, then Taiwan, and then China made their mark in global electronics manufacturing, they all started by supplying components, creating a foundation of technical expertise. Only afterward would a supplier of, say, motherboards, begin to vertically integrate and expand into taking on final assembly, test, and pack out; by contrast, Apple in India has been doing FATP for seven years and is only now trying to build up the competency of suppliers making parts. “My sense of it is, [Apple is] doing it ass-backwards,” this person adds."

"Today, Apple works with more than 1,500 suppliers in fifty countries. But all roads lead through China: 90 percent of all production occurs in the country, and its much-vaunted assembly operations in Vietnam and India are no less dependent on the China-centric supply chain."

"Moreover, wages in China have soared, but they’ve soared for a reason—reflecting the skill sets of experienced workers, the competitive edge of its industrial clusters, and world-leading investments in automation. Or to put it simply, the Chinese worker comes *with* a robot. According to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation, robot adoption in China is in “a class of its own, with its national and provincial governments committing massive amounts of money to subsidize adoption of robots and other automation technology.” As of 2022, the number of industrial robots deployed in China was above 290,000, more than half the global total; in India, it was 5,400, according to the International Federation of Robotics."

"Meanwhile, while the struggle for the import licenses continued, Kurien became a well-known man in India. Through his ideas, he had improved the standard of living of the cooperative. And rumors of his achievements also reached the government. After a visit to Anand in 1965, Prime Minister Shastri was impressed by what he had seen. With great speed, he pushed through the government that Kurien should also have the chance to develop his ideas on a national level. The government appointed him head of the newly formed National Dairy Development Board (NDDB). If Kurien had wanted to pursue a career, he would undoubtedly have felt flattered by the appointment. But he was mostly happy and satisfied to have the chance to spread his message across all of India. It was a gigantic challenge: his mission was to reform the entire country’s milk production. ⁠"

"In the work with this book, we have not found any signs that Tetra Pak previously used bribes. Rather, the group, as in the case with the launch in India and the Gandhi family, has actively chosen the path of not paying bribes. An exception was, however, during Ruben’s frustration over Lund Dairy’s resistance to adopting the first half-liter tetra pack for milk in 1954. In his desperation, Ruben suggested that they should bribe the managing director Hilding Borstam to adopt the system, but both Hans Rausing and Erik Torudd dissuaded Ruben and made him reconsider."

"An example of the latter occurred in 1978 when the Indians suddenly demanded the top modern Tetra Brik machines for aseptic instead of the ordered tetrahedron machines. Naturally, they requested the Brik machines at the same price as the tetrahedron machines. Since Kurien had been promised the tetrahedron machines at the 1970 price, this was obviously an impossibility."

"Kurien’s idea was as simple as it was brilliant. Over a five-year period, the NDDB would receive gifts, which would gradually decrease in volume. The dairies would convert them into milk, but at the same time be forced to buy milk from local producers. Their milk and the “gift milk” would be mixed and then sold on the local market, primarily in New Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, and Madras. As the gifts decreased, they would increasingly be replaced by local milk while the dairies would modernize their distribution system. Local producers would gradually receive increasing income, which could be reinvested in the operation. After five years, their production would maintain such a standard and volume that they would no longer need foreign aid. India would thus become self-sufficient in milk. On October 31, 1968, Verghese Kurien had developed his plan so far that he found the time ripe to submit it to the Indian government for further conveyance to the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization, FAO."

"⁠Verghese Kurien’s idea was for Western countries to donate their surplus as gifts to India. Once in India, the products would be converted into drinkable milk in the local dairies. But Kurien did not intend to repeat the same mistakes that Western aid agencies had committed in a number of countries. In various projects, they had distributed free food to the population. The only lasting effect of this had been that it completely wiped out the local producers, who could no longer sell their goods at prices that covered their costs. Therefore, the milk would not be distributed as aid to the population, but people would be allowed to buy the milk at the same price as the locally produced milk. Thus, the outdated Indian dairies would gain capital for the necessary renewals that awaited. At the same time, this approach would avoid destroying the local market by suddenly distributing milk for free.⁠"

"First, he invented in the sixties a new mode of economic development by doing exactly the opposite of all other member countries, like Singapore, of the non-aligned movement. These countries were taking protective measures against multinationals, considered as “supporters of Western imperialism.” For example, India not only shut the door to Coca-Cola but also to IBM, which delayed the development of the Indian software industry."

"the West’s current path toward addressing climate change problems has a serious flaw. Western nations share an ecosystem with China, India, and Russia, where there’s no evidence of a real commitment to reducing fossil fuel use. Play that scenario out, and American and European taxpayers will have spent tens of trillions of dollars for radical emissions reductions, while China, India, and Russia will be polluting more. All that…"

"Much of his historical and biographical reading is directed by his travel. A favourite Gibbs aphorism is, ‘The more interests you have, the more interesting life is.’ ‘To see Yugoslavia, Iran, North Korea, Afghanistan after the Taliban fell over, the copper mines north of Santiago, or to travel with the kids through areas of north India where they were fighting,’ he argues, ‘is a great source of stimulus. The consequence is that whenever you see anything about those places in the news, you’re interested.’ A biography of the great Victorian explorer Henry Morton Stanley is much more interesting when you’re just about to visit the Congo."