One Million Chinese in Mexico

Seth Roberts

Contradicting the notion that you can find anything on the Internet, I cannot find any info about what I was told in a Beijing Starbucks: A few years, a city was started in Mexico where a million Chinese workers will manufacture stuff. Because of NAFTA, the stuff they make will have tariff-free access to the American market. And shipping from Mexico will be cheaper than shipping from China. The Chinese workers will come over for a limited time, such as one year.

8 thoughts on “One Million Chinese in Mexico”

  2. Well, Seth, welcome to the world of the “rumor” as we call it out here, one of the sometimes more fun aspects of culture. Reminds me of the one I was told in South America where a Taiwanese factory was supposedly bottling up their clean air and shipping it to Asia. Given people’s health anxieties, maybe they were thinking about it but there is no factory there. Told with anxiety and a straight face. Do you really think Mexico has a labor shortage? When you are in another country, rumors seem to be more real than they might in another context. Do Chinese people fear “fan death”?

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  3. Okay, here is something referring to the benefits of NAFTA for China:

    https://www.thefreelibrary.com/CHINESE+AUTOMOBILE+COMPANY+ANNOUNCES+PLANS+TO+COMPETE+IN+MEXICO%27S…-a0167668617

    “Zhongxing’s medium-range plans include constructing a plant in Tijuana through its Chamco subsidiary, which would allow the Chinese company to enjoy tariff benefits available through the North American Free Trade Agreement North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), accord establishing a free-trade zone in North America”

    It doesn’t say however if the Chinese people will be brought for that, which is highly unlikely. However, Tijuana is where the biggest Mexican Chinatown is located, with over 100,000 people of Chinese descent in the area.

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  5. John, you ask, “Do you really think that Mexico has a labor shortage?” China has been far more successful than Mexico at turning low-cost labor into a trade surplus. This is why it makes sense to try to reproduce as much of the winning formula as possible.

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  6. Dear all,
    It seems that some clarification to the discussion I had with Seth at Starbucks is needed. I mentioned that a long standing idea for a project was to move a million Chinese to an industrial park in Sweden. The concept is “made in China,” but actually Sweden… (the European Union). The amount “one million” was meant only to illustrate a large number.

    My comment to Seth at Starbucks was that I had pretty much laid the idea on ice since it had already been realized by entrepreneurs in Mexico with a little less regard to the business ethics involved. (Please see the attached link for more information https://www.cimacnoticias.com/site/06110610-Mujeres-chinas-trab.15464.0.html )

    There are a host of reasons why Chinese guest workers in mexico makes sense from a business perspective. First, a recent survey conducted by Judith Bannister in china on behalf of the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show that Chinese labor cost approximately one fifth of Mexican labor. (Please see the attached link for more information https://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_50/b3912051_mz011.htm) . Second, some sources have mentioned that the Mexican maquiladoras have suffered as it is due to the low labor wages in competing Chinese industrial parks. Third, other sources yet point out a problem that has limited the growth potential of maquiladoras, this is the fact that Mexicans apparently have been unwilling to relocate. This has created a labor shortage in the areas surrounding maquiladoras. Given this picture, perhaps it now makes more sense why someone instead would try their hand at importing Chinese labor to Mexico rather than moving business to china.

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  7. I was looking up the same thing! I was told, during a recent trip to Zac. Mexico, that hundreds of Chinese workers (apparently to build cars?), had up until recently occupied a small town. Rumor has it that they had been there for a few years. I didn’t ask for details.. as I thought I could just look it up… guess not.

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