Much of Thailand is under water. In March, Japan’s coast was battered by the most devastating tsunami in 1,000 years. These are, above all, human tragedies. At least 366 people have already died in Thailand. In Japan, some 20,000 people are dead or missing. But as well as the fragility of human life, the disasters have revealed something rather more prosaic: the vulnerability and astonishing complexity of the global supply chain.
This week, Mazda, Toyota and Toshiba became the latest in a long list of international companies, mostly Japanese, to extend production shutdowns at flooded Thai factories. Honda’s Thai assembly plant, where it churns out nearly 250,000 cars a year, or 5 per cent of its global output, has been shut since October 4. Disruption goes well beyond simple assembly. Asia’s extraordinarily complex supply chain means materials cross multiple borders on their way to the store.
There’s a revealing story in Gordon Mathews’ Ghetto at the Center of the World, a book about Chunking Mansions, the doss-house-cum-trading hub in Hong Kong. In one example of low-end globalisation, Australian opals are shipped, via Chunking Mansions, to southern China where they are polished, sent back to Australia and sold as souvenirs to Chinese tourists.