"Korea Too Slow on Investment; China Seizes Southeast Asia by Moving Entire Ecosystems"

Just over two decades ago, Thailand's eastern coast was where squid-fishing boats came and went. Today, this area, known as the Eastern Economic Corridor (EEC), has been dominated by Chinese companies including BYD, Midea (home appliances), Gotion (batteries), and GAC Aion (electric vehicles), which have rushed in to seize the local manufacturing ecosystem.

Yasuo Tsutsui, CEO of Amata, which operates industrial estates in Thailand and has attracted 1,500 foreign companies, explained that "China's manufacturing is already highly automated," adding that "this production method is now spreading to Thailand." Tsutsui has watched the transformation of Thai manufacturing firsthand while running the industrial estate business for more than 30 years.

The change he perceives is also evident in the composition of tenant companies. Among the 482 manufacturing firms in Rayong Amata City, which Amata operates, the share of Chinese and Hong Kong companies stands at 45.7%, ahead of Japanese firms (24.7%). "Over the past five years, 70 to 80% of our customers have shifted to Chinese companies," Tsutsui said. "They are pushing out Japan, which has held the top spot for the past 30 years."

Based on filings with the Thailand Board of Investment (BOI), the expansion of Chinese company investment is also clear. The number of investment applications jumped more than 9-fold from 108 in 2021 to 982 last year, and the amount of investment applications reached approximately 25 trillion won last year.

"These days, Thai prices feel even more expensive than Japan's," Tsutsui said. "The era of coming here in pursuit of cheap labor is already over." Chinese companies, too, come to Thailand to raise productivity rather than for cheap labor, he explained.

This is also where Japan and China diverge in their approaches to entering Thailand. Japan built Thailand into "the Detroit of Asia" as Toyota, Honda, and others established finished-vehicle and parts plants, using the right-hand-drive vehicle market that comes with left-side driving as a stepping stone. China added automation equipment, industrial software, communication networks, and logistics systems on top of that. If Japan built production bases, China brings along the entire ecosystem that runs those production bases. This is why Tsutsui calls it the "Chinese New Wave."

What he paid particular attention to is localization. Rather than just building a plant and leaving, they directly train the people who will work at those plants. At an elementary school dedicated to the Amata industrial estate, Chinese-language classes were opened at the request of Chinese companies, and the electric-vehicle education center at Rajamangala University of Technology Isan (RMUTI) was elevated into a hands-on training program covering batteries, drivetrains, and maintenance after capital from a Chinese education company was invested.

The difference in the speed of investment decisions is also striking. "When we propose a site to Chinese, American, European, and Japanese companies, nearly 95% of Chinese companies accept," Tsutsui said. Amata has also set up a separate channel, through a joint venture established with a Chinese real estate company, to handle everything from investment consultations to contracts in Chinese.

The way Chinese companies incorporate technology into local production is also evident at the Chonburi smart factory. Midea's manufacturing know-how has been combined with the network technology of China's Huawei and China Unicom, and the local infrastructure of Thai telecom carrier AIS. The EEC is also working with China's Alibaba on digitizing customs procedures, and the smart logistics network of Alibaba's logistics subsidiary Cainiao has become its foundation.

Tsutsui sees this speed of execution as leading to a gap with Korean companies. "I often hear that even when Korean companies want to apply smart factories locally in Thailand, it takes time to consult with their headquarters in Korea," he said. "Rather than exporting technologies such as smart factories, 5G, and industrial software separately, they need to consider bringing them to the local market bundled into a single platform that can raise productivity."