> Throughout the 1950s, Coca-Cola executives stressed that its bottlers were “local, independent” businesses; “everywhere you find Coke, you find it is a local enterprise,” Coca-Cola’s president H. B. Nicholson claimed in 1953.46

This strikes me a little like Apple's outsourcing strategy.

To gain access to the Chinese market they have to manufacture and run services locally there. There's no way the CCP would allow them anywhere near their current market share if their products were imported.

Similarly Apple's market share in India has been historically low. The Indian government was pretty hostile to Apple imports too until Apple started partnering with local contract manufacturers.

It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the long term as automation improves. Could there be a future where multi-nationals set up standardised, mostly automated assembly plants in each market just to get preferential treatment from each government? Then just shut up shop and move if they ever turn hostile.

It's got to be some MBA's wet dream at least.