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Comment by gumballindie | Hacker News Reader

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Corpo can’t sacrifice short term gain to protect itself from some nebulous future conflict, basically that would eat the profit margin and result in the sacking of the senior leadership.

Furthermore, Apple is doing this to access the Indian market. When the Chinese middle class grew they wanted iDevices, if Apple is banking on this repeating in India, it needs to have leverage.

Many US IT critical infrastructure is already developed there.

I do not consider them under the U.S. sphere of influence so I find all of this to be very concerning.

The funny thing is, India always wanted to be an equal partner/ally of the US, since its independence, but was continuously rebuffed. Every move of India was an effort to get close with the West. India owes a bit to FDR and Truman for applying pressure on the UK to decolonize, and the American public for being staunch supporters of Indian independence. The Green Revolution in India, crucial for creating Indian food security, was spearheaded by a US govt programme and Norman Borlaugh. The IITs were created through largely Western funding and collaboration (with the exception of IIT Bombay, which was created with Soviet funding). India (under Nehru) helped convince most of the West Indies and Africa to join the UK Commonwealth, in spite of their own torrid histories of being colonized.

But then USA decides to do stuff like supporting a belligerent China (which had the infamy of invading every one of its neighbors), supporting Pakistan openly (which was an easier puppet because of the military rule, unlike India), assassinating people in the Indian nuclear programme (allegedly), silently supporting the Bangladeshi genocide. And in spite of all this, India didn't choose to go to the Soviet sphere of influence, but tried to create one based on mutual partnership, a sphere that remains the largest today (the Non-Aligned Movement).

All in all, the USA and India share a lot of common goals and objectives, but the US must realize that India wants to be a strongly independent partner, like say France, and not a puppet partner like the UK or Germany.

> India wants to be a strongly independent partner, like say France, and not a puppet partner like the UK or Germany.

Allies that are reliable and dependable are not “puppet partners”. Having a different opinion just for the sakes of it doesnt make one “strongly independent”. It only shows frustration from being weak. Equal partners stick together and work on common goals when times are rough. Outside such times Germany, France and UK have all shown different opinions but never to the point of treason (Germany almost did it but quickly got back in line). India on the other hand burned a lot of bridges - particularity in the minds of those like me who until then considered India a close ally. A bit disappointing.

Perhaps. Or perhaps the US realizes that India's goals align closely enough with our own that we do not need to court them and can use that energy to court other countries in the region in order to build up more of a power base.

Not saying that I would agree that this is a good strategy.

Is that for export to the US or for the local Indian market? My guess is it’s for the latter.

India, I think, has a “make in India” policy in place.

Interesting - i had no clue about the “make in india” policy. Curious how india would react if we (eu, uk and usa) had a similar policy.

> if we (eu, uk and usa) had a similar policy.

After seeing brexit, tarrifs, trade wars etc all over the news in the past few years, I find it hard to believe that people in EU, UK, USA think they don't have protectionist policies.

Honest question, almost everywhere in countries like India you see tons of US, UK, EU brands established and benefiting from exports and the huge domestic market. When companies from EU, US, UK outsource manufacturing/servics they benefit from lower costs obviously, why is it that the people seem to have sense that they are doing a favor and not a business deal as implied by the OPs post?

The US does have.that for a lot of things. One (small) reason passenger trains and buses are behind here is they must be made in the US. (There are other factors, and some EU companies have set up us manufacturing so things are improving)

Way too many countries have a make in (country name) policy. The policy is mostly an encouragement to set up local manufacturing with capital, knowledge or technology support, rather than a full-on push to only use goods produced locally. In India's case, from what I've seen, it's mostly a push back against Chinese imports for low value goods like plastic products, metalware, etc.

AGY produces all of Apple's glass. It's in SC and I have done much work there. So I can attest that it is different kinds of manufacturing outsourced because US-workers do a lot of great quality products.

Isn’t it Corning’s, owned by Samsung, who makes Apple’s glass?

>another potential future foe

Unlikely. They have a vastly different culture and governmental culture to the Chinese, and they're not quite as upset about the colonial era.

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