Apple’s recent reported difficulties establishing a Supply Chain in India show just how hard it is for companies to reduce their dependence on China at a time when the COVID-19 contagion and the U.S.-China trade war have made supplier diversification an important strategic question.

The cost to shed that labor was minimal as well, so if you were an Apple supplier and needed to do a ramp-up to support a new product launch, it was possible to hire 100,000, or 250,000 workers and get them to work 60+ hours a week on multiple shifts.

As more and more of the supplier base shifted from Japan, Taiwan, Korea, the U.S. and elsewhere to local sites, the factories enjoyed more efficient delivery of raw materials and components, several times a day if necessary.

In the Pearl River Delta today, four ports (Yantian, Shekou/Chiwan, Nansha, and Hong Kong) handle tens of thousands of containers a day using a modern and efficient infrastructure of roads, bridges, and tunnels that serve a vast network of factories in the hinterland.

I visited a large pharmaceutical manufacturer south of Hyderabad a few years ago, and the plant manager bemoaned the difficulty of getting trucks over the roads to a port (he usually used Chennai).

As important as the physical infrastructure is the “soft infrastructure.” When goods cross international borders, countries often require inspections, collect tariffs, or impose various specific rules and regulations.