Vietnam’s Relationship With Big Tech Is at a Crossroads
It’s hard being your favorite supplier’s favorite supplier.
Being China's plus one is no longer attractive.
Photographer: Hoang Dinh Nam/AFP/Getty Images
Vietnam may be quickly outgrowing its role in the global tech industry as the attractive manufacturing sidepiece to China.
The Southeast Asian nation has wisely capitalized on this trend to steadily grow foreign investment inflows and manufacturing capacity for increasingly high-tech gadgets. But it’s hard being your favorite supplier’s favorite supplier. Years of playing the role as the tech sectors’ perpetual “plus one” to China has left infrastructure straining and the labor force struggling to keep up. Multiple leadership shakeups and a prolonged corruption crackdown have also sowed fresh uncertainty for foreign businesses.