从“中国制造”到“美国制造”The Lure of the ‘Made in America’ Sales PitchPETER S. GOODMAN2023年3月29日 FutureStitch生产线，这家生产设计师袜子的公司会雇佣曾经入狱的女性。 JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESAs a teenager in Southern California, Taylor Shupe confidently declared plans to one day lead a global company, an ambition that would surely bring him to China. By the time he was 15, he was studying Mandarin. 还是一个南加州少年的时候，泰勒·舒佩就曾自信地宣告，有朝一日他会执掌一家跨国公司，这样的抱负自然会驱使他前往中国。15岁的时候，他已经开始学中文了。 During a college semester in China, Mr. Shupe lined up a factory that could make products for his latest venture: selling protective cases for laptop computers. 读大学期间，舒佩在中国找到一家工厂为他最近的创业项目生产产品，也就是销售笔记本电脑的保护套。 Later, he oversaw production for a start-up called Stance, which relied on factories in China to make premium socks adorned with bold colors, surfer patterns and price tags reaching $25 a pair. His current business, a sock company called FutureStitch, also makes most of its wares in China. 后来，他在一家叫Stance的创业公司负责生产，这家公司依赖中国的工厂生产色彩艳丽、有冲浪图案的精品袜子，每双售价可达25美元（约合人民币170元）。他目前经营的企业是一家叫FutureStitch的袜子公司，多数产品也是在中国生产。 But along the way, the world in which Mr. Shupe came of age yielded to something different. The era of globalization that shaped his early entrepreneurial forays was centered on China. The next phase, now unfolding, is dominated by hostilities between Washington and Beijing. 然而一路走来，世界正变成和他少时截然不同的样子。塑造了他早年创业生涯的全球化时代是以中国为中心的。而眼下正在揭开的下一阶段将以华盛顿和北京的敌对为主导。 The animosity and suspicion was on full display Thursday as a congressional hearing probed the links between the Chinese government and the wildly popular social media platform, TikTok. 在周四的一场国会听证会上，这种敌意和疑虑得到了充分展示。听证会的目的是调查中国政府和广受欢迎的社交媒体平台TikTok之间的关联。 “To the American people watching today, hear this. TikTok is a weapon by the Chinese Communist Party,” declared the chair of the House Energy and Commerce committee, Cathy McMorris Rodgers, a Republican from Washington State. “此刻在收看的美国人，听好了。TikTok是中国共产党的武器，”众议院能源和贸易委员会主席、华盛顿州共和党人凯西·麦克莫里斯·罗杰斯宣称。 Mr. Shupe, 39, had dedicated most of his adult life to sending jobs across the Pacific. He is now intent on bringing them back by transferring production to a new factory up the coast from San Diego. 如今已39岁的舒佩成年以来的大部分时间都在把工作交给太平洋彼岸。他现在有意把生产转移回圣迭戈的一家新工厂。 The trend he has embraced, known as reshoring, is the result of a series of momentous alterations to the global economy over the past decade. Labor costs rose in China. President Donald J. Trump slapped tariffs on Chinese imports. And President Biden ratcheted up pressure designed to contain China’s economic might. In Washington, two political parties that agreed on almost nothing achieved consensus that China represented a threat to the American way of life. 他顺应了这种被称为“回流”的趋势，其诱因是过去十年全球经济发生的一系列重大变革。中国的劳动力成本上升了。特朗普总统向中国进口征收关税。拜登总统进一步增加压力，以求制约中国的经济实力。在华盛顿，几乎不存在任何共识的两党倒是一致认为中国对美国人民的生活方式构成了威胁。 By the time the pandemic arrived, multiplying the costs of transporting goods across the Pacific, Mr. Shupe was already feeling a sense of urgency to make products closer to home. 随着大流行的到来，太平洋两岸间的运输成本成倍增加，舒佩已经感受到在更近的地方制造产品的必要性。 “With goods coming from China, there’s always going to be the Pacific Ocean that you have to transcend,” he said. “从中国发货，无论如何都得跨越太平洋，”他说。 He opened his new factory, in Oceanside, Calif., in the summer. On a recent afternoon, only 20 people were working there, wielding machinery to apply decorative designs to blank socks imported from China. But Mr. Shupe plans to more than double his work force by the end of the year. 去年夏天，他在加州欧申赛德开了一家新工厂。近日一个下午，厂里只有20个人在工作，使用机器给中国进口的空白袜子加上装饰设计。不过舒佩计划在今年内将人力增加一倍以上。 “We’re headed to a state of hyper-localization,” he said as he zipped down the freeway toward the factory in his Tesla, at alarming speed. “The big disruptions that have occurred over the past three years have definitely exposed the sort of risk that we didn’t think existed. Which brands want to set up new supply chains in China now?” “我们正在走向一种超本地化，”他一边说着，一边驾驶他的特斯拉，在高速路上以令人胆颤的速度驶向他的工厂。“过去三年发生了天翻地覆的变化，无疑曝露了我们以前未曾意识到的风险。现在还有什么品牌会想在中国建立新的供应链呢？” Mr. Shupe had to factor in the pitfalls of continuing to rely on textiles from China amid horrific accounts of human rights abuses against Uyghurs, the ethnic minority in the Chinese province of Xinjiang — a major source of cotton. American sanctions prohibited any products linked to Xinjiang from entering the United States. 随着对中国新疆维吾尔少数民族的人权侵犯恶行的曝光，舒佩必须考虑到继续依赖中国产面料带来的隐患——新疆是重要的棉花产地。美国制裁措施禁止一切和新疆有关的产品进入美国。 FutureStitch的创始人泰勒·舒佩在公司位于美国的工厂和设计团队开会。 JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESMade in China has also become a branding liability. “中国制造”也成了一种品牌负担。 First and foremost an entrepreneur, Mr. Shupe and his fellow start-up founders divined that high-end socks were a retail frontier waiting to be exploited, a mass commodity that could be transformed into a platform for individual expression. But expression entailed values. 舒佩首先是一名企业家，他和其他初创公司创始人预见到，高端袜子是一个有待开发的零售前沿，是一种可以转变为个人表达平台的大众商品。但是表达包含了价值观。 He understood that the Americans whose feet he was wooing were increasingly prone to viewing China as unsavory, and even malevolent. 他明白，他正在争取的美国人越来越倾向于认为中国令人讨厌，甚至怀有恶意。 He understood how social media and celebrity endorsements could drive consumer impulses. Traditional advertising couldn’t rival the power of an Instagram post showing an N.B.A. legend donning Stance socks, or the Jay-Z song that celebrated the glories of the brand. (“This ain’t gray sweatsuits and white tube socks. This is black leather pants and a pair of Stance.”) 他了解社交媒体和名人代言如何刺激消费者的冲动。传统广告无法与Instagram上NBA传奇球星穿Stance袜子的帖子或Jay-Z歌颂该品牌有多么杰出的歌曲相比。（“不是灰色运动服和白色筒袜。是黑皮裤和一双Stance。”） China was a damaging detail in the story of Mr. Shupe’s product. Manufacturing socks in the United States was part of a new narrative, one which puts his customers on the right side of history, investing in American communities and responding to climate change by limiting carbon emissions from shipping containers streaming across the ocean. 在舒佩的产品故事中，中国是一个不光彩的细节。在美国生产袜子是新叙事的一部分，这种叙事让他的客户站在历史正确的一边，为美国社区投资，通过限制远洋集装箱的碳排放来应对气候变化。 “Consumers want to know where things are made more than ever,” Mr. Shupe said. “And how things are made.” “消费者比以往任何时候都更想知道产品是在哪里生产的，”舒佩说。“还有东西是怎么造出来的。” He had engineered an answer to that second question by partnering with local government agencies to hire formerly incarcerated women, most of them Black and Latina. They bore trauma from past experiences with substance abuse, domestic violence and prostitution. They confronted racial discrimination and unemployment rates reaching 35 percent. And there were the everyday struggles of single motherhood, rent to pay and groceries to buy in a society that tended to write them off. 对于第二个问题，他设计了一个回答：他与当地政府机构合作，雇佣曾经入狱的女性，其中大多数是黑人和拉丁裔。这些女性曾因滥用药物、家庭暴力和卖淫的经历而受到创伤。她们面临着种族歧视和高达35%的失业率。而且，在一个倾向于将她们排除在外的社会中，她们还面临着单亲母亲的日常困境，有房租要付，有食品杂货要买。 People like Tasha Almanza, a mother of four who had served time for selling drugs, were at the center of the brand’s narrative. 塔莎·阿尔曼扎是四个孩子的母亲，曾因贩毒入狱，她是这个品牌故事的中心人物。 “We are women working together,” Ms. Almanza said. “We’re here to empower each other. This has given me the opportunity to rebuild my life.” “我们是一起工作的女性，”阿尔曼扎说。“我们在这里是为了彼此赋权。这给了我重建生活的机会。” Industrial construction boom 工业建设热潮 Most of the attention to bringing manufacturing back has been centered on weightier concerns than socks. 人们对制造业回归的关注大多集中在比袜子更重要的问题上。 Mr. Trump encouraged the production of Covid vaccines, in part by reserving supplies of key ingredients and equipment needed by domestic pharmaceutical companies. Mr. Biden expanded on those efforts, accelerating the availability of vaccines. 特朗普鼓励生产新冠疫苗，部分是通过储备国内制药公司所需的关键成分和设备。拜登进一步扩展了这些努力，加快了疫苗的供应。 Mr. Biden maintained the Trump administration’s tariffs on Chinese imports, while opening a new front in the trade war: computer chips. Under the CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed in August, the president unleashed $52 billion worth of direct subsidies to encourage companies to produce computer chips at factories in the United States. 拜登维持了特朗普政府对中国进口商品征收的关税，同时在贸易战中开辟了一条新战线：计算机芯片。根据今年8月签署的《芯片与科学法案》，总统释放了价值520亿美元的直接补贴，鼓励企业在美国的工厂生产芯片。 FutureStitch位于加利福尼亚州欧申赛德的工厂于去年夏天开工。舒佩计划在年底前将员工人数增加一倍以上。 JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES“我们是一起工作的女性，”塔莎·阿尔曼扎说，她认为自己在FutureStitch的工作岗位不仅仅是一份工作。“我们在这里是为了彼此赋权。” JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESAdministration officials heralded the law as liberation from the constant vulnerability of relying on chip-makers in Taiwan, a self-governing island only 100 miles off the Chinese coast that is claimed by Beijing. 政府官员宣称，该法案将使美国摆脱对台湾芯片制造商的长期依赖。台湾是一个自治岛屿，距离中国海岸仅160公里，北京宣称对其拥有主权。 The government has also used tax credits to promote the domestic production of electric cars and batteries. 政府还利用税收抵免来促进国内电动汽车和电池的生产。 The result has been an industrial construction boom across the United States. 其结果是美国各地出现了工业建设热潮。 By the end of 2022, the chip industry had dedicated almost $200 billion to build and expand 40 factories in 16 states, generating 40,000 future jobs, according to the Semiconductor Industry Association. A similar sum of money has been promised for American plants making electric cars and batteries, according to the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group. 根据半导体行业协会的数据，到2022年底，芯片行业已投入近2000亿美元，在16个州建造和扩建40家工厂，未来将创造四万个就业机会。据倡导组织自然资源保护委员会称，政府已承诺向生产电动汽车和电池的美国工厂提供类似规模的资金。 “This is about creating something here.” “这是为了在这里创造一些东西。” Even as wages have risen in China in recent years, and even as shipping has proved volatile, the costs of making socks in California remains significantly higher than manufacturing in China, Mr. Shupe acknowledges. That basic reality is not likely to change any time soon and leaves the fate of his proposition uncertain. Still, he is betting that Americans will ultimately prove willing to pay more for products made at home. 舒佩承认，尽管近年来中国的工资水平有所提高，航运也不稳定，但在加州生产袜子的成本仍然远高于在中国生产。这一基本现实不太可能很快改变，也导致很难确定他的这步棋会有什么结果。不过，他认为美国人最终会愿意为国内制造的产品支付更高的价格。 Raised in Orange County, on a classic, sun-splashed chunk of the Pacific Coast, he surfed and skateboarded as a kid, gaining familiarity with the sartorial concerns of people who sought to look cool and feel comfortable at the same time. 他在奥兰治县长大，那里阳光明媚，是一处典型的太平洋海滨地带。他小时候玩冲浪、玩滑板，熟悉那些既想看起来很酷，又想感觉舒适的人对服装有什么要求。 From early childhood, he was constantly engaged in one entrepreneurial venture or another. 他从小就不断从事这样或那样的创业。 “Every Christmas, I’d ask for things that would allow me to generate money,” he recalled. One year, it was a lemon crusher allowing him to make lemonade. Other years, he got a cotton-candy machine, a snow-cone maker, a rock polisher — all harnessed to yield products he sold to the neighbors. “每年圣诞节，我都会要能让我赚钱的东西，”他回忆。有一年，他想要一个柠檬榨汁机来做柠檬水。还有几次，他得到了棉花糖机、冰淇淋机、石料抛光机——所有这些都用来生产产品，卖给邻居。 At 12, he was hawking boxes of chocolates and trinkets door to door. Then he worked as a delivery boy at a florist run by a man from Taiwan, using it as an opportunity to learn rudimentary Mandarin. 12岁时，他挨家挨户地兜售巧克力和小饰品。后来，他在一个台湾人开的花店当配送员，利用这个机会学习了基本的中文。 Mr. Shupe was raised a devout Mormon, though he is no longer an adherent. He was dispatched as a missionary to Taiwan, an experience he now views as a colonial enterprise, even as he appreciates what it gained him: complete fluency in Mandarin. 舒佩从小是虔诚的摩门教徒，不过现在已经不是了。他曾被派往台湾传教，如今他把这段经历视为殖民主义事业，尽管他喜欢这段经历给他带来的好处：能说一口流利的中文。 JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESJOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES“The objective was to convert,” Mr. Shupe said. “I became very competitive.” “目标是劝人皈依，”舒佩说。“我变得非常好胜。” Two years later, he returned to the United States and enrolled at Brigham Young University. By the time he landed in China for an exchange semester at Nanjing University, he was eager to line up a supplier of neoprene for his business making protective sleeves for laptops. 两年后，他回到美国，进入杨百翰大学学习。作为交换生来到中国的南京大学时，他急于为自己生产笔记本电脑保护套的业务找到一家氯丁橡胶供应商。 He found a factory in southern China. The business grew, and Circuit City became his largest customer. But when the chain of electronics stores disappeared into bankruptcy in 2009, Mr. Shupe liquidated his inventory and shut down the business. 他在中国南方找到了一家工厂。生意越做越大，Circuit City成了他最大的客户。但当这家电子产品连锁店在2009年破产时，舒佩清空了库存，关闭了自己的公司。 The same year, he joined with three other entrepreneurs to start Stance, a brand premised on the idea that socks were ripe for reinvention. They initially focused on skateboarders, using stretchy material that applied light compression to stop them from sliding down calves, while employing the designs of artists from Southern California. 同年，他与其他三位创业者一起创立了Stance品牌，其出发点是袜子这东西已经到了改头换面的时候。他们最初专注于为滑板玩家服务，使用有弹性的材料，可以施加轻微的压力，防止袜子从小腿滑下来，同时采用南加州艺术家的设计。 They worked with a factory outside Shanghai, to make their products. Mr. Shupe supervised production, initially flying every few weeks between California and China. But the lack of daily supervision caused trouble. Machinery mysteriously disappeared from the factory. Orders got screwed up amid long-distance communication problems. After six perpetually jet-lagged months, he moved to China, living near the factory for six years. 他们与上海以外的一家工厂合作生产自己的产品。舒佩负责监督生产，最初，他每隔几周就在加州和中国之间飞行。但缺乏日常监管引发了麻烦。机器从工厂里神秘地消失了。由于长途通信问题，订单被搞砸了。经历了六个月的时差反应后，他搬到中国，在工厂附近住了六年。 When he started FutureStitch in 2017, he held on to Stance’s operation in China. 2017年创办FutureStitch时，他保留了Stance在中国的业务。 From the beginning, he had intended to eventually establish a factory in the United States, but a series of developments accelerated the timetable. 从一开始他就打算最终在美国建厂，但一系列的事态发展加快了这一进程。 First came the trade war, and then the pandemic, adding cost and delay. A single Covid case in 2020 at his factory in China forced the entire work force to quarantine, shutting down the operation for three weeks. 先是贸易战，然后是大流行，成本和延误增加了。2020年，他在中国的工厂出现一个新冠病例，所有工人都被迫隔离，工厂停产了三周。 FutureStitch has contracts to make socks for Stance and other brands. Every month, it ships between 20 and 30 containers — each 40-feet long — to Southern California from China. But the costs of transportation multiplied. The time needed to get products to market increased to 10 weeks from three weeks. FutureStitch手里有为Stance和其他品牌生产袜子的合同。每个月，该公司从中国向南加州运送20到30个集装箱——每个集装箱长40英尺（约合12米）。但是运输成本成倍增长。将产品推向市场所需的时间从3周增加到10周。 This was especially troubling given Mr. Shupe’s fixation with customized goods, which require speed to take advantage of momentary trends. He was pursuing plans to release socks with photographic images of key highlights in sporting events — the game-winning shot in the N.B.A. Finals, the triumphant horse crossing the finish line at the Kentucky Derby. 舒佩对定制商品非常执着，这尤其棘手，要抓住转瞬即逝的趋势就要高速生产。他正在推行计划，推出印有体育赛事经典瞬间的袜子——NBA总决赛的制胜投篮，或是骏马在肯塔基赛马会上冲过终点线的胜利时刻。 “You look at the moment, the heat of the meme,” he said. “By the end of the month, it’s not even a tenth what it was.” “你要抓住那个瞬间，米姆最火的时候，”他说。“到月底，甚至连原来的十分之一都不到。” FutureStitch艺术和工艺项目的细节。 JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMES舒佩认为，美国人最终会愿意为国内制造的产品支付更高的价格。 JOHN FRANCIS PETERS FOR THE NEW YORK TIMESHere was the impetus to set up the new factory in Oceanside. 这就是在欧申赛德建立新工厂的动力。 Mr. Shupe is the father of three, but the presence of single, working mothers whose time is especially compressed has supplied him marketable insights into the everyday problems of footwear, such as the casual torture of putting shoes and socks on small children with other ideas. This was the genesis for his latest obsession, a cross between a shoe and a sock that has a strong sole, yet can be worn by itself and tossed in the washing machine. 舒佩是三个孩子的父亲，但他的适销对路的灵感来自许多时间特别紧迫的单身职业母亲们，她们在日常遇到穿鞋相关的问题，例如给小孩子穿上鞋袜，而孩子不愿意，这很折磨人。他最近痴迷的产品受此启发，这是一种鞋和袜子的结合体，鞋底结实，但可以单独穿着，又可以直接机洗。 On a recent morning, Mr. Shupe convened his design team to examine a prototype. The outsole will be made of Vibram, which is made in the United States from recycled materials. And the product could be fashioned through five stages of manufacturing, compared with the 80 or 90 involved in some footwear. 最近的一个早晨，舒佩召集了他的设计团队来检验产品原型。鞋的外底将使用Vibram制成，这种材料在美国由回收材料制成。与某些鞋类涉及的80或90个制造步骤相比，该产品只要五个步骤就可以完成。 “It has all the right formulas for ‘Made in the U.S.A.,’” Mr. Shupe said. “This is about creating something here in the United States with interesting design. We’d have to story tell about this.” “它拥有‘美国制造’的所有正确要素，”舒佩说。“这是在美国，用有趣的设计，创造一些东西。这是我们需要去讲的故事。” Peter S. Goodman是时报全球经济记者，常驻纽约。他曾是驻伦敦的欧洲经济记者，也曾在08年经济危机期间报道美国国家经济。他还曾任《华盛顿邮报》上海分社社长。欢迎在Twitter上关注他：@petersgoodman。 翻译：纽约时报中文网 点击查看本文英文版。 相关报道科技公司逐步将供应链转移出中国2022年9月2日 美国涉新疆强迫劳动禁令生效2022年6月23日 全球供应链崩溃是什么体验2022年4月7日 供应链大混乱下的美国港口危机2021年10月12日 最受欢迎金刻羽：美国真的能理解中国吗？ 阿里巴巴将分拆为六个业务集团，均可独立融资上市 深陷债务泥潭的中国地方政府为何仍大兴基建？ 台湾前总统马英九历史性访问中国大陆 FTX创始人被控向中国官员行贿4000万美元 TikTok上什么最火？为周受资说话 中国副总理何立峰：主管经济的习近平忠诚追随者 从“中国制造”到“美国制造” 为什么“中国金融末日”没有成为现实 谎言、争吵和欺诈：乌克兰战争中不光彩的美国志愿者 国际 中国 商业与经济 镜头 科技 科学 健康 教育 文化 风尚 旅游 房地产 观点与评论 免费下载 纽约时报中文网 iOS 和 Android App 点击下载iOS App点击下载Android App点击下载Android APK © 2023 The New York Times Company.