These countries could lure manufacturing away from China

A LOT OF new portmanteaus have appeared in the pages of The Economist in recent years, many of them referring to phenomena in business and economics. Readers (and correspondents) have acquainted themselves with Bidenomics, permacrisis and DeFi. This week we came up with a new one: Altasia.

Short for the alternative Asian supply chain, Altasia is a result of the widening geopolitical rift between America and China. This is forcing global manufacturers to look elsewhere in Asia for new production sites. No single country in the region comes close to matching China’s importance as an export hub. But a crescent of 14 countries are together beginning to provide competition (see map).