In Kunshan, China’s Foxconn nerve centre, old tech tries to learn new tricks
City at heart of Yangtze River Delta region sees new tech dreams emerge as old ones based on mass production of electronics fade
After a 900km (559-mile) journey at the end of last month’s Chinese New Year holiday, 24-year-old Ma Xuan stood outside the gates of a Foxconn factory in Kunshan in the quiet of early morning, his luggage at his feet.
But the spark that once drew millions of migrant workers to Kunshan – a city in China’s eastern province of Jiangsu long dubbed “Little Taipei” – is flickering, as old technology dreams fade and new ones emerge.
“A decade ago, every young person coming to Kunshan hoped to get into Foxconn, but now it is just not the ‘golden bowl’ it used to be,” Ma said.
Ma, who hails from central China’s Henan province, is a small part in a massive machine that is being rebuilt.
For three decades, Kunshan, a county-level city that is part of Suzhou, was home to around 100,000 Taiwanese residents and a supply chain that produced one-third of the world’s laptops – making it the ultimate symbol of cross-strait economic integration.