global value chain... [I]n many cases, unless the crisis really persists for 3, 4, 5 years... as soon as things become okay people will just say "Well, let's forget about it because reorganizing the value chain requires investment, hard work... Let's just go back to the old ways." So it's not certain... that... reorganization will happen, and even if it...[does], it will happen only in limited areas... [E]ven if the US wants to bring all the lost manufacturing production in... key sectors back home, it cannot do it. ...[T]hey don't have the supply network. They don't have the correct infrastructure. They don't have the necessary supply of technicians. ...[E]ven if it wanted, Apple cannot bring factories in China to California to make the mobile phones." - Meaning and context.">

[F]inally, linking that into the reorganization of the global value chain... [I]n many cases, unless the crisis really persists for 3, 4, 5 years... as soon as things become okay people will just say "Well, let's forget about it because reorganizing the value chain requires investment, hard work... Let's just go back to the old ways." So it's not certain... that... reorganization will happen, and even if it...[does], it will happen only in limited areas... [E]ven if the US wants to bring all the lost manufacturing production in... key sectors back home, it cannot do it. ...[T]hey don't have the supply network. They don't have the correct infrastructure. They don't have the necessary supply of technicians. ...[E]ven if it wanted, Apple cannot bring factories in China to California to make the mobile phones.

— Ha-Joon Chang

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "[F]inally, linking that into the reorganization of the global value chain... [I]n many cases, unless the crisis really persists for 3, 4, 5 years... as soon as things become okay people will just say "Well, let's forget about it because reorganizing the value chain requires investment, hard work... Let's just go back to the old ways." So it's not certain... that... reorganization will happen, and even if it...[does], it will happen only in limited areas... [E]ven if the US wants to bring all the lost manufacturing production in... key sectors back home, it cannot do it. ...[T]hey don't have the supply network. They don't have the correct infrastructure. They don't have the necessary supply of technicians. ...[E]ven if it wanted, Apple cannot bring factories in China to California to make the mobile phones." in the context of "" to mean that wisdom is timeless.

Source: The 'What it means' explanation text was generated by Google Gemini Flash (accessed January 18, 2026). https://gemini.google.com/app
Ha-Joon Chang

About Ha-Joon Chang

Ha-Joon Chang (Hangul: 장하준; hanja: 張夏准; born 7 October 1963) is a South Korean institutional economist specialising in development economics. Currently a reader in the Political Economy of Development at the University of Cambridge, Chang is the author of several widely discussed policy books, most notably Kicking Away the Ladder: Development Strategy in Historical Perspective (2002). In 2013 Prospect magazine ranked Chang as one of the top 20 World Thinkers.