(Roughly) Daily

And that change is coming for China… Even as trade tension tighten between China and the U.S., foreign investment in China drops, and talk of decoupling grows (see, e.g., here and here), one sector of American business is doubling down on the Chinese market…

There’s been no shortage of tough news for China’s economy as some of the world’s biggest brands consider or take action to shift manufacturing to friendlier shores at a time of unease about security controls, protectionism and wobbly relations between Beijing and Washington.

Count Adidas, Apple and Samsung among those looking elsewhere.

But as a tumultuous 2023 for the Chinese economy comes to a close, there has been at least one bright spot for Beijing when it comes to foreign investment: American fast-food chains have decided a market of 1.4 billion people is simply too delicious to pass up.

KFC China’s parent company opened its 10,000th restaurant in China this month and aims to have stores within reach of half of China’s population by 2026. McDonald’s is planning to open 3,500 new stores in China over the next four years. And Starbucks invested $220 million in a manufacturing and distribution facility in eastern China, its biggest project outside the U.S.

This is surely not what Chinese President Xi Jinping had in mind as he made the case to American CEOs about the upside of China’s “super-large market” last month while he was in San Francisco for a summit of world leaders. The investments in fast food and other consumer goods, while Washington is curbing exports of computer chips and other advanced technology, don’t fit into China’s own blueprint for modernizing its economy…

Unlike manufacturing plants, fast-food franchises are relatively easy to set up and break down and don’t have to worry about IP security/theft. So, even as trade policy hardens and manufacturing/tech companies lean away, “American fast-food companies find China’s 1.4 billion population too delicious to resist,” from @BusinessInsider.

* Robert Kenner

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As we supersize that, we might spare a thought for Fred Turner; he died on this date in 2013. One of the first employees hired by McDonald’s entrepreneur Ray Kroc, Turner rose quickly through the ranks, and succeeded Kroc as CEO in 1977.

Turner founded Hamburger University in 1961 and was a co-founder of Ronald McDonald House Charities.