When it was founded in 2000, Grace Semiconductor aimed to build a chipmaking empire centred on Beijing but also make the most of political connections with the US. And with the son of former Chinese premier Jiang Zemin as one of its co-founders, the company was no stranger to forging geopolitical connections both inside and outside the country.
It only took a couple of years for divorce proceedings to reveal a consultancy contract worth $2m over five years with Neil Bush, younger brother of the then US President, George W Bush. In the wake of the Chinese industrialisation and globalisation reforms introduced by Deng Xiaoping more than a decade earlier which resulted in manufacturing expanding rapidly, Grace saw it as a logical move. In the current climate, such a connection seems unthinkable. In the early 2000s, the warnings about manufacturing migration came mainly from unions in Europe and the US rather than governments, though companies that set up...