VC Talks: Shao-Yu Jheng (Harvard) | Why Reindustrialization Won't Work Without Global Supply Networks

As reshoring and industrial policy return to the center of U.S. economic strategy, supply chains are increasingly framed as matters of national security and sovereignty. But history tells a more complicated story. In this episode of VC Talks, Uly revisits Left for Dead, a 1997 study on the revival of U.S. electronics, to question whether bringing manufacturing back home was ever the true driver of America’s industrial recovery.

Joined by Shao-Yu Jheng, a postdoctoral researcher in Economics at Harvard University, the conversation reframes the 1980s–90s comeback as a story of network leadership rather than national production. The episode examines why the Japanese manufacturing model ran into structural limits, how Taiwan and overseas Chinese (OC) production networks enabled coordination at scale, and why control over global supply networks—rather than factory location alone—proved decisive. Looking ahead, the discussion challenges today’s reshoring debate by asking what industrial policy can realistically change, and where its influence fundamentally ends.

在美國近年大力推動再工業化與製造回流的政策背景下，供應鏈被重新視為國家競爭力的核心資產。然而，歷史是否真的支持「把工廠搬回國內」就能重建產業實力？本集《VC Talks》回到一篇 1997 年探討美國電子產業復甦的研究〈Left for Dead〉，試圖從產業史的角度，重新檢視當前對 reshoring 的普遍想像。

主持人 Uly 與哈佛大學經濟學博士後研究員鄭紹鈺深入對談，指出美國在 1980 至 1990 年代的產業反彈，並非來自製造回流，而是成功主導橫跨多國的生產網絡。節目聚焦日本製造模式的結構性限制，以及臺灣與海外華人（OC）產業網絡如何在關鍵時刻提供彈性、效率與協調能力，成為美國科技體系得以延續競爭優勢的隱形支柱。本集不只回顧歷史，也直指一個當代問題：在高度全球化的供應鏈體系中，真正的產業力量，究竟掌握在國家邊界，還是網絡控制之中？