There was a parallel process of concentration of industrial activities across national borders. The huge firms that had emerged in the old industrial countries in the previous period, often under the tutelage of the state, were now able to dominate not only their national market but also carve out huge chunks of the world market. Their competitors could only survive if they looked to an international mobilisation of resources, that is, if they too became multinational, not only when it came to trade but also when it came to production. The most successful firms in many key industries became those with international development, production and marketing strategies, based upon buying up, merging with or establishing strategic alliances with firms in other countries.
In motors, the Japanese car firms established production facilities in the US, turning out more vehicles than the third biggest American firm, Chrysler; the nationalised French firm Renault began a series of acquisitions in the US, beginning with the small fourth US car firm American Motors; Volvo took over General Motors' heavy truck production in the US; Ford and Volkswagen merged their car production in Brazil; Nissan built an assembly plant in North East England to produce hundreds of thousands of cars a year, while Honda bought a 20 percent stake in Rover. In tyres, the French firm Michelin made itself the world's biggest producer by taking over Uniroyal-Goodrich in the US in 1 988. The pattern continued into the 1990s and the early 2000s. Mercedes Benz took over Chrysler (before selling it again in 2007); Renault formed an "alliance" with Nissan (buying 44.5 percent of it, while Nissan bought 15 percent of Renault) with a joint chief executive; General Motors bought Saab, took 20 percent stakes in Suzuki, Subaru and Fiat, and acquired 42 percent of Daewoo; the Indian group Tata took over the Anglo-Dutch steel firm Corns (formed by a previous takeover of the privatised British Steel); half of China's soaring exports were produced by corporations at least partly owned by Western multinationals; Chinese firm AVIC 1 was supplying the rudder for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner and making bids for six auctioned off Airbus plants in Europe; Russia's Aeroflot put in a bid for Alitalia. These are just a random sample of the wave of international takeovers and collaboration agreements that were reported by the Financial Times every day.
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The New Age of Global Instability