Thailand and Malaysia form a middle tier in everything from electronics to automotive to, of course, semiconductors. They do very little assembly and instead focus on the heavy-lift stuff both literally and figuratively. If the Japanese, Koreans, and Taiwanese wire the brains, and the Chinese build the body, the Thais and Malaysians put together the guts, such as wiring, midtier processors, and semiconductors for things like cars and cranes and climate control systems. The Philippines provides the work that is too low-end for even China.
