Some here really have no clue or a horrendous bias against China manufactured products. For decades western companies small and large sourced products in China, packaged them at home and sold them with a 40% markup. Our manufacturing went to shits while our economies grew like wildfire. I was in Shanghai 20 years ago looking to launch a furniture business and I could see why US manufacturing in that sector nearly went bankrupt. Chinese manufacturers started with a blank slate, built huge plants, bought the best equipment from Germany, followed the most stringent European ISO requirements and churned out furniture faster that McD could flip burgers. What the Chinese knew nothing about were western consumer tastes, so they welcomed anyone with design plans in hand and sufficient volumes to test the markets. The more successful factories established the relationship with the western buyer, set price and quality requirements and from there began the real competition. Their margins determined the room they had to subcontract and the finished product could be made by a 3rd or 4th generation subcontractor. Unsophisticated western buyers often paid far too much for their products and set too few quality controls which sometimes led to poor quality products that consumers happily purchased at less than 50% of the price of goods made at home. As simple as that. Those who rant about communism or excess government intervention at home should go spend a year in China to see what free for all economic activity looks like. It's dog eat dog, what can you get away with and get ready to bail if shit hits the fan mentality. And when the fk up makes the national news and the culprits get caught, they get the death penalty. Mind you, not because of the failed scam but because of the bad image left of the nation and its government. Since those years things evolved rapidly. Western giants set up local offices and began to get involved locally to oversee every aspects of the manufacturing processes. Chinese manufacturers learned and adjusted to modern standards. Quality and prices went up and today anything and everything can be, and is, made in China. Everyone finally came to understand each other's strengths and weaknesses and the efforts needed to meet expectations. So why not at home? Simple. $35/hr union labor simply can't compete with $10/hr non union workers. 35 hour work weeks can't compete with 9 hours, 6 days a week. No judgement, just reality. Chinese work ethics is unique, it's is why they run the economies of most of Southeast Asia. It is why of all of its factories Tesla China is always well ahead in production, all else being equal. It is why most global manufacturers make their cars, motorcycles and airplanes or parts of in China.
a command economy with economic protections and no issues with stealing IP (Which western companies were happy to give up for access to a market of 1bn people)
You seem to suggest that command economies and protections are not fair, but theirs managed to pull half a billion people out of absolute poverty and another half billion into working and middle classes. Not bad! Whatever the model, the goal isn't a game on how to create the richest individuals in the world, it's about creating a system to elevate your population's standards of living. And let's stop pretending western nations aren't also command economies with protections. We simply call them differently, like national interest sectors, government budgeted incentives or import duty penalties. China is a dictatorship in addition to being a planned economy. Europe is a liberal union of nations founded on planned unified economies. The US stands out as a private capital triggered organic economy in which nearly 50% of the population wants to elect a guy who wants to turn it into a dictatorship. Western nations have become lazy and I say that as a positive outcome of wealth distribution. As we've climbed the ladder (see Maslow) we've pushed for less work and more benefits, at least in Europe. It's a good thing! Those who complain about China want them to compete according to our standards, but not only are they not quite there economically (1.4 billion people is a lot of internal competition), but sociologically they are decades away from wanting these benefits if it means limiting their opportunity for higher income. 70 years of communism has not tamed the Chinese entrepreneurial spirit.
A very good explanation of the cycle of economies that go up & down. I mean these are 300+ year cycles & the US is at the tail end of it. It's hard to believe anyone would argue a country that has doubled its debt in 5 years isn't on its death bed. Boeing is a crappy company led by an even crappier BoD. They should have all been fired in 2018. Its interesting that Private Equity aka LBO artists won't touch this crappy company. I guess they are too lazy to do the hard work of fixing it. The same goes with grandpa Buffet who is too lazy to fix it. Buffet did fix & resurrect Solomon Brothers in the early 1980s I wonder why he balks at taking over Boeing & fixing it. The amount of corporate malfeasance in this country is out of control. GE, Boeing, Disney, Intel, etc.
However there is a chink in their armor: A command political system and economy. For our sake, I am glad Xi is in charge. If they continue their semi-democratic path, be our ally for the time being, continue on the same economic path of prior administrations, they would have taken over the world by now.
That's because you think our political economic model is best. But I can assure you, now living in undemocratic Singapore, that most here look at America with incomprehension or disdain for its inability to keep its house in order. I'm no fan of Xi and how he made himself emperor, but that's what Trump wants and seemingly half of America supports him.