And notice you don't hear American-like bitching about robots replacing humans in China. Why? Because Chinese always find a way to make money. They're not like Americans working in a coal mine expecting the government to protect their jobs by continuing to mine coal forever even when there are alternative sources than coal.
To the heart of my jokes, what politicians say have no meaning or basis in reality.
This is the problem with most western politicians.
"Trustworthy suppliers", I saw another term "friendshoring".
What is so untrustworthy about China? Are they banning semiconductor exports? Are they arresting C-suite executives? Are they banning Apple from Chinese cell phone networks?
Diversifying supply chains beyond China is not stupid in itself, but it should not be a political stunt. It should be done in a meaningful business-like approach. Otherwise it's not sustainable anyway. Look at what Foxconn is doing in Wisconsin (hint, literally nothing). Ironically it is actually Chinese companies opening factories in Vietnam, India, Thailand, Africa. Probably the West will pat themselves on the back saying "look at this iPhone, it is made in India, the Chinese are losing", meanwhile the plant is owned by Luxshare.
Cheap labour was never China's strength. This was found to be somewhat of a mirage once the country was open to FDI in the 80's. When American companies went into China, the labour pool was large, but the capital cost of upgrading plants with American and European machinery was too great. Furthermore, executives and transplanted workers had too many costly demands like 5-star hotels, drivers, etc. It was Taiwan and SK companies' workers that were willing to put up with the hardships of working in China and were producing slightly inferior industrial equipment, but at a lower cost. It was only after the modernized industrial base was established that the labour pool could be leveraged. Even then, a lot of the growth of manufacturing is less about labour cost, and more about favourable government policies (i.e. trades education) that allows for the production scale and efficiency.
If labour cost was the sole driver, then companies would clamour to open factories in India and Bangladesh where the labour cost is even cheaper. However, the quality and access to infrastructure simply is not there.
