A genuine question: why is this dumping, but importing any other electronics (say any modern computer, cellphone, appliances) not so?

As the article mentions:

> the companies were selling products below the cost of manufacture and that the Chinese companies were benefiting from unfair subsidies from their government.

I assume Foxconn does not get subsidies to sell iPhones below cost :)

I just don't understand how easy it is to determine the cost of manufacture something outside of one's economy and infrastruture.

I'm in Argentina at the moment and I'm constantly hearing local businesses accusing china of dumping because they can't produce more cheaply, but than everywhere else in the world we buy Huawei, Xiaomi, etc I feel that accusations of dumping are more political interpretations than measurable facts.

Selling at below cost is dumping. Selling at above cost is not.

I understand. But how do we know the real cost when the country we are talking about is China? Even in transparent economies like the EU, you find convoluted ways to subsidize companies (or convoluted ways to accuse companies of receiving subsidies - depending where you stand in these issues)

Because they aren't being convoluted about it, their costs and subsidies are very obvious. They are simply losing money and keeping the mills going via state guaranteed debt (well, the banks are being ordered to lend).