"exploitation"... I guess you consider trade and mutual investment "exploitation". China's integration into the global system was both for their benefit and our benefit.

"China's integration into the global system was both for their benefit and our benefit."

American manufacturing unavailable for reply.

American manufacturing output is higher than it ever has been: it's just automated.

American consumers with limited purchasing power benefiting immensely from low cost goods say hello.

Trading the integrity of military supply chain and infrastructure development for little hedonistic comfort is what'd I'd expect from end-stage liberalism. Just call it what it is, surrendering.

Except nobody did that. Defense manufacturing and procurement is still heavily based in the US and the West. Consumer goods manufacturing, not so much.

> "Hickey told a story of how the United States is even losing its submarine fleet. He had a conversation with an admiral in charge of the U.S. sub fleet at the commissioning of the USS Illinois, a Virginia-class attack submarine, who complained that the United States was retiring three worn-out boats a year, but could only build one and a half in that time. The Trump military budget has boosted funding to build two a year, but the United States no longer has the capacity to do high quality castings to build any more than that. The supply chain that could support such surge production should be in the commercial world, but it has been offshored to China." https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/americas-mo...

.. and American infrastructure is in a state of serious decay: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_blackout

Compare this to Chinese infrastructure and engineering: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_island#China

I completely agree with you that America's manufacturing is in a deplorable state. My original comment was just pointing out that the intention in opening up China was for mutual benefit rather than exploitation, even though China's ability to undercut us in manufacturing has ravaged us.

That was a white lie to justify the strategic necessity and short term macroeconomic benefit of opening China.

The West didn’t have a choice. A chaotic, desperately poor, nuclear armed Chinese state was a wildcard that wasn’t sustainable, which is why Nixon and Kissinger opened the door.

Everything since then has been a great money grab. The price of peace has been selling off everything and shifting the “axis” of power east.