2021 was a great year for Chinese exports especially due to COVID. It's one of the countries that suffered the least economic damage, and it's exports actually grew immensely compared to previous years.
PRC export value went from 2.5T in 2019 to 3.4T in 2021, to 3.6T in 2022. It increased more during 3-4 years of covid than previous 10 years combined (1.4T in 2009). Primarily because 0covid left most of PRC undisrupted, most of the time, which setup PRC to export to most of world, especially global south. Currently everyone's exports down due to global slow down, but PRC exports down from stupid high peak. It's more surprising how much of exports PRC is holding onto due to artificial conditions caused by covid. Reverting back to 2021 (3.4T) would be a 5 steps forward 1 step back situation vs, reverting back to 2020 (2.6T) which would be status quo.
What degree of economic damage would fundamentally destabilize China politically such that Xi is deposed?
If stupid me is thinking about such vulnerabilities/risks, would foreign businessmen bet on Chinese factories, or move them to the newer/cheaper labor markets I've been hearing about for the last 10 years like Vietnam and Malaysia?
And Jinping is 70, do you think he's lasting to 80? When he croaks, due to his elimination of what semblance of political power handover / elections that used to exist in China, it will be a bloodbath.
The risk for companies to build supply chains that completely avoid China is that they will be outcompeted by competitors who won't and who will make use of these loopholes.