I've had my thinking in this area shift, too; I now believe China (and a few other places, like Vietnam) have "won" at manufacturing because their combination of government, cultural values, and the masses of their people from which they draw workers, managers, and owners simply are better at manufacturing than my own country is.

Part of what led me to believe this was waking up and realising they're also simply better at offering LLM inference: cheaper; faster; more innovative.

It's a horse of a very different colour from outsourcing where someone is simply chasing the lowest bidder.