I have some thoughts on this I’ll post as a comment. But basically the predictions of their re-shoring being a total bust were nonsense. It doesn’t matter at the end of the day if their efficiency is only 80% of that of their fabs on the island, if it’s enough to be part of what supplies the entire west with all they need for laptops and smartphones and gaming consoles then it’s enough to no longer need that occupied part of China or care what their actions taken against China result in as far as consequences.
I fell we have lost ourselves in the analysis of the situation and therefore need to take a step back, return to the basics and as MLs remember to use diamat to try and see the big picture.
Since the fall of the USSR in the 90s, the principle contradiction in global economics has been the Us-China one. And for most of this period the Us has been the leading aspect of that contradiction, as it already started as a imperialist potency while China was still in the middle of its poverty alleviation plan, but since the 2008 crisis China has begun a process of reducing its dependence on western economics and preparing itself to take the place of the main aspect in the future.
And in my opinion ever since COVID and the consequences of how each country handled it, China has taken the leading role in that contradiction and consequently it is now what defines the nature of world economics, which is why we are seeing so many changes in geo-politics recently, both from China trying to assert its position with the de-dollarisation of global trade and the increase of allied countries with BRICS, and from the Us reaction with the Ukraine war and now with the government trying to re-invest in its own industry.
Without discussing the important aspect of imperialism and whether or not the Us still has the infrastructure to produce goods at a competitive price with China, the main focus of my comment is to bring attention to the fact that this is all part of a ongoing process with both sides struggling for the leading role in the global economy contradiction. So even tough saying that the Us is collapsing or they are powerless is hopelessly unmaterialistic, we should exalt the fact that China is becoming the principle aspect and that process is only going to keep changing, in both quantitative and qualitative ways, until the Us has no more place in the global economic contradiction.