[NeedMoreTea]

China is fastracking to being a developed nation faster than anyone before, and missing out many of the developed world's mistakes. They'll have poisonous air for a shorter time than the US or Europe did. They'll have the least obsolete infrastructure of anyone. Making stuff in China isn't necessarily disastrous.

Making huge amounts of overly cheap shite that doesn't last, or do the job properly is especially disastrous as it encourages waste.

Shipping huge amounts of stuff around the globe is disastrous.

Making stuff in places that don't yet have mature and tight environmental protections is disastrous. (Probably a significant reason it moved there in the first place)

I'd pay more for a MBP or another Thinkpad made in Greenock (where IBM used to make them), or anywhere in the EU. I'm in a minority so small it may as well not exist in wanting locally made stuff. For most stuff, I try not to buy at all, but I can rarely choose local any more.

[empath75]

Even if they assembled them elsewhere, most of the parts and raw materials would have to come from China these days.

[NeedMoreTea]

In the early days of Chinese manufacturing they would have been importing most.

Suppliers tend to cluster where manufacturers are, and import specialist parts. Of course as you just posted in the other comment, CO2 taxes reflecting the full environmental costs would tend to encourage more clustering, more local production, and generally buying less wastefully.

As popular as plague no doubt, but stuff needs to get expensive again. Perhaps better to say "expensive enough".