[bluGill]

There is also debate on if the US should invest in that. Political tensions with China are one factor. However remember there are limited resources so investing in this means something else can't be invested in. Really this should be a world wide concern: if China is so bad how can we build up someone more friendly - it need not be the US. Could be Germany, could be Kenya (I understand China is investing there)

[jolux]

I agree, but part of the problem with manufacturing in China is that American companies have become complicit in the abuses of a brutal authoritarian regime. The manufacturing efficiencies cannot be ignored, but it would be wise to take this into consideration as well moving forward. I’m just not sure if there’s a reasonable way to do so. This may be an inevitable consequence of globalization in the short-term.

[orhmeh09]

Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem? The US imprisons more than China does, forces citizens to work through a yet-unresolved pandemic that disproportionately impacts already marginalized and abused segments of the population, and furnishes private companies with prison labor for $1 an hour when the prisoners are not being made to fight forest fires or being abused (or killed) by law enforcement or each other.

I think the companies have the stomach for more and that it’s mainly a marketing and public relations issue.

https://fair.org/home/us-media-cant-think-how-to-fight-fires...

[jolux]

> Why is complicity in abuse of populations suddenly a problem?

It's always been a problem, but it's best to make whatever strides to resolve it that we can.

> The US imprisons more than China does

Sure, but it is not currently engaged in a genocide. Standards for due process are also stronger in the US than in China, and you don't get thrown in jail for criticizing the government either.

The US prison system being bad does not make China's abuses any less serious. They are still much worse than what the US does.

[lucian1900]

The US is the one with widely documented concentration camps on the border.

And last year showed us just how much due process is ignored and political prisoners persecuted, if previous history wasn’t enough.

[Dylan16807]

> The US is the one with widely documented concentration camps on the border.

That's for people crossing in, and on average they're only in there for a couple days. The current population is around 10k people. It's a problem but it's absolutely nothing compared to putting entire groups into concentration camps. We did that once, but it sure wasn't any time recently.

> And last year showed us just how much due process is ignored and political prisoners persecuted, if previous history wasn’t enough.

It did?

[systemvoltage]

I've bought a few non-consumer electronics from Germany all manufactured in Germany including the housing/plastic parts. Quality is exceptional and everything is to the spec and well documented.

The advantage of having semiconductor/electronics manufacturing in the US would be cheap land/labor, quantity of labor, gov incentives, regulation waivers, particularly in the American Southwest: https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-southwest-is-americas-new-f...

[munk-a]

I actually strongly disagree with the statement

> Political tensions with China are one factor.

Specifically - I think that, at the end of the day, the economic flow is the only thing that matters and all the other considerations are sort of moot. What the US offers to the world is a gigantic consumer market, and it's quite difficult to actually control a consumer market since any applications of force or restriction of goods flow ends up deteriorating the market faster than it yields control. If the US embargoed Chinese imports tomorrow the Chinese government would receive a lot of domestic pressure to take action but, logically, there isn't an action it can take overtly to actually reopen the US market - instead we'd see this war play out in propaganda within the US trying to force politicians to reverse the decision by causing mass discontent. And, honestly, it's likely that companies affected by any such embargo would just act independently of the Chinese government to those ends - so, essentially, the only real forces Chinese businesses would have to oppose an economic breakdown are their personally contained forces. I think, essentially, that the Chinese government would be impotent to deal with such a situation buuuut... that's just like my opinion man.

[mandelbrotwurst]

> investing in this means something else can't be invested in

Eh, maybe - often that "something else" is capital sitting on its hands or investing in things that serve to protect its own interests.

[bingbong70]

If given a choice, as a person that lives 99% of the time in the US, would you rather have a US device that is backdoored by the NSA/CIA or a Chinese device that is backdoored by the Chinese government?

I personally think the latter is preferable. Not sure why anyone buys US made equipment post Snowden/Assange.