america should be cutting ties with china and encouraging our allies to do the same. enough of this shit. china is a bad actor and should be treated as such on the world stage (same with russia).
there is 0 reason to do business with china beyond cheap labor and there are other options for labor.
The big downside to going too-far down that road too-quickly is that it might put China in a corner financially. I don't think anyone wants it to get to that point because isolating them quickly will definitely escalate tensions and maybe even war.
Rather: Determined and solid pressure should be put on any expansionist and growth policies that China may have. Reduce and starve them of critical imports, slowly make their businesses un-competitive with tariffs and increasing regulatory requirements for companies that want to do business with China.
Of course, the response to those sorts of suggestions is that they'll buy ill-will from the Chinese people and grown division even further. Agreed, but at this point, that's guaranteed and no matter what we do it'll grow. E.g. Leave it alone and China's authoritarian and technocratic social policies will increase Chinese peoples' division from the West if not downright hatred. But if you intervene, then you're being unfair to the Chinese people that want access to the West in various forms.
What is constant is that China is big threat to global stability and we should be reducing their power so that the eventual conflict is lessened. I don't think we can hope for a "the Chinese people love the world and want peace enough to go against their government" scenario. We're way passed that I would argue. I'm sure a lot if not almost all of the German people wanted peace and weren't anti-semitic, but that didn't stop an authoritarian government from steam-rolling their dissent and turning it into blind compliance. And that was without any large-scale technocratic indoctrination and control mechanisms, just plain propaganda.
The whole point of an attack is that it hurts the other guy. If you're afraid to hurt China's economy, or worse if you fear that China will counterattack, then you have already lost.
The trade relationship between China and the USA is not a symmetrical one. The USA is the customer; it should take its business elsewhere.
Apple spent $100B on stock buybacks last year, and has allocated another $50B for this year. How many factories could Apple have established in Ecuador, Panama, or Mexico with $150B?
Big players like Apple are the ones who must move first, because a manufacturing ecosystem (ie, an urban area like a mini-Shenzhen with access to parts, skilled labor, shipping, worker housing, and prototyping tools) will spring up wherever they go. They are the only ones who have the level of scale and importance to be able to establish a beachhead in a new region. Their ability to bring revenue and jobs gives them power to negotiate favorable terms with governments of small countries.
China has a very sophisticated manufacturing industry there, no doubt the best in the world. It will take a long time to build up the infrastructure of multiple manufacturing engineers in other places, just like the bay area and other places like Seattle have a lot of 'intellectual infrastructure' that companies can hire from. Apple could do this kind of stuff in the US, but it would cost more, at least in the next few years, to establish those kinds of capabilities in the US.
there is 0 reason to do business with china beyond cheap labor and there are other options for labor.