These capabilities (not at that scale but still) were more common in more places in the 90's. Things like computers, phones, TVs, audio equipment, appliances,

These capabilities (not at that scale but still) were more common in more places in the 90's. Things like computers, phones, TVs, audio equipment, appliances, cars etc. etc. were not made in China back then. Definitely somewhat smaller scale though, there's a lot more consumers around these days. Even today- I'm not in a real tech hub by any means but there are many injection molding places within a drive distance from me. There are also plenty of machine shops with CNCs. In the industrial area near where I live there are some major car parts manufacturers, they build yachts and more. Again, this isn't a major tech hub but you can probably make anything here, it's just gonna be very expensive. I've heard a lot about Chinese manufacturing and I do get what you're saying. Yes it's pretty amazing today (which isn't just because of China's entrepreneurs, it's also western entrepreneurs helping create this ecosystem). But I think it's not impossible to replicate. It wouldn't be the same, we can move things relatively easily in North America, we don't need one dense city that does everything with workers living in factories. But we do need a lot more automation to replace humans. I've never seen manufacturing in China in person but I have seen large scale manufacturing in Taiwan. A lot of that was designed/built by western companies. In terms of costs ofcourse they're lower when you pay people less, when the living conditions are worse, when there's no worker protection, environmental or health and safety requirements... While I'm rambling ;) another thing that we need to consider is just making better quality goods that last longer. Then "cheap" is less of a factor.