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Blaming China won’t bring jobs back to ‘post-industrial’ economies

Almost anywhere you look these days, you can find claims from political, academic and other various sources that China’s supposed overproduction and exports of manufactured…

By Samantha Johnson / July 4, 2026
Almost anywhere you look these days, you can find claims from political, academic and other various sources that China’s supposed overproduction and exports of manufactured goods pose unfair advantages. These sources may also claim such unfair advantages justify protectionist countermeasures. But it is difficult to counter one’s own folly.

For decades, the US, much of Europe and even Japan, long proud of its manufacturing skills, have prided themselves on becoming “post-industrial” and services-oriented economies. They did not ask who is supposed to make “things” when thing-making is no longer in fashion.

So, it’s no wonder that a goal-oriented China, which strategically plans for the long-term rather than leaving matters to the supposed wisdom of the marketplace, stepped in to fill the inevitable supply and demand gap.

This statement is not made out of mere ideological conviction; it is a belief that comes from reporting and analysing the impact of industrial and deindustrialising policies in Britain, Japan and elsewhere.

The biggest and perhaps most bitter irony is that Western nations are struggling to reverse course and reindustrialise and effectively back out of a cul-de-sac which they entered willingly decades ago, only to find that China is dominating the high road of global manufacturing.

Re-industrialisation is becoming a mantra for politicians, openly in the case of Britain’s presumptive prime minister Andy Burnham, who talks of re-industrialising the country. Then, there is US President Donald Trump who advocates bringing manufacturing jobs “back home”. Re-industrialisation also seems to be a policy priority for Japanese Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi, although in Japan’s case it seems to be focused largely on reviving or establishing industries that can feed domestic and export demand for “defence” systems.

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