In the early 1990s, I visited a factory in southern China whose ambitions far exceeded its capabilities. The floors were dusty. The tools were worn. The welds needed rework. But the factory owner had a look in his eye I’ve never forgotten. There was a certainty that if the world needed a product, his people would find a way to make it.
I had brought with me the specifications of an American customer and a target price that seemed impossible at the time. The owner studied the drawings, nodded quietly, and said, almost as a promise to himself, “If America wants this price, we will figure out how to make it.”
He wasn’t offended by the requirement. He wasn’t intimidated by it. He saw it as a challenge, an invitation. Looking back now, I realize that moment captured the story we rarely acknowledge: The China we debate today is, in many ways, the China America helped create.
Over the last 40 years, as China has risen, America has scarcely acknowledged that it has participated in, accelerated, shaped, and benefited from this rise. And so, the dominant U.S. narrative today tells a different story: that China “stole” growth, “cheated” the system, and “outplayed” an unsuspecting America.
It’s a comforting story. It’s also wrong. To navigate this new era of global competition, we must start by telling the truth about the last one.
The Myths We Tell Ourselves About China’s Rise
In the United States, a simple narrative now dominates public discourse:
- China stole American jobs.
- China cheated its way into the world economy.
- China tricked the U.S. into dependency.
- America was naïve.
- Globalization was a one-way transfer of prosperity.
These myths may soothe frustration, but they distort reality. They turn a complex, shared economic history into a morality play. They also prevent us from designing a viable strategy for the decades ahead.
Because the real story—the one I’ve witnessed across 30 years in Asian manufacturing—is far more intertwined, far more deliberate, and far more revealing of America’s own role.
Engagement Wasn’t Naïve. It Was Policy.
It’s fashionable today to say the U.S. “should never have opened to China.” But that revisionist view ignores the logic that guided Washington, Wall Street, and corporate America for decades.
Why did the U.S. encourage China’s integration?
- Cold War strategy
Bringing China into global trade was seen as a way to counterbalance the influence of the Soviet Union.
- Economic rationality
China offered labor scale, cost advantages, and modernization potential that no other nation could match.
- Ideological optimism
Many believed economic engagement would lead to political liberalization. This belief may seem naïve in hindsight, but it was widely held at the time.
- Corporate incentives
American companies faced intense pressure to improve margins, expand production, and meet shareholder demands.
- Consumer expectations
U.S. buyers wanted cheaper goods — and wanted them fast.
All of these forces emerged from pointed geopolitical priorities. They were deliberate. Engagement was not a mistake, but rather a strategy. And it worked — just not in the way Americans expected.
How Corporate America Accelerated China’s Rise
No country becomes “the world’s factory” by decree. China earned that position, but it had some help getting there. For decades, American companies:
- Transferred manufacturing expertise
- Introduced quality systems
- Funded expansions
- Demanded scaling and efficiency
- Migrated tooling, molds, and know-how
- Rewarded cost reduction above all else
In numerous factories, I witnessed U.S. engineers instructing processes that would later become integral to China’s industrial dominance. I watched as American buyers pushed lead times shorter and margins thinner, and Chinese factories met these pressures by industrializing at a faster pace.
China didn’t outsmart us. China out-executed the incentives we set.
When we asked for cheaper, they delivered cheaper. When we asked for faster, they delivered faster. When we asked for scale, they scaled beyond our imagination. They followed the global rules that we wrote.
China Played the Game Extremely Well
To say the U.S. “built” modern China denies China’s own agency. China made bold, disciplined choices:
- Aggressive infrastructure investment at a speed the West hadn’t seen in generations.
- A national manufacturing focus that remained unwavering through political cycles.
- Increased competition among local governments for factories, offering land, tax incentives, and training.
- A cultural tolerance for long hours and long-term thinking that aligned with global market needs.
- A hunger to learn, absorb, copy, improve, and iterate at a pace few countries can sustain.
I’ve seen this up close. Factories in Anhui that went from primitive galvanizing lines to world-class production in five years. Entrepreneurs who reinvested every yuan back into capacity. Engineers who spent nights solving problems because losing face was unthinkable.
America underestimated the speed and scale of this transformation. China never did.
Myth-Busting the U.S.–China Story
To reset our perspective on China today, we must dismantle a few persistent myths.
Myth 1: “China stole our jobs.”
Reality: American companies moved them voluntarily.
They did so under no duress and attempted no overt deception. They chased cost, scale, and efficiency because the U.S. economic system rewarded exactly that behavior.
Myth 2: “China cheated its way up.”
Reality: China leveraged every incentive the global system offered
They did this at exceptional velocity and scale. Far from cheating, this is execution at the highest levels.
Myth 3: “America was naïve.”
Reality: Engagement was bipartisan, strategic, and seen as stabilizing.
Geopolitical priorities and economic pressures made a globalized China a strategic and sensible choice. It was an approach that was based on the best available knowledge at the time.
Myth 4: “We were victims.”
Reality: We were participants.
The U.S. helped shape China’s manufacturing rise, and China, in turn, influenced U.S. consumer expectations, corporate strategy, and economic habits.
The Shared Story: The China We Made — and the China That Made Us
Once we move past the myths, a more honest—and more useful—story emerges:
China’s growth reinforced American corporate profits.
Lower costs led to higher margins. Higher margins resulted in a rising stock market. A rising stock market created unprecedented political comfort.
American consumer culture was built on Chinese efficiency.
“Everyday low prices” is a slogan powered by the staggering efficiency of factories in places like Shenzhen and Suzhou.
The tech boom depended on Chinese manufacturing.
Without China’s scale, smartphones, laptops, and solar panels would be unaffordable to many Americans and most other global consumers.
China’s industrial rise stabilized global markets for decades.
It fueled global growth through the 2000s and pulled millions out of poverty.
There is no villain or victim in this story. The story we’ve actually been telling for decades is one of interdependence shaped by decisions on both sides.
Why This Matters Now
If we misremember the past, we misjudge the present. And we do so at our own peril. Without a measured perspective informed by history, we risk:
- Designing the wrong policies
- Fearing the wrong threats
- Reacting to caricatures instead of realities
- Miscalculating China’s intentions
- Misreading America’s strengths
For many, acknowledging accurate history poses a threat to the warmth of nostalgia and the convenient comfort of oversimplifying narratives, but in the case of China and our shared future, it’s an essential strategy.
To compete with China today, we must first understand the China we helped build.
Only then can we craft a sustainable framework for the next 40 years. Here’s how that might look:
- Diversified supply chains
- Resilient regional networks
- Competitive industrial policy
- Selective engagement
- Pragmatic, not emotional, rivalry
You cannot navigate a future you misunderstand or one founded on unreality.
Understanding Before Strategy
The China of today is complex, confident, ambitious, overextended in some areas, and underappreciated in others. But it is not inscrutable. And it is neither accident nor aggressor.
We didn’t lose to China. We have shaped each other, and now we must understand what we made so we can decide what comes next.