China’s strategy was the exact opposite of France’s strategy. France created scarcity, withheld supply, and drove prices up to create exclusivity. China did the exact opposite. They drove prices down to almost nothing, made products accessible to everyone, and flooded the market globally.
Both were power moves. Different paths to the same goal: global dominance.
But China had something France didn’t: billions of people performing cheap labor.
In 1978, Deng Xiaoping took control of China and made a deliberate choice. He shifted from a state-planned economy to a market-based economy. He opened the doors to private enterprise, foreign investment, and capitalism.
The result was staggering. China’s economy grew at nine and a half percent per year for the next thirty-five years. To put that in perspective, the United States economy grows at about two to three percent per year.
Deng also made another strategic move. He deliberately devalued the Chinese currency. In 1981, the yuan was worth one dollar and eighty cents. By 1994, it took eight dollars and seventy-two cents worth of yuan to buy one American dollar. This was a devaluation of nearly five times.
This meant Chinese products became absurdly cheap on the global market.
Western companies took notice immediately, especially Walmart. They became the biggest advocate for moving American manufacturing to China because consumers became addicted to paying almost nothing.
And that is exactly what they did.
Factories closed all over America. Jobs disappeared. Skills disappeared. Knowledge disappeared. And then something else disappeared: the next generation of makers. When factories close, apprenticeships end. When apprenticeships end, craft knowledge dies with the people who learned it.
America forgot how to make things. Meanwhile, China was learning.
They didn’t invent pleating or weaving or textile engineering, and their methods for obtaining that knowledge were questionable. Over fifty years, China absorbed Western manufacturing technology through joint ventures, partnerships, and reverse engineering. They improved. They innovated. They scaled.
Now China produces seventy-eight percent of the world’s silk. They achieved a global monopoly. And once they had that monopoly, they raised prices.
Let me give you a personal example from my own business.
In the late 1980s and early 1990s, four-ply silk cost about forty dollars a yard. By the year 2000, that same four-ply silk cost about twenty-one dollars a yard. China flooded the market. Prices collapsed by half. And today, four-ply silk costs about forty dollars a yard again. China achieved its monopoly, and prices went right back up.
This happened to every industry, including textiles, electronics, and furniture. The pattern was always the same: flood the market, crash the competition, raise prices once you own the supply.
Here is a perfect example of what happened to Brazil’s silk industry. Brazil was once the world’s third-largest silk producer. They had thousands of mulberry farms and thousands of silk workers. It was a thriving industry.
When China flooded the market with cheap silk, Brazilian silk growers couldn’t compete. Farms closed. Workers left. The industry collapsed. As a result, Brazil’s silk industry is almost forty percent smaller today than it once was.
A Korean textile mill I work with told me exactly what happened to them. When China’s prices dropped, they had no choice but to switch to Chinese silk or go out of business. They switched. Now they’re locked into Chinese suppliers at Chinese prices.
The result was a race to the bottom. Every company trying to undercut the next one. Every factory trying to lower costs just enough to stay alive. Quality became irrelevant because price was the only thing that mattered. If you couldn’t make it cheaper, you didn’t get the order.
American manufacturers couldn’t compete on price as they had labor laws, safety standards, environmental regulations, and fair wages. China had none of those constraints. Think of it like a diet. If you cut calories to lose weight, that makes sense. But if you cut too many calories, the body starves. American manufacturing has been cut so much it’s now starving.
We’ve lost the muscle memory of how to make things. We’ve lost the factories. We’ve lost the skilled workers. We’ve lost the supply chains. And we’ve lost the knowledge.
Now when we need something made, we have no choice but to call China. For now, we are mostly dependent upon them.
Here’s the thing that most people don’t understand. Early Chinese manufacturing was pretty low quality. In the 1980s and 1990s, products made in China fell apart. They were unreliable, poorly finished, and designed to last maybe a few months. But over the past fifty years, China has learned. They stole technology. They absorbed knowledge through joint ventures. They hired away American engineers. And they improved dramatically. Today, Chinese manufacturing can be on par with some of the best factories in the world.
We’re losing the knowledge of how to do it. And if something doesn’t shift quickly, that knowledge will be completely gone in another generation. Right now, there are only a handful of legacy businesses left in the New York City garment industry.
All factories need volume to survive and grow. Without orders, they can’t hire apprentices. Without apprentices, the knowledge dies. This is the real crisis. The real crisis is that knowledge is disappearing before our eyes.
Now let me ask you a question: why should you care?
Because quality matters. Because beauty matters. Because things that last matter. Because things worth passing down matter.
A hunter doesn’t want a cheap rifle. He wants a gun made by a master gunsmith.
A musician doesn’t want a cheap guitar. She wants an instrument made from the finest quality wood by a master luthier.
A car enthusiast doesn’t want a mass-produced sedan. He wants a beautiful, high-performing, reliable machine made by engineers who care about every detail.
Fashion is no different. Everyone wants clothes that are beautiful, well-made, comfortable, and made to last.
Tax revenue disappears. Schools suffer. Hospitals close. Healthcare gets worse. Roads don’t get fixed.
The American Dream is the idea that if you work hard with your hands, you can build a good life. But that dream is disappearing because there’s nowhere left to work with your hands.
Most of us think progress means becoming tech wizards and software engineers. But progress also means honoring the people who build things: the electricians, the plumbers, the carpenters, the craftspeople, and the makers.
These are honorable professions that create real value.
Now here’s the proof of what happens when a country commits to manufacturing. In 1978, China was mostly rural. It was made up of farmland, villages, and had an agricultural economy. Forty-six years later, China is now sixty-seven percent urbanized. Entire megacities were built from nothing. Infrastructure, factories, housing, and transportation networks were all built in a single generation.
It happened because China committed to a national strategy of manufacturing as a national priority. They invested. They built. They trained. They scaled.
And now they own the global supply chain.
That’s power.
This wasn’t an accident. It was engineered. China made us addicts, and we are now addicted to cheap prices, to the thrill of buying more and more. And like any addiction, there’s a reckoning. We’re facing it now.
American manufacturing isn’t in hospice yet. It’s in critical care. And if we give it the right care and choose to buy American-made, if we support the factories still standing, it can rebound. Faster than you think. Because we have technology now. We have awareness now. We have consumer power now.
That’s the solution. That’s the quickest path forward.