I know the workers are cheaper in China (so many of them killing for jobs), but the costs for a US company to manage non-English speaking people surrender IP to competitors, and ship products back to the US...I know I'm not the math guy in our business, but I have to think that short term decisions are being made.
US companies have trade secrets that they can share among all of their US sites (and European sites), but they absolutely cannot let their fellow coworkers use those secrets in China, because they know that the secret will be lost to a pop-up local competitor in China...it will appear out of no where, and may even use the same marketing color scheme. It's crazy.
One company there had to forcibly remove their local management when they found out that they were doing their own thing in Chinese, and falsifying reports in English...you just don't hear about executives barricading themselves in their factories here in the US.
The alternative to that? Open a slightly more expensive factory in Jackson, MS, pay your people a little bit more every year, but don't worry about losing your trade secrets to competitors, and don't worry about managing in multiple languages, and don't worry about shipping costs, and don't worry about the IT team being paid by the PRC.
US companies are naively accepting subsidies, and renting directly from the PRC (the biggest landlord in China) at cheap rates...and they are naively assuming the PRC will behave just like the United States government. The only problem is that the PRC does not act like the US. The PRC has a unified goal: replace all US economic power now with PRC economic power in 50 years. Their sole goal is to learn, steal and then compete against all the US companies that are naively building and hiring over there.
Until we make it a crime in the US for US companies to lose their trade secrets in China, this will continue.