And the West relies on Chinese manufacturing. All the scare mongering surrounding China, the US already would have pulled investment if they actually were the ones in control. The West has hitched its wagon to China at this point. They have no real alternative to turn towards.

Wouldn’t this be more of a double implication though? Without China to manufacture goods, the West is out of goods, but without the West to purchase said goods, China just gets stuck with a huge amount of goods it can only sell at a discount to other nations, thereby reducing their profit margins. Surely if other places were willing to pay just as much as the West for goods, they would be sold there as well, to not have all eggs in the same basket.

Sort of like what I read on a lunch place - “Eat here, or we both starve”.

Not trying to start a pro-/anti-anything discussion, genuinely curious about the mechanics at play here, global economics, game theory and all that.

Absolutely! Doesn’t change the fact that Biden’s warning is toothless bluster. If he actually tried to end US investment in China it would collapse the world economy. It’s a M.A.D. world