China is already moving up the cost curve for manufacture. The company I work for built a plant in China with a Chinese partner. They said they could get the plant up faster than seemed possible. They didn't quite make it but were closer than we expected. They spend another 6 months fixing it, however. But today it works. Cost of manufacture is higher than forecast so today it isn't really lower than U. S. manufacture. Maybe someday it will be.
China sets up companies to compete against each other. They have their own idea of how to do competition. They are a problem with respect to intellectual property but they aren't the only ones with that issue. They are a huge country and own so much of our government bonds they could cause us serious harm without doing anything more than dumping them on the market (I'm in the U. S.).
I don't view a "made in China" label positively but I also don't see it very negatively either. I have a car made in Japan (a Suzuki SUV) and one made in Germany (a BMW, since it's a car, it's properly a "bimmer" - a "beemer" is a motorcycle). Sample of one but the bimmer is made better than the Zuk. But it also cost roughly twice as much. I didn't buy a bimmer because of brand, I bought it because it drives differently than Japanese and American cars. I've seen no reviews indicating Korean cars drive like bimmers. China will send cars here but I would be reluctant to buy them, at least soon. Maybe in a few years. But my bimmer needs an evaporative system pump I've never had to replace on a Japanese or American cars. They are not known for unusually high quality.
I think its perfectly OK for people to spend their money however they want. If you want to "buy American" or buy German or just avoid China that is fine. But I don't think the country of manufacture is anything more than a rough indicator of the quality. If Festool does the necessary quality control, I think they can get equal tools out of China. If they blindly leave it up the Chinese, I think there will be a fall-off. They will have to inspect at a pretty significant rate to force the standards to remain high. That will affect costs. But if they really wanted the lowest cost, they would go to Vietnam or someplace like that. China is not the lowest cost any more.
