I don't understand - do you think there is no manufacturing in Europe?
To give a concrete example - some European car factories are shut down due to... lack of chips.
A lot of minor manufacturing, plus a lot of assembly to be able to call the final product e.g. "german made" and have the associated tax-cuts...
They use Chinese components... to manufacture planes... in Europe.
"plus a lot of assembly to be able to call the final product e.g. "german made" and have the associated tax-cuts..."
Or, in your words:
"They use Chinese components... to manufacture planes... in Europe."
By contrast, the Chinese COMAC airplane consists largely of of imported parts.
Europe is the second largest manufacturer of cars for example. And half the world's planes are made here. That's not minor.
> plus a lot of assembly
Right... assembling chips into things for example.
Wasn't that the point? The chips don't need to be sent to Asia in order to put them in products.
Modern supply chains are really complex. Your laptop might uses chips manufactured in Taiwan by Dutch lithography machines, have a screen build in South Korea using German automation devices, run on software made in the USA, all shipped on a Japanese-build vessel.