The demise of telecom giant Nortel may have been caused by its contract manufacturer, Huawei.

Increasingly, China is losing its cost advantages. Workers are striking at Chinese factories. Chinese suppliers copy Western products to become competitors. Time to market is longer. And now we can add electronic espionage.

The federal government is not entirely to blame for the cost differential between U.S. and Chinese manufacturers.

Many products made in low-wage countries could, in fact, be produced here economically. There are three reasons why they are not.

Offshoring has, quite simply, gutted the American middle class. But it took more than the presence of several hundred million unemployed Chinese to make offshoring feasible. Some are technological, some are cultural.