Just wanted to comment on Chinese manufacturing of bikes, something I have some experiences in.
First of all, Chinese suppliers will lie on demand on customs forms. Look at Aliexpress, see those items with "no tax" on them? The seller will put a $10 tag on a $600 motor and the customs can do absolutely nothing. I've had reputable companies making FPGAs worth thousands of dollars ask me what exactly I want on the customs form. So for many goods, tariffs are meaningless because the declared price is already close to zero.
Regarding bikes. I am always in need of frames, and am scouting Alibaba regularly for good frames to buy. Sometimes a Chinese supplier will just send you a photo of a well-known frame from a manufacturer, with their logos and everything! You ask for that frame's schematic in order to compare with the original and it's basically 99% there — they might alter something, but basically they steal their customers' designs and then resell them to whoever is interested. Now, when it comes to carbon, everything is pretty much open and about 5-6 factories supply all the major brands (as well as custom bike shops etc.) but with alloy (alu) frames, many designs are proprietary and a good design is very difficult to find. So sometimes I would come across what's obviously a Haibike design, maybe slightly modified not to be obvious, but it's clearly been stolen because the Chinese are terrible designers and couldn't design a good bike frame to save their life.
In fact, the approach adopted by both myself and other small time operators in the business is the following: we design the frames for them, knowing full well that they will be stolen. We don't have many ways of protecting our IP beyond designing incomplete frames: for example, we design the frame but not the dropout/derailleur hanger, or we would design a frame that's incompatible with all but a specific component. But that will not deter the thieves over there as they will simply replace the unusual variation with something else that they know works and sell that instead. It's also hilarious when you send them the designs, they modify them but refuse to send the step files back to you because "it's our IP".
One funny side effect of all of this is that we could, if we wanted to, arbitrarily use copyrighted designs. For example, many US/European companies hold patents on specific rear suspension pivots (e.g., Horst Link), but I bet if I were to order one the factory wouldn't blink an eye... mainly because they are blissfully unaware of the very possibility of patents on suspension links.
There have been attempts to make frames locally. Stels, the powerhouse that sells the absolute majority of bikes here in Motherland (largest bicycle manufacturer in Europe, apparently), tried to set up manufacturing of frames and other parts locally. They gave up on the idea for obvious reasons related to cost, plus I imagine there are other issues — you're not allowed to arbitrarily pollute here, unlike in China.
Here I'm also neglecting the lies, bullshit, ignored messages and time delays related to dealing with the 'other side', as well as the fact that they all tend to just go dark for about a month for 'Chinese new year'. The work ethic is extremely low, there's no QC, you get a frame with a dropout that doesn't work with, say, a 2x11 setup because of course nobody bothered to test it. You ask for a fix and they send you a step file and tell you to CNC the hanger yourself.
