"They cannot make high end equipment. They are not very innovative."

China is at the cutting edge of AI and robotics. They are going to outproduce the West by an order of magnitude in drones, and the DJI commercial offerings are state of the art today. You're right that their commercial products cut as many corners as possible, but at the forefront such corner cutting is insuperable and there they do not do it.

"It is very important for America to build back its manufacturing base. Unfortunately our "leaders" won't do it, so we will have to work out how to make it locally, ourselves."

Despite the above criticism, you are correct in your conclusion. The cutting edge of tech advance is decentralization. That is the ongoing source of increasing productivity because mass production is inherently wasteful and utterly lossy due to parasitism by overlords, who are utterly dependent on centralization because of that for their wealth and power. When we adopt ourselves means of production suitable to our personal circumstances we cut off overlords from routes to parasitize our production. When we provide labor to centralized production we suffer ~50% of the wealth we produce to feed into the wallets of overlords through taxation. When we own the means of production and make ourselves the goods and services we need, we eliminate taxable events and retain 100% of the wealth we produce. Not only does this increase our prosperity by the productivity we merit, because we make it, this deprives overlords of their sole source of wealth and power.

Independence is freedom. When we make what we need we become independent of overlords. The most important sector of industry independence enables is security, and being dependent for our security on overlords is a guarantee of enslavement, while producing our own defenses creates our freedom.

Thanks!