In the first decade of the 21st century, U.S. manufacturing hegemony suffered its most severe decade-long decline, and cracks began to appear in the once-impregnable "steel fortress." During this "lost decade," the tide of globalization and manufacturing outsourcing battered the steel backbone of "Made in America." Meanwhile, emerging economies such as China, after joining the WTO, rapidly integrated into the international division of labor and took on massive industrial transfers from developed countries. The U.S. manufacturing hegemony, which had endured for over a century, faced severe challenges from China and showed strong signs of wavering. In 2010, China surpassed the United States to become the world's largest manufacturing nation. In the 200-year history of industrialization, this marked another watershed event, following the United States overtaking Britain in manufacturing output in 1890.

To reverse this "lost decade," the Obama administration made revitalizing domestic manufacturing a key national goal. This strategy was inherited by the Trump administration and evolved into a new industrial strategy under the Biden administration. On April 27, 2023, U.S. National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan delivered a landmark speech at the Brookings Institution, laying out the Biden administration's international economic policy agenda in full. During the speech, Sullivan first put forward the New Washington Consensus, calling on the United States to vigorously deploy state power tools. Working from both domestic (industrial policy) and foreign (economic diplomacy) fronts, the U.S. would comprehensively revitalize its industrial ecosystem and technological innovation capabilities to achieve its great-power strategic competition goals. This speech marked the formal formation of America's new industrial strategy and sounded the clarion call for the full-scale revival of U.S. manufacturing.

To support this strategy, the Biden administration has enacted three major industrial policy bills domestically: the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the CHIPS and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act. It has also established supporting domestic mechanisms, aiming to comprehensively strengthen America's manufacturing capacity. Meanwhile, leveraging its domestic market and massive subsidies as incentives, the administration has pushed for the reshoring of industrial and supply chains to reverse the hollowing-out of U.S. industry. Externally, acting at the global, regional, bilateral, and mini-lateral levels, the Biden administration has woven a U.S.-led global network of industrial alliances, using values as the ''thread'' and security as the ''knot'' to weaken China's advantageous position in the global production network. In the Indo-Pacific, Europe, the Americas, and the South Pacific, it has built a wide-ranging web of supply-chain, technology, and defense industrial alliances through new regional arrangements such as the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework (IPEF), the U.S.-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), and the Americas Partnership for Economic Prosperity (APEP). For key pivot countries, it has conducted frequent bilateral and mini-lateral diplomacy to secure support for reshaping the global industrial landscape, while forging close ties with key enterprises in those countries.

In terms of specific industrial sectors, the Biden administration has precisely targeted four key areas: semiconductors, electric vehicles, artificial intelligence, and outer space. It is joining forces with allies to build a ''high wall'' in an attempt to exclude China from the core of the international industrial landscape.

In the semiconductor sector, the United States is leveraging three forms of industrial hegemony to construct a ''parallel'' semiconductor supply chain system that excludes China. These include: control over core technologies and high-end research and development; control over major semiconductor firms in terms of financing channels and ownership structures; and market control derived from its position as the world's most important buyer of semiconductor products.

In the new energy vehicle sector, the United States has cloaked domestic policies aimed at revitalizing its domestic auto industry under the banner of green development, introducing a series of preferential measures favorable to ''onshore production.'' To bridge differences of interest with its allies and partners, the United States has signed new agreements and exerted diplomatic pressure to team up with Canada and European countries in imposing tariffs on its major competitor, China, so as to weaken the market competitiveness of Chinese electric vehicles.

In the artificial intelligence sector, the U.S. government has long attached high priority to relevant technologies. On the one hand, it pursues technological ''self-strengthening'' through financial support; on the other hand, it restricts technology exports on grounds of security and leads the formulation of international technical standards and rules.

In the outer space sector, with NASA as the hub, the United States supports the development of its domestic aerospace industry internally and promotes extensive international space cooperation externally, launching a major-power competition in deep space.

America's new industrial strategy has exerted certain negative impacts on the foundation of China's real economy. The share of tax revenue paid by foreign enterprises in national fiscal revenue has dropped significantly, the labor market faces the risk of structural unemployment, and the withdrawal of investment by leading enterprises has also undermined China's industrial ecosystem.

At the same time, China's key industries still lack core competitiveness in cutting-edge technologies, talent development, and other areas. The intensified containment by the United States through diplomatic means has added further pressure to the development of China's key industries. In response, China cannot rely solely on the domestic market to pursue a ''domestic cycle.'' It must also compete in the international market and effectively unlock the dual-circulation pattern connecting domestic and international markets. This urgently requires strategic design across multiple dimensions. In response, China should expand opening-up, strengthen enterprise diplomacy and economic diplomacy with Europe, and participate in the formulation of global rules. It should also strengthen its ''magnet effect'' on global industrial and supply chains, and raise the cost of ''decoupling'' from China for the United States and other Western countries. Meanwhile, China should also conduct risk assessments on key nodes in industrial and supply chains and strengthen its capacity for independent innovation to guard against the ''supply cutoff'' pressure imposed by the United States.

In short, faced with the enormous pressure from America's new industrial strategy, safeguarding China's status as the ''world factory'' through various measures is in the fundamental interests of realizing the great rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.