Because the barbell itself isn ' t weightless . <| sep |> It just so happens that China ' s lax regulation helped boost their manufacturing economy like it did to the west during the industrial revolution . It is hard to argue the correlation of those things . As renewables are more available , we will be able to get the best of both worlds . The Chinese are working very hard towards toughening up regulation and decreasing manufacturing for service industries . Trump wants to deregulate to create US jobs . He literally wants to go backwards to recreate job by reviving the conditions of the US ' s manufacturing hay day . Which will bring the pollution back with it . The difference in forsight between the Chinese and the US is so wide I have little hope the US will maintain world power status more than 2 more decades .