China will bounce back. I work in product development and manufacturing with factories here in the states as well as in China and elsewhere. The production lines may be shut down but trust me, they're still busy developing new products.
One real challenge Chinese manufacturers are facing is an already large and growing young workforce that increasingly refuse to work in dirty factories, and they are educated enough now to have plenty of other options. In the short term that means more automation but eventually it will lead to outsourcing.
I've visited factories year after year and saw with my own eyes brand new european- or japanese-made robotic equipment bolted to the floor literally in the spot where a worker once stood. In metal fabrication shops the first jobs to go were the hot, dusty polishing stations.
But hey, if our economy tanks and we raise a generation of post-science morons, we can be ready to take those crappy low-paying jobs back.
