Sierra, your opinion is interesting especially since you seem to have hands on knowledge of China which I do not. I do see that every state owned Chinese auto company in their top 10 has multiple joint ventures with western manufacturers. The "privately owned" ones seem to buy non Chinese companies outright (Geely and Volvo) or encourage western investment (BYD and Warren Buffet).
It would not be easy to "close the doors" on that huge and ongoing western contribution to the Chinese automotive industry and China's manufacturing success going forward will have to include exports just as it does now with many other products. I expect with western involvement the overall quality of those exports will improve just as it has done in Japan and Korea in the past and although its maybe a bit late for China to catch up to foreign ICE manufacturing they are in the box seat for EVs with a major portion of the worlds rare earth, lithium and cobalt processing capability based there as well as substantial investment in the supply chains for those elements.
The joint ventures so far are mainly to allow western manufacturers an opening into the massive and growing domestic market but soon IMO we will see models from major western manufacturers built in China for world wide distribution just like the Tesla M3 is about to do. Interestingly Tesla is the only foreign car manufacturer so far to be allowed to set up a wholly owned operation in China, we will have to wait a see if others are allowed the same freedoms or was Elon given special treatment.
