>Can someone explain this to me?
>
Probably not and certainly not satisfactorily. The bottom line is they're stuck. We can't do much about it without halting the supply of cheap Chinese imports that we rely on so heavily.

OTOH, they can't do much without evaporating their chances of joining the world economy.

It's just one more episode in the ongoing game of cat and mouse. In this case it's difficult to tell which is the cat and which is the mouse...

Personally, I think that the Chinese just wanted all the things labelled "Made In China" back... which would leave precious little from that airplane. < g >