The counter argument is that they'd have mass unemployment and would be in poverty without it. Virtually all rapid modern industrialization is reliant on exporting to foreign markets so characteizing it as American emissions is largely a misomer as it is really global emissions.
You're not actually addressing the accounting question though. The argument isn't about the economic benefits or consequences of manufacturing, it's simply about where we assign the carbon emissions in an accounting system.
Whether Chinese workers benefit economically from manufacturing exports doesn't change the fact that when a US consumer buys a product made in China, we could reasonably count those manufacturing emissions as US consumption-based emissions rather than Chinese production-based emissions.
This is really a question of "but for" causation: but for US consumer demand for these products, would these specific manufacturing emissions have occurred? If the answer is no, then there's a strong case for counting them as US emissions regardless of where the factory happens to be located.
Your point about global emissions sidesteps the question entirely. Of course all emissions are ultimately global in their climate impact, but for policy and measurement purposes we still need accounting frameworks. The question is whether production-based or consumption-based accounting gives us a more accurate picture for policy decisions.
The unemployment and poverty argument, while valid for other discussions, doesn't really bear on which accounting method better reflects responsibility for emissions.
While I fundamentally disagree, do you really not see how that would then mean all Chinese emissions are therefore a result of the United States? So that's... worse?
What? No, because China is also exporting to other markets. The counterfactual is that we don't do global industrialization and let the global poor remain poor.
The US introduced China to western manufacturing markets. So if they would otherwise be poor and non-industrialized, the US is responsible for it all.
We can't claim we rose them from poverty while also denying culpability for the consequences thereof...
Though I think everyone is just saying Chinese emissions should be counted, proportionally, against the people they're making products for. And the US is one of their biggest customers.
>The US introduced China to western manufacturing markets. So if they would otherwise be poor and non-industrialized, the US is responsible for it all.
Who is "We" here? I am speaking from a global perspective. Chinese industrialization has internal agency, drivers and motivation, the US did not force China to industrialize. Secondly Global Demand is not US-Specific, Europe, Japan and other markets contributed with their own agreements so the claim that the US is "responsible" is overstated here.
>Though I think everyone is just saying Chinese emissions should be counted, proportionally, against the people they're making products for. And the US is one of their biggest customers.
That's not what anyone serious is saying because it's just splitting hairs. Everyone buys from China, the US accounts for 15% of China's total imports so clearly their role here is exaggerated again. China also consumes much of their own manufacturing, while the US also exports many services elsewhere, so should US emissions be counted in other countries? And then there are also structural dynamics in how surplus economies intentionally suppress their demand to run surpluses.
In a world of comparative advantage, I don't see the particular value in performing funny calculations to divy up moral blame according to shifting trade dynamics, just much easier to point it out as shared global responsiblity in the path for Modernity.