Could we survive in Spain without 'made in China' products? Look in your survival kit or at home. "Beijing doesn't just manufacture, it orchestrates."

If you look around your office or every room in your house, from the furniture, to the appliances, to the car in the garage, they've all been through Beijing. Even if you look in the mirror, the shoes or pajamas you're wearing could be 'made in China'. "From the child's bicycle to the bathroom tile, including agricultural machinery, solar panels, processed fish, chargers, food processors, vegetables, street furniture, sports equipment, and LED lights. We don't see China, but we are within its invisible architecture ," Julio Ceballos, a business consultant in China and author of the book 'The Star Calibrator', tells ABC.

After Trump announced his escalation of tariffs on Beijing in April, a video went viral asking how many items made in China you have at home, and how many that come from the United States. A questionnaire to which Complutense University economics professor Mario del Rosal Crespo tells us he would add another question: "Of the American items you have, which ones were actually produced in the U.S.?"

And not only that, everything from cell phones to the parts used to assemble products has components from Beijing . "It's not just a question of the final product, but of intermediate products whose hypothetical disappearance would have detrimental effects on the Spanish consumer." And this attempt to imagine a country without Chinese products was also made by The New York Times. The truth is, if we reflect on it, could we really continue to maintain our routines without these products?

In 2005 , Sara Borgiorni, an American journalist, and her family spent a year trying to live without Chinese products . She chronicled this experience in her book, "A Year without Made in China." They lived practically with solutions you'd implement when camping.

Today, twenty years later, a similar experience "would no longer be about the origin of the products, but about the influence China has on everything that allows the world to function," says Ceballos. Borgiorni confessed to Business Insider that "the experience with his family was exhausting, uncomfortable, and expensive. " A life without "made in China" would be more expensive, less efficient, and technologically inoperative. China doesn't just manufacture, it orchestrates," he points out.

Ceballos explains that today it would be an impossible odyssey because it's no longer just about products, but entire ecosystems when we talk about 'made in China.' The Asian giant is not just the 'factory of the world,' it's the core of multiple global value chains. "We couldn't turn on our cell phones, place orders on Amazon, get spare parts for practically any everyday consumer product, or decorate our celebrations without China appearing at some point." The most illustrative example for Ceballos was the blackout; a good part of the emergency kit is 'made in China.' Today, renouncing China would be renouncing globalization itself.

Ceballos previously explained that 120 of the world's 197 countries have China as their main trading partner. In Spain, Beijing is close to surpassing Germany as its largest supplier. Ceballos comments that dependence on China is disguised as everyday life. "Living without China in Spain would entail skyrocketing costs, stock shortages in key sectors such as pharmaceuticals, industry, and electronics, and widespread logistical friction." He adds that if in Spain we add demographic aging or political short-termism to our lack of industrial autonomy, we realize that we are not prepared to live without China. "It's a dependence that cannot be resolved in a couple of decades," he states.

"We should also take into account investment flows," Crespo adds. Furthermore, Spanish imports from China totaled €45.174 billion in 2024. In contrast, Spanish exports to China amounted to €7.467 billion. We have a deficit with that country, and the coverage rate, which is a percentage that represents what portion of imports we can pay with what we receive from exports, is 16.5%. "That means that out of every €100 we spend on Chinese products, we can only use €16 that we have received from our sales to China," Crespo explains.

In this ongoing tug-of-war between Trump and China, which Crespo insists is more harmful than beneficial, the US has previously attempted to find alternatives in the markets of Vietnam, India, and Mexico. The point, Ceballos emphasizes, is that Europe cannot replace the Asian giant with a single country, because China is much more than a country: it is the most integrated industrial ecosystem in the world. "A mega-platform of production, talent, logistics, and proactive state policy. But Europe can diversify risks , expanding production capacity to other destinations," Ceballos points out.

He points out that Vietnam and Bangladesh could be options for textiles, India for generic pharmaceuticals and information technology, Mexico for automotive and electronics, Turkey, Poland, and Romania for local manufacturing, or Indonesia or the Philippines for assembly. "Even so, these alternatives don't compete with China in terms of scale, price, or synchronization. And that leads us to an uncomfortable conclusion: there is no global Plan B alternative to China. We only have a fragile patchwork of partial options," he concludes.

Let's think about something as simple as Christmas. Every year, an article comes out around this time with a title like: 'Christmas comes from China.' The Jones family in Los Angeles did it for the documentary 'Xmas without China,' and their experience was no better than Borgiorni's. Conceiving it without products from this country would lead us to " a Christmas in black and white. Literally and metaphorically. Decorations, nativity figures, garlands, toys, Santa Clauses, cell phones, screens, speakers, lights, cameras, drones... China not only produces the tangible, but also the emotional: it manufactures a good part of what builds the festive atmosphere," says Ceballos. Without China, we would have more expensive decorative elements, simpler toys, limited technology, shortages, and slowed trade. "The irony is this: one of the most Western holidays is today, logistically, an Asian production," he concludes.

Borgiorni concluded his book by saying: "What scares me is that we no longer produce anything. What, then, is the place of the US in the global economy?" And if we extend that question to Europe , Ceballos argues that the US maintains control of the narrative, of digital platforms, and of defense, but no longer produces most of what it consumes. "Europe retains quality, creativity, and values, but has forgotten its muscle: without industry, there is no sovereignty. Meanwhile , China executes, plans, builds, and competes. Washington improvises. Brussels regulates. The journalist said it: if we no longer produce anything, the answer is this: whoever doesn't produce is dependent."

And as Crespo points out, economic decisions are linked to diplomatic, political, and military decisions. The most recent example is that China and the United States finally decided to lower their respective tariffs, while entering a 90-day moratorium. The explanation given by experts for this change had to do with Black Friday , the commercial event that marks the start of the Christmas season. "Politics bows to consumption. Trump and Xi know this. Black Friday is part of the backbone of the American way of life and demonstrates that consumption is the true global soft power ," Ceballos states.

The consumer is a hostage to their own desires. And the politician, to their popularity. For Ceballos , interdependence is so high that not even trade wars can overcome the addiction to low-cost and immediate logistics. A tariff war doesn't solve the problem. Crespo adds that it would eliminate the possibility of leveraging the development of others for our own advancement.

Why is China ahead? Ceballos points out that its strategy is successful for three reasons: pragmatism, education as a national infrastructure, and the state as a strategist, not a bureaucrat. China has a plan. "It's a superpower that knows who it has been, who it is, and who it wants to be in 2049: it plays in a different league."

Meanwhile, in Europe, Ceballos maintains that if we do nothing, the future is clear: we will be users of American software, consumers of Chinese hardware, and dependent on technological and industrial infrastructure in places far from Europe. The formula is to commit to real strategic autonomy and diversify risks without falling into isolation. "The alternative is not to dream of returning to the past, but to create a European model that produces value. A Chinese proverb says: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now."