There's no reason all the stuff we buy from China can't be made in the west, but no-one would want to pay the prices we'd have to charge.
Not saying that's not true, but I'm a little surprised. It has never been easier to obtain chemicals and other raw materials from international suppliers: Sigma Aldrich (now owned by Merck Millipore) and Thermo Fisher are able to supply an absolutely bewildering range of chemicals and other raw materials, in addition to the small specialist distributors and resellers that have sprung up in the last 20 years. Some of these materials are certainly supplied from China, but many are not, or at least not solely. TBH it would be more of a problem if one of those 2 companies I mentioned refused to sell something to a lab, although you can be sure a similar material would almost certainly be available from someone else. The only exceptions being some very specialised materials protected by IP and only sold with a license like some of the specially modified cells for expressing proteins from Invitrogen (part of Thermo Fisher) although there are other systems outside those now too.
There was a change that started about 30 years ago when big pharma were downsizing and merging. A lot of guys took VS & set up their own businesses, and the industry that supplies raw materials realised and started dealing with the 'little guys' and their startups. By the time I had my own business in 2009, Fisher had startup packages and discounts for the startups, and I could get anything I could pay for.