As a technology journalist, I've grown accustomed to a certain narrative. Over the past few years, many have told me that the golden age of US-China economic cooperation is behind us. The reasons are familiar: decoupling, supply chain shifts and mounting restrictions on tech transfers. Chips, algorithms and sensitive hardware dominate the headlines — and the tensions.

But standing on the floor of the China International Consumer Products Expo in Hainan province last week, I realized that the narrative is wrong. Because there is another driver in the US-China relationship that rarely makes the front page: consumption.

Walking through the expo halls, I saw US companies not just exhibiting, but thriving. Estee Lauder, for instance, is not simply selling its products here. It is customizing everything — from formulas to packaging — for Chinese consumers. Tapestry, the parent company of Coach and Kate Spade, has built a full-fledged research and development center in Dongguan, Guangdong province. Not a mere "localization office", but a real research hub where products are designed for China and then exported to the world. That's not decoupling. That's deep coupling.

I had the chance to sit down with Sean Stein, president of the US-China Business Council, who accompanied a delegation of US firms to the expo. Stein offered a refreshingly clear-eyed view. "The US and China together play an incredibly big role in trends, R&D, supply chains and what products roll out globally. What's really interesting is seeing American and Chinese companies collaborate and take things global," he told me.

He cited Pop Mart's success in San Francisco as a glimpse of the future — a Chinese brand winning globally through international partnerships." As the world's two largest consumer markets, we should have the world's largest consumer brands working together," Stein said.

That vision stands in stark contrast to the tech-decoupling narrative. Yes, semiconductor cooperation is fraught. Yes, AI and quantum computing face export controls. But consumer goods — cosmetics, fashion, travel retail, life sciences — operate on a different logic. They are driven by demand, not geopolitics. And China's middle-income group, still growing and increasingly discerning, represents a prize no global brand can afford to ignore.

What struck me most was Stein's description of a major US company that refurbishes used products from Southeast Asia and Japan. Previously, it could not do such work in China due to regulations. But after island-wide special customs operations were launched in Hainan in December, the company is now setting up a base on the island to renovate and re-export those products globally. "That's a big, encouraging change," Stein said.

This is the other side of US-China economic relations — quieter, less dramatic, but profoundly resilient. US companies are not "leaving China". They are reinvesting, retooling and reimagining their role. As Stein put it: "No one comes to China for low wages anymore. They come for the highly qualified workforce and the ability to scale."

And they come for the consumers. The expo made it clear that Chinese consumers are not passive recipients of global trends. They are cocreators. When Joanne Crevoiserat, CEO of Tapestry, said that "Chinese consumers are very discerning — they expect high quality and innovation", she wasn't just praising a market. She was explaining why her company does serious R&D in China.

As a tech journalist, I still worry about the state of US-China technology cooperation. The challenges are real. But after Hainan, I also see a different path forward — one where US and Chinese companies jointly shape global consumer trends, share supply chains and co-innovate. That is not the past. It will be the future.

The golden age of chips may be fading, but the golden age of consumers is just beginning.