Well, the question should really be: “does trade interdependence increase or decrease that threat”.
I have a degree in International Relations, and my whole time at University I was a free-trade kid, slingin' Hayek and Friedman like they were going out of style. I wrote numerous papers with "interdependence" in the title, explaining whole-heartedly why it was a good thing which would reduce conflict and war.
Been there, done that, bought the original cast album and t-shirt. I still believe in free trade with a couple of caveats. One, it depends upon your partners behaving in good faith. Second, while it can reduce war by making the cost of war much greater than what can be achieved, it doesn't necessarily reduce conflict by other means if the first caveat isn't respected.
Per [Edit: comment was by Vjosullivan, above] about whether it's proved that Chinese manufactured goods have had secret backdoors, etc: that's a Red Herring to my argument. It is certainly a fact that almost all attempts at hacking big institutions from around the world seem to come aggressively from one country. That country also has been caught red handed multiple times attempting usual spycraft of smuggling IP and outright attacking and stealing government documents from the US. It's all in the usual security reports, and it's not heavily publicized, because the U.S. State Department (and Allies) do not need the headache of pushing this to the forefront of a world with more "kinetic" bad actors.
In my observation, China is the epitome of a mature fascist state. (I'm using the academic definition here of "fascism," not making Nazi allusions.) I'm saying like the theories of Mussolini, and more like versions of Peronism or even DeGaullism: aggressive nationalism tinged with racism in which one party acts as the authority of tying the state in with entities of business and private ownership.
There is no information sector in China like our own Silicon Valley which badmouths the "militarism" of their own country and refuses to work with it. There is no toleration for private corporations who demand privacy and civil rights on behalf of their customers. Every private entity has Party officials on its board, per law, and no press is allowed to say that this is a bad thing. Those who attempt to say it, if not outright shut down, are being oppressed in more subtle ways enabled by technology. (Social Credit, etc.)
Of course you find people in China who badmouth or distrust Apple and Dell, or more importantly say out loud for others to hear — those are American companies. Nobody in China is going to be punished for distrusting or badmouthing America. In fact, it's encouraged. The fact that they do not say the same thing about Huewei proves my point about the creepy totalitarianism of a mature fascist state.
The Chinese has asserted it's right several times to have back door access to its citizens online activities. It asserts a right to track people's IP and MAC addresses. Linus Torvalds can complain outright about government entities asking him to provide backdoors to his OS and tout his outright refusal to do so.
So whether all our Huewei devices will wake up in the middle of the night and steal our nuclear codes — or at least more realistically and subtly — whether our dependence on Chinese fabrication means we'll be totally at the mercy of China in any crisis, it matters little to people just on the short-term consumer level.
I am not suggesting Silicon Valley is the "good guy" here, either. They're the opportunist and hypocritical guy, in fact. They assist China in their technological efforts, speaking seemingly gracefully about free trade while watching their own bottom lines.
There has always been major electronics fabrication in Mexico in Zona Metropolitana de Tijuana since the dawn of electronics manufacturing. But Mexico's economy has stagnated because maybe a lot of what
should have been built there over the last 20 years has been built in China for shortsighted reasons.
It's hard to suggest this as a political priority. Because it's not popular. I'm saying, well, if we invest more in forcing public schools to properly teach machine tooling, and after some other heavy investment, we'll have a modicum of net jobs added to the economy after spending a few billion on newer automation with 3D fabrication and C&C machines, and still with new electronics probably costing more. That's not going to be hugely popular. But I think it's right.
But I'll stand by this. Right now I do not believe it is possible to micro manufacture -- much less mass manufacture -- a computer or a phone without components built under the eye of the Chinese Communist Party. I believe the USA, the EU, AnZac, Japan, Taiwain, etc., will look back and regret that this was allowed to happen.
