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Using the fastener you mentioned as an example. In 2021 US number one fasteners supplier was Taiwan, not PRC. US fasteners imported from Taiwan was at least two times of the value of from PRC.
Taiwan's labor cost is much higher than PRC's. In 2021 Taiwan's GDP per capita was 2.6 times of PRC's but still managed to export much more fasteners (in value) to US than PRC did. It means more high value and sophisticated fasteners are made in Taiwan than in PRC.
Ever heard of EU anti-dumping tariffs on Chinese fasteners，or US 25% tariffs on all Chinese goods？A lot of China's export items fall into this category，therefore they are difficult to compete with the likes of Taiwan，whom doesn't face these kind trade barrier
As for labour cost. Actually，in many industries labor cost only constitute a very small part of overall costs. A lot of stuffs are actually cheaper to make in the US or other high labour costs countries. For instance，Chinese domestic semiconductor equipments are more expensive than their Western equivalent，despite lower labour costs. Fastener is not a labour intensive industry，otherwise the top exporter will be countries like Vietnam/India/Bangladesh etc，the likes of Japan or German won't be on the list
www.goebelfasteners.com