My mistake, I thought they filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, reorganized, and never actually went bankrupt.
Yes, they went into Ch. 11. The context of your post seemed to suggest that GM had somehow turned itself around by building better cars. They didn’t, they are now profitable because their debts were written off in the reorganization (i.e. “went bankrupt” in the common usage), their cars are no better than they were prior to Ch.11, which is to say they weren’t nearly as bad as many people seem to think, but that’s another topic for another day.
GM’s success in China isn’t a great analogy for this topic, since almost none of the cars they sell in China were imported, and China levies a hefty tariff of 25% on imported cars. The car industry in general isn’t a great analogy, most cars sold in the US are built in the US, whether the marque is an “import” or not, even when the US largely does not restrict the trade in cars. Carmaking is an operation that requires such amounts of fixed capital that carmakers mostly end up making cars where they sell them regardless.