For more than 100 years, Ohio’s Huffy Bicycle Co. has been a nationally recognized brand Americans have associated with recreation and the outdoors. Launched in Dayton back in 1892, Huffy has more recently become known for laying off workers in three states — including Ohio — and moving operations to China.

Not only are Huffy bikes now made in China, but the company is majority owned by the Sinosure Group, a Chinese government entity. Several Sinosure representatives sit on Huffy’s board of directors.

Since the China takeover of Huffy, American consumers of Huffy products have been rewarded with a series of recalls for both children’s and adult bikes, the most recent taking place in October.

The Huffy story is part of an unfortunate and continuing trend of U.S. manufacturing moving offshore. It’s an especially disappointing story for Ohioans because the Buckeye State is an ideal location for manufacturing. With the nation’s 10th largest highway network, and water transport links through the Great Lakes and the Ohio River, goods can be shipped from Ohio to half of North America within a day.

Ohio’s manufacturers produce many consumer goods and are prominent in producing capital goods such as tools and chemicals used in the manufacture of other products. And Ohio’s highly skilled work force constitutes a political “swing state” that gives it a prominent voice on the national stage.

Yet Ohio’s manufacturers have suffered massive losses over the last decade. Ohio’s manufacturing sector has experienced a 22 percent decrease in employment since 2000. And although manufacturing still contributes $85.3 billion to the state’s economy and is its largest individual contributor, the job losses continue. As a direct result of the enormous U.S. trade deficit with China, it’s estimated that Ohio lost 66,100 jobs from 2001 to 2006.

This happens because China cheats.

Because of the explosion of safety problems with Chinese products, its booming manufacturing sector has recently attracted attention from U.S. consumers — but not necessarily our politicians. Some analysts take the incomplete view that the low cost of Chinese-produced goods outweighs the loss of manufacturing jobs. It is unlikely the 242,000 Ohioans who’ve lost manufacturing jobs since 2000 would agree.

China ignores international treaty obligations and flaunts its non-compliance fearlessly. Although it promised to end currency manipulation when joining the World Trade Organization in 2001, it continues to illegally undervalue its currency. Chinese manufacturers, predominately owned by the government in the first place, are given free land, infrastructure, and “loans” with no expectation of payback. In the last five years alone, the Chinese government poured $52 billion of subsidies into its state-owned steel industry.

Chinese manufacturing benefits financially from ignoring the few environmental laws on its books. Waterways and wells in China run red and purple with dyes and toxins that factories dump into ground and river. Many Chinese factories disregard international norms for workers by embracing low pay, forced labor, and deplorable work conditions.

The migration of jobs to China also has serious national security implications. Large military equipment sits idle in repair centers as the few American companies left that provide spare parts or tools have dwindled to a trickle. Humvees receive armor plating at a painful pace as only one U.S. manufacturer of armored steel remains.

Thanks to its lopsided balance of trade with the U.S., China has been able to increase its military funding by 18.2 percent during the last year, much of it focused on emerging military space applications.

Despite the ability to address China’s cheating through existing trade laws, our government has done little to solve the problem. But Ohio’s status as an important swing state in presidential elections provides an opportunity for Ohioans to pose questions to presidential hopefuls about U.S. job losses and China’s looming economic threat.

In fact, the urgency of America’s manufacturing crisis has prompted the Alliance for American Manufacturing, a nonprofit partnership of some leading manufacturers and their union, to hold a meeting Thursday in Columbus to address these voter concerns. AAM wants voters to ask simple, direct questions of the various presidential candidates: As president, how would you save American manufacturing jobs? What steps would you take to strengthen U.S. manufacturing? How would you enforce U.S. trade law and hold cheating countries accountable?

These are vital questions that deserve clear answers. It’s well past time for America to steer its way back to creating new manufacturing jobs.