Frankly, I don't give a rat's ass where something is made as long as it is well-made. I don't mind paying more for better quality and if that means production in a higher-income market then I'm fine with that, but the two are not always connected.
Japanese and Indian Whiskeys taste great. And I've never held an Ibanez bass in my hands that wasn't made well, even when they were still copying. Even though it's currently falling out of fashion, I'm still a globalist in the sense that I don't attach quality automatically to nationality. I've never bought a German car in my life, my cars were Swedish and are now Chinese (Volvo) and if you want to know something: Ever since they went Chinese, their quality rose.
The Junior will return in some shape or form, don't worry. Gibson works in cycles. They even had the knack of producing a long scale model that wasn't neck-heavy (!), but for whatever reason that remained in the vaults as a prototype (I have one) and they went for single cut in the 90ies Les Paul series (which never did so great though they were fine basses).