Are there are smartphones not made in China? In short, the options are few and far between, but yes, there are some smartphones not made in China. Arguably, most of the smartphones not made in China are made elsewhere “by accident,” but there is one company that is fairly committed to keeping manufacturing in Taiwan: HTC.
This is an older article from 2012.
20181214/https://www.cnet.com/news/are-any-smartphones-not-made-in-china/
This is an article that is up-to-date with the times of 2018.
20181214/https://www.zdnet.com/pictures/10-best-smartphones-not-made-in-china/
So, what does the Wikipedia article have to say on HTC? Alas, HTC is kind of pulling out of the smartphones business. After having collaborated on the development of the Pixel smartphone, they sold a bunch of their smartphone talent and IP to Google in 2017. Ah, but from the previous article, I saw some of the Google Pixel smartphones were made in Taiwan, although not marketed as such. Well, there you go. That’s where to go to look for the “modern HTC” smartphones.
20181214/https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTC