Global export blitz reveals China’s real aims
Beijing is ‘daring other countries to do something about it’ as it continues to scale up manufacturing
China’s mask has slipped, and the charade is over. It is finally time the rest of world woke up to the flood of exports washing over their shores. And the damage done to decades of “intellectual property theft,” which has fueled the rise of the country’s manufacturing might.
Last week at the China Development Forum in Beijing, Premier Li Qiang parroted the Communist Party line that “industrial progress” had been driven by “hard work.” He talked about “innovation and dedication” – not government subsidies or protection.
Nothing could be further from the truth about the scale of technological theft and state subsidies orchestrated by President Xi Jinping’s regime. Instead, they have dropped the propaganda babble and tried to export their way out of economic stagnation at home.
“China’s leaders clearly understand that much of the rest of the world is deeply concerned about the influx of Chinese goods hitting their markets,” Andrew Polk, partner and co-founder of Trivium China, said over the weekend.
“But rather than seeking to assuage those concerns – and avoid future fits of trade tension and retaliation – they seem to be daring other countries to do something about it,” he wrote in the research and consultancy group’s newsletter.
The Chinese government is engaged in a broad campaign of theft.
Christopher Wray, former FBI Director
Where we stand:
- China reported a record US$1.2 trillion trade surplus last year. Exports to Europe jumped by nearly 10%, powered by wind turbines, solar panels, and electric vehicles.
- At home, the Party faces a stagnating domestic economy. Consumer spending is shrinking after the crippling property crash in 2021, triggering rising unemployment.
Delve deeper: Fears are growing that the world is facing a Second China Shock after the upheaval in the opening decade of the 21st century. The United States lost up to two million manufacturing jobs just 10 years after China joined the World Trade Organization.
Between the lines: Fast forward to 2026, and the country’s manufacturing “overcapacity” is threatening Europe’s industrial base. A flood of cheap EVs, high-tech products, and chemicals are wreaking havoc, MERICS, the Berlin-based think tank, warned.
Big picture: Still, the writing was on the wall in 2020. Then-FBI Director Christopher Wray accused Beijing of “one of the largest transfers of wealth in human history” by ripping off vast amounts of American and European intellectual property rights.
Bottom line: “The Chinese government is engaged in a broad, diverse campaign of theft and malign influence, and it can execute that campaign with authoritarian efficiency,” he said in an explosive speech at the Hudson Institute in Washington.
China Factor comment: Beijing’s grip on critical minerals, the building blocks of today’s high-tech world, has added to trade tensions. Those will only escalate between China and the US alliance of democracies in Europe and the rest of the world.