China’s export success is a by-product of self-reliance

Not a day passes without someone in Europe or the United States complaining about China’s “overproduction” and “China shock 2.0”. The narrative is of a deliberate, subversive Chinese strategy, underpinned by subsidies, to undermine the manufacturing economies of the West and exert economic hegemony worldwide.
Inaccurate as the narrative may be, it is widely accepted and used to justify demands for protection. The larger China’s trade surpluses, the louder the likely clamour from Western...