Xi Jinping’s Critics Arguably Know Economics Less Well Than He

As U.S. economic pundits start to write post-mortems on China’s economy, while making their cases that “a China-dominated world is even less likely than it ever was.” ,one guesses that similar pieces were written by foreign and domestic editorialists back in 2001 about the U.S. Which is why economics writing can be a bit of an ass.

For one, consider what actual U.S. businesses are presently doing in China. Global symbol of Americana McDonald’s Corp. recently announced plans to nearly double its China store count to 10,000 by 2028. As of 2020 there were 4,100 Starbucks stores in China. There are over 6,000 now. So advanced is AI technology in China that the Biden administration has resorted to naively imposing export bans on companies like Nvidia, Intel and AMD as a way of limiting technology sales that “could fuel breakthroughs in artificial intelligence and sophisticated computers” in China, and that would logically (and happily) make their way here to the USA. It seems those in the proverbial arena are expanding in China based on a vision not shared by economists and editorialists.

Much more crucially for Americans overall, the editorial points out that “China remains a top U.S. trading partner.” The only closed economy is the world economy, and if China’s economy declines it will be felt everywhere.