The West\u2019s narrative of Chinese \u201covercapacity\u201d is a double standard, said a former chief economist of the World Bank as he urged advanced economies to draw on \u201cEastern wisdom\u201d rather than protectionism to navigate the rise of hi-tech competition.<\/p>\n
Justin Lin Yifu, a prominent advocate of Beijing\u2019s industrial policy, dismissed claims that China\u2019s auto-export surge was a sign of industrial imbalance. Speaking at Hong Kong Chu Hai College, Lin drew a contrast with Germany to expose a logical inconsistency in the current Western rhetoric.<\/p>\n
\u201c[Western countries] say China became the world\u2019s largest car exporter because of overcapacity, but if we look at which country has the highest share of auto exports \u2013 it is Germany,\u201d Lin said during a question and answer session following his keynote speech at the college on Friday.<\/p>\n
He noted that Germany exports about 4 million vehicles a year, accounting for roughly 80 per cent of its total production. In contrast, he said, China exports around 7 million vehicles, representing about 20 per cent of its output, with the rest absorbed domestically.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf Germany\u2019s ratio is taken as the benchmark, then China would be seen as having \u2018undercapacity\u2019, not overcapacity,\u201d said Lin, who is now dean of the Institute of New Structural Economics at Peking University.<\/p>\n
Lin\u2019s remarks underscore the persistent debate over China\u2019s industrial policies, which he has championed for decades. While these state-backed efforts have cemented China\u2019s dominance in green technology and other fields, they have also fuelled accusations of \u201covercapacity\u201d and dumping from major trading partners such as the United States and the European Union.<\/p>\n
\u201cA major issue for developing nations is that we often fall into the trap of adopting [Western] rhetoric,\u201d he said, slamming the \u201covercapacity\u201d talking point as a \u201ccomplete double standard\u201d.<\/p>\n
While China admitted that \u201covercapacity in some industries\u201d was a problem during a high-level conference in 2023<\/a> \u2013 and frequent mention has been made of neijuan, the excessive industrial competition<\/a> that can lead to redundancies in supply chains \u2013 officials and state media have refuted charges from the US and EU that Beijing was weaponising its vast manufacturing power to disrupt global trade.I think Western countries should learn from the wisdom of Eastern countriesJustin Lin Yifu, economist<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West\u2019s narrative of Chinese \u201covercapacity\u201d is a double standard, said a former chief economist of the World…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":543322,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[5713,84,891,23502,168892,1294,935,145,187179,386,168345,13256,6236,56,54,158,55,43025],"class_list":{"0":"post-543321","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-beijing","9":"tag-business","10":"tag-china","11":"tag-chinese","12":"tag-economic-daily","13":"tag-economy","14":"tag-european-union","15":"tag-germany","16":"tag-hong-kong-chu-hai-college","17":"tag-japan","18":"tag-justin-lin-yifu","19":"tag-overcapacity","20":"tag-protectionism","21":"tag-uk","22":"tag-united-kingdom","23":"tag-united-states","24":"tag-unitedkingdom","25":"tag-world-bank"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543321","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=543321"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/543321\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/543322"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=543321"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=543321"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=543321"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}