China’s Growth Is Coming at the Rest of the World’s Expense Volvo cars awaiting export at Nanjing’s port in eastern China. Cfoto/Zuma Press Pop quiz. Who has contributed more to the rest of the world’s growth this year: China or the United States? The answer is the U.S., and it isn’t even close. Even as the U.S. rolls out tariffs, its imports are up 10% so far this year from a year earlier. And as China moralizes against protectionism, its imports are down 3%, in dollar terms. Advertisement The U.S. figures might be an anomaly, reflecting front-running of tariffs. China’s are not. In the past five years, its export volumes have soared while imports have flatlined. China is swallowing up a growing share of the world’s market for manufactured goods. This reveals an uncomfortable truth: Beijing is pursuing a “beggar thy neighbor” growth model at everyone else’s expense. A recent report by economists at Goldman Sachs starkly laid this out. In the past, they wro...
