Den nächsten China-Schock verhindern: Eine kollektive Strategie gegen Pekings Merkantilismus

[SS from essay by Aaron L. Friedberg, Professor at Princeton University and a Nonresident Senior Fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.]

According to the theories of economics and trade that are prevalent in the West, Chinese leader [Xi Jinping](https://www.foreignaffairs.com/tags/xi-jinping) has little choice but to pull back: China’s economy has become dangerously imbalanced. In 2022, according to the World Bank, the country accounted for 30 percent of global manufacturing value added but only 13 percent of global consumption. But it is a mistake to presume that Xi and the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) think about the Chinese economy the same way Western economists do. The key to understanding Xi’s economic policies is to recognize that they are principally about power, not prosperity. He will almost certainly forge ahead toward concentrating the world’s industrial power within China, even at the risk of provoking a cataclysmic trade conflict with other countries.