China's premier says China wants to be a market for the world, not...
Brad Setser@Brad_Setser
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Jan 24, 2026
~1 min read
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China's premier says China wants to be a market for the world, not just a source of supply.
He might want to get get started.
China exported over 7m passenger cars in 2025, and the pace of growth accelerated at the end of the year
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He might want to get get started.
China exported over 7m passenger cars in 2025, and the pace of growth accelerated at the end of the year
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Passenger car imports are down to half a million, and falling fast ... no market for the world there
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As an aside the pace of China's (N)EV exports doubled over the course of 2025 -- huge, huge growth ... China is still a source of global supply there, not a source of global demand
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For every dollar of imports of manufactured goods, China now exports $2.3 ... the unbalanced nature of auto trade is typical
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Net out processing imports and the ratio is over 4 -- exports of manufacturers net of processing are over 13% of GDP, imports net of processing are under 3% of GDP
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There has been very little growth in China's imports of manufactures in dollar terms over the last 12ys (the growth actually goes away if you take out chip imports)
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And over the last 6 years imports of manufactures are up $200b while exports are up $1.24 trillion -- a ratio of 6 to 1
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Falling export prices have held down China's dollar exports v the GDP of its trading partners, but China's global surplus in manufactures remains an unprecedented 2 pp of world GDP
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