, Columnist
It's a Bad Time to Depend on China
Beijing is shedding its export-driven growth model.
Building on shaky foundations.
Photographer: Lam Yik Fei/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
Now that Chinese industry is slowing down, countries that became dependent on its spectacular growth -- especially raw materials suppliers -- will need to adjust. In some cases, they'll have to reinvent their economies.
Global trade volume dropped by 1.5 percent in the first quarter, and by 0.5 percent more in the following three months. This was the worst fall in six years, and there's a lively academic debate as to why it happened. No explanation, however, fails to mention China's role in the abnormally high trade growth of the last two decades, a phenomenon best visualized by comparing the expansion of Chinese exports against that of the global economy: