Opinion | China Isn’t Conquering the Global Economy. It’s Liquidating Itself.

By a Southeast Asia-based supply chain manager

For years, China’s global ambitions have been framed in terms of dominance: building the Belt and Road, scaling AI and green tech, rewriting the rules of trade. But standing on the factory floors of Southeast Asia today, I see something far less triumphant—and far more desperate.

It doesn’t feel like a rise. It feels like a clearance sale.

Across industries—solar panels, electric vehicles, steel, home appliances—Chinese goods are flooding international markets at prices that defy logic. Not efficiency. Not even state-backed competition. But loss-leading liquidation.

From my vantage point inside the manufacturing networks of Thailand and Vietnam, what’s unfolding looks less like economic expansion and more like an attempt to offload unsustainable overcapacity before the music stops.

The Illusion of Expansion

On paper, China’s export engine appears intact. In reality, it’s wheezing. Factories are pushing goods out the door at cost—or below—to keep assembly lines running. Government subsidies are cushioning the fall, but barely. In some sectors, especially EVs and solar, producers aren’t playing to win—they’re playing to survive.

This is not a sign of confidence. It’s a symptom of structural strain: weak domestic demand, a property market still in crisis, and a private sector choked by uncertainty.

Chinese companies, increasingly shut out of Western markets due to sanctions and distrust, have turned to the Global South. They build factories in Malaysia, slap “Made in Thailand” on their exports, and reroute their supply chains to skirt U.S. scrutiny. But the problem isn’t just geopolitical. It’s existential.

You can’t subsidize your way out of stagnation forever.

Collateral Damage in Asia

In Southeast Asia, we feel it directly. Local firms—those without state support or billion-dollar export arms—are being crushed. I’ve watched Thai manufacturers retreat from R&D, Vietnamese suppliers convert their lines to serve Chinese conglomerates, and regional brands abandon dreams of independence.

The effect is chilling: economies that once hoped to “climb the value chain” are becoming satellite workshops—not of global innovation, but of China’s manufacturing glut.

It’s economic gravity, not strategy. And it’s pulling everything down.

Trust, Once Lost

Western executives still talk about the “China market” as if it’s a prize waiting to be claimed. That may have been true twenty years ago. Today, it’s a mirage. I’ve worked with companies who entered with optimism and exited hollowed out—intellectual property siphoned, partnerships dissolved, contracts unenforceable.

China remains a massive consumer market—but only for those willing to give up control, pricing power, and sometimes dignity. For others, it’s a trap.

The issue isn’t whether China can produce. It’s whether anyone can build sustainable value alongside it.

Not a Strategy, a Stall

What I’m seeing now, on the ground, isn’t a confident superpower positioning itself for the next century. It’s a giant manufacturer throwing everything it has at the global market—just to stay afloat.

Yes, America is responding—talking about “friendshoring,” rebuilding domestic capacity, and restricting advanced exports. But while Washington debates long-term industrial strategy, Beijing is playing a much shorter game.

Sell now. Move fast. Worry later.

It’s easy to mistake motion for momentum. But they’re not the same.

The Silence Before the Crash

Lately, there’s been a new tone in Chinese industry: quiet. Factory expansions are being postponed. Exporters are going dark. Subsidy programs are hitting limits. The energy has changed.

In my experience, this kind of stillness often comes just before collapse. When companies know the end is near, they stop marketing. They stop making promises. They just try to hold on.

I don’t know if China’s economic model is facing imminent collapse. But I do know this: the rest of us should stop mistaking desperation for dominance.

The world isn’t being conquered by Chinese manufacturing. It’s being distorted—and in some cases, hollowed out—by a country racing to delay its reckoning.

The danger is not that China will overtake us.

It’s that it might drag us down with it.

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