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 cos...