Bad article IMO. "Only the west has the right to position itself as world industrial leader, China doing it afterwards is bad", "renewable energy sucks", "neoliberals are dumb but I buy into crying about sovereign debt", "China's economy is about to burst trust me bro, now it's the high competitivity between companies and the resulting deflation", "no more consumers can be created because only China and the west can consume, not the entirety of the global south", "China will go to war because of youth unemployment in an equal capacity and blame as the US despite not entering a war in half a century"...

I understand the overall point being that infinite growth isn't possible, but idk why it assumes that China's growth is done when it's growing GDP at 5% yearly. China growing faster than the west is a fundamental good for anti-imperialism, renewables and nuclear are cool and pioneered by China.

Look I wish China was more radically environmentalist too but the fact they've built so much and armed so aggressively and they still aren't safe from US aggression militarily or economically indicates why their strategy has been necessary. The US would not be ignoring them if they produced less.

both China and the US seems to be incentivized to go to war with each other. The former to hide its overcapacity and youth unemployment issue and the latter to mask its already quite visible and accelerating decline.

I don't think China has an incentive to go to war with anyone, I also think the overcapacity issue is what China was intending for, producing massive amounts of solar panels and investing money into EV tech is something a centralized economy would want to do for the sake of humanity.

And as far as I can tell, industrialization in China never left. What America and Europe did over the past ~50 years was move industrialization to other countries so they could exploit ~~cheap~~ slave labor from the global south.

While China has been making deals with many countries in the global south, the minerals that are extracted are sent back to China to be repurposed. I think they will hopefully realize how powerful an industrialized society is on a global scale, even though exploiting foreign labor seems lucrative in the short term.

It would make sense for America to instigate a war with China due to losing their chokehold on the world's economy, but with how things are going currently, China does not need to make such a rash decision, the author themselves cited that BRICS consumes over half of the world's energy currently, while tying that to energy consumption = industrial output.

It was an interesting read though, I hope others here can contribute to the discussion with a better material analysis of it.

The author points at supposed "overproduction" as proof that China is outgrowing demand, but this ignores the role of central planning. An alternative explanation is that they're actually trying to get prices down to distribute more commodities to more people.

Also, I don't get deflation. It seems extremely easy to solve? Just give people free money and they'll spend it and heat up the economy.

underestimates the role the state can play. too much fear mongering about public 'debt'. U.S.. West's de-industrialization was a choice. Capitalists care about turning money into more money, skipping production entirely (the C part) and moving to finance is a way to do that. The most egregious version of this is cryptocurrency, which has zero book value or any future cash flows rooted in production (eg. dividends).

My thoughts are that most Hexbears will default to the laziest, least charitable, kneejerk reading possible as soon as any criticism of China arises, even from sources that are pretty clearly not pro-American.

Interesting piece, thanks for sharing.

I totally get why some people are a bit upset at this article. It makes good points in some areas, but in others will say ridiculous things like China wants a war. Which all evidence points to the opposite.

I dont think its really the authors fault though. They seem to have fallen for Chinas facade. See China understands all of this. The CPC is actively playing by the "rules" of capitalism and winning at it. And people in the west see this, and think of they are going to KEEP playing by the rules. And if they did then this would all likely be true. But they wont.

See what i think China is doing is it is putting itself into the perfect situation so that when it upends the board, and stops playing by the rules its in a fantastic position. To a capitalist lots of debt, and over production looks like a problem. All China sees is a country with better infrastructure that somebody else paid for. And plenty of industrial capacity.

So what happens if China says "Oh that debt? Cancelled. We arent paying it. Also all that excess industrial capacity ya we arent selling goods to you anymore. We'll be using that to rebuild the global south you destroyed."

What can the west do? They cant beat China in a war. Their economic sanctions wont work. Theyve already sanctioned half the world.

What it will be is a civilizational schism. Where China, and the nations that follow it begin to operate under a totally new set of rules, and conditions. Which break the wests hold on international trade and relations. Causing economic collapse in the west unlike anything we have ever seen before. Which will make their ability to respond militarily, which is their only option, much weaker.

That is the power of a Socialist mode of production. Its a revolution of the global economy. It doesnt need to be profitable. As long as you have the means to keep peoples lifestyles sustained via domestic production your fine. And China does. The few areas they struggle in. Energy production, Food, and Chips are actively being remedied. Thorium Salt Reactors, New domestic Chips, and rural agricultural pushes. Once those are ready they can start the transition.

Canada, France, Italy, Japan, Spain, the United Kingdom, and the United States are all carrying debt equal to more than 100 percent of their GDP. Most of this “D-7” group borrowed heavily during the global financial crisis and again during the COVID-19 pandemic. Japan has been swimming in debt for a quarter century. Yet in terms of the D-7’s reliance on global credit markets, things are at their worst now.

D7, very funny gonna have to remember that one

I know this is long but if you're realy interested, the economic point is rubish and debunked, see Michael's writing(China's unfair overcapacity). This author is repeating the same mainstream econ discourse that is just econ 101 which fails when you actualy pay attention to the events so far.

This narrative keeps being repeated only because its mainstream econ discourse. I'll try to give you a brief timeline of what happened.

As we know this "overcapacity" issue began mysteriously in late 2023 when Biden and the EU started turning more aggressive towards China, they got pissed off their industry can't compete with Chinese renewable exports and the only resource left for Biden would be either the Trump trade war and tariffs method or a heavy neoliberal attack. So the US choose the later, primarily with a heavy focus to let China know that their economy is Not Ok if they continue to export this much.

So soon after Blinken and notably Janet Yellen went to China to explain to them China needs to accept this and do something or else there would be more consequences.

What followed in late 2024 was the CPC accepted this demand, they pushed "consumption" incentives. They listened to the same western neoliberal economists and their solution is to reduce these exports as much as possible to save whatever is left of western industry and stop the consistent soft power gains achieved by Chinese dominance in renewable energy.

The evidence for this continued on even despite the Trump tariffs, western media sometimes let the mask fall off, The opportunity in China’s solar ‘overcapacity’. I'll quote from the Financial Times even admitting this.

Last year, the world installed 452 gigawatts’ worth of solar panels, according to the International Renewable Energy Agency — increasing the total installed base by 32 per cent in a single year. But the world’s solar factories — overwhelmingly in China — now have enough capacity to produce 1,200 gigawatts’ worth, most of which is sitting unused, according to BloombergNEF estimates.

Did these companies simply overestimate the pace of solar installation growth? Not necessarily, according to analysts at Wood Mackenzie. Chinese solar producers, they argue, are fighting each other in an exceptionally fierce battle for market share, which is forcing them to make constant heavy investments in new production lines making the latest generation of technology.

Despite the pearl clutching over capitalist profits, they admit exactly what we want to see. Constant heavy investments in new production lines making the latest generation of technology is what actualy grows the economy, according to a Marxist principle.

But rather than view this capacity as a problem, what if China and the world moved to take advantage of it? In a policy paper last year, Richard Black and Muyi Yang of the think-tank Ember argued that the problem was not of “overcapacity” but of “underdeployment”. If China’s “spare” solar capacity were put to use, they argued, it would enable the world to meet the goal — agreed at the COP28 summit — of tripling renewable generation capacity by 2030.

By supporting this industry’s continued growth and subsidising solar deployment in developing nations, they argue, China could achieve multiple goals at once. It would avoid a painful contraction in this labour-intensive, economically significant sector, while burnishing its soft power in the global south — and its claim to be a leader in global climate action.

Beijing’s recent efforts to slow the pace of solar investment suggest that it’s not convinced by this logic. But as Xi Jinping’s government prepares its next five-year plan — due for publication later this year — it has an opportunity to take fuller advantage of China’s dominance in clean tech manufacturing.

I think the emphasis should speak for itself. The takeaway is correct too unforuntately. The CPC isn't "convinced" they must use this advantage in renewable energy production for because they are not Marxists nor follow Marxist economic principles. What they follow is neoliberal economics with government intervention, when conflict appears, they side with the mainstream consensus as shown here.

So what exactly is the solution to this problem anyway?

The Marxist principle here should be the same utilized during the previous initial housing crash when Evergrande failed and the CPC let them go bankrupt. Indeed the first principle is capitalists are not entitled to a profit and in such a hybrid economy the CPC should take control of these failing companies as part of the expansion of the public sector. This is the argument Michael made during the Evergrande crash. China: Xi’s third term – part two: property, debt and common prosperity

So the solution is if these industries are unprofitable you take ownership of them, transform the entire sector into a public sector, shove cheap renewables to the world at cost or low profits. The goal is to move towards socialism isn`t it?

On the topic of your OP title, What is China's mistake in reality?

I think its clear through the past 15 years of CPC messaging and economic strategy that unfortunately Dengism is not a path to socialism but rather the final destination. The CPC repeats the same neoliberal economic consensus theory as the western capitalists in the post cold war era. There is no point fighting "globalization", we must accept peaceful "rules based" relations at all costs. China doesn't recognize nor cares about the global struggle against capitalism, fundamentally there is no such thing anymore.

Now China's mistake is to think they've won even though we're heading towards the climate change abyss.

The second part of this mistake then is China's refusal to understand BRI can't mask the costs of western imperialism. This is the biggest ideological betrayal IMO. The assumption that happy face Chinese investment on one hand can compensate for their incredibly bad FP on the other hand.

To give an closest to me. though I believe you can find many of these elsewhere. The recent news China wants to help invest on some railroad project in Brazil towards Peru. Awesome right? How does one squares this with China's state oil company being just as invested into drilling the Amazon as the western oil companies? In this land grab by China's CNPC, Exxon Mobil and Chevron.

This is the same mistake, long story short, Dengist China does not want to actualy move away from capitalism at this time. They do not care to understand the light at the end of the tunnel is the climate change freight train coming at us. China's ideal of a global economy they can rely on is a costly generational mistake they'll pay for dearly.

I could write more but I hope this is already helpful, though the article you linked is not particularly good so I focus on the point I am know the most.