TO CATCH A glimpse of China’s industrial heft, visit Changxing Island in the country’s north-east. There, jutting into the Bohai Sea, is one piece of the machine: a specialised petrochemical plant that opened in 2012 and has grown relentlessly ever since. It represents, in condensed form, the powerful mixture that has fuelled China’s : policy directives, state support, local incentives and restless entrepreneurs.
For the rest of the world it is also a cautionary tale. Hope springs eternal that China might rein in its excess capacity, perhaps as a result of its “anti-involution” campaign, the government’s latest attempt to curb cut-throat competition among domestic producers. But Changxing Island shows it is more realistic to expect another path—namely, that other countries will find it ever harder to displace China in global supply chains.