China's industrial might is hard to capture in numbers.
The country accounts for more than 30% of global manufacturing,
or more than America, Germany, Japan and South Korea combined.
That figure understates the growing terror
that Chinese-made stuff inspires in foreign competitors and governments alike.
Chinese goods are cheap and getting cheaper,
because firms there are both efficient and locked in a domestic price war of epic brutality.
After nearly three years of continuous falls in factory-gate prices,
many firms are bleeding money and desperate to sell into foreign markets, where margins are fatter.
Chinese export growth is impressive when measured by value.
It is positively fantastical when measured by volume.
Just before the covid-19 pandemic,
a third of all containers carrying exports around the world contained stuff assembled, grown or processed in China.
Today China's share of global export containers is over 36%,
though the country represents around a fifth of world GDP.
A foreign business boss in China foresees a reckoning:
There will come a point in time when China and the world simply cannot absorb more Chinese goods,
and I think that point is approaching.
Meanwhile, valuable markets in China are being walled off.
New rules limit imports of computer chips, medical devices and more,