2026-06-02
7 分钟The Economist.
Hi, I'm Sarah Wu, co-host of Drum Tower, our podcast about China.
Welcome to Editor's Picks.
We've handpicked an article for you from the most recent edition of The Economist.
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AMERICA'S artificial-intelligence boom has put the rich economies of north-east Asia into overdrive.
Taiwan's output is growing at a blistering 14% annual pace,
thanks to soaring sales of chips and servers for data centres.
In the past year operating profits at South Korea's makers of memory chips have risen by over 500%.
Even sluggish Japan is benefiting—though it long ago lost its title as the world's pre-eminent chipmaker.
In 2025 all three countries enjoyed record exports and current-account surpluses.
The region's export bonanza, though, obscures an important story in the rest of its economy.
As we report, outside its highest-tech sectors, rich north-east Asia is deindustrialising.
Strong competition from China, paired with increasing specialisation in chips,
has disrupted an economic model based on a wider range of manufacturing exports—
the model that helped make the region prosperous in the 1980s and 1990s.
Even as it booms, north-east Asia increasingly needs reform.
In the past few years China's relations with its rich neighbours have been transformed.
Once it imported high-value parts from north-east Asia and focused on low-value final assembly.
Now it competes across the whole supply chain.