Thinking About China
Opinion

Beijing’s Latest Mistake: China’s Excess Manufacturing Capacity

To offset the property crisis and weak domestic demand, Beijing invested in manufacturing capacity. Now, it has too much and no way to use it.
Beijing’s Latest Mistake: China’s Excess Manufacturing Capacity
A worker at a factory that makes lithium batteries for electric cars and other uses in Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, China, on March 12, 2021. STR/AFP via Getty Images
Milton Ezrati
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Commentary

Faced with the economic drag of China’s ongoing property crisis, dispirited consumers, and discouraged private business owners, Chinese authorities threw the weight of the country’s planning behind manufacturing, especially in areas that they called “new productive forces.”

Milton Ezrati
Milton Ezrati
Author
Milton Ezrati is a contributing editor at The National Interest, an affiliate of the Center for the Study of Human Capital at the University at Buffalo (SUNY), and chief economist for Vested, a New York-based communications firm. Before joining Vested, he served as chief market strategist and economist for Lord, Abbett & Co. He also writes frequently for City Journal and blogs regularly for Forbes. His latest book is "Thirty Tomorrows: The Next Three Decades of Globalization, Demographics, and How We Will Live."
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