According to a new study from the Centre for European Policy Research (CEPR), “the U.S. is the world’s sole military superpower. It spends more on its military than the ten next highest spending countries combined. China is now the world’s sole manufacturing superpower. Its production exceeds that of the nine next largest manufacturers combined.” The study's author, Richard Baldwin, Professor of International Economics at IMD Business School in Lausanne, Switzerland, believes the first factual statement about the United States is probably quite well-known, but the second one about China is not. “During ongoing work on global supply chain disruptions with my co-authors I’ve noticed a stark fact that I don’t think is as widely known as it should be. China is now the world’s sole manufacturing superpower.”
How much of a manufacturing superpower? China produces more than the U.S., Japan, Germany, India, South Korea, Italy, France and Taiwan combined. Its share as a percentage of global gross production already equalled that of the next top 10 producers by 2020. U.S. production is three times more reliant on Chinese inputs than vice versa, while Chinese manufacturers rely less and less on U.S. supply. There is however a single manufacturing sector over which the U.S. exercises complete global dominance: weapons. Worldwide military spending in 2022 hit USD2.2 trillion, the highest since the end of the Cold War, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, and the U.S. defense industry accounts for 45% of all such sales around the world, Columnist Alex Lo writes in the South China Morning Post.
Prof. Baldwin's article, entitled “China is the world’s sole manufacturing superpower: A line sketch of the rise” can be read here
