Xi Jinping risks setting off another trade war
Why Western politicians should prepare for a second “China shock”
![Steel workers on an assembly line at the steel production workshop in Huai’an, China.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20240113_FNP001.jpg)
China’s leaders are obsessed with lithium-ion batteries, electric cars and solar panels. These sorts of technologies will, Xi Jinping has proclaimed, become “pillars of the economy”. He is spending big to ensure this happens—meaning, in the years to come, that his ambitions will be felt across the world. A manufacturing export boom could very well lead to a trade war.
Explore more
This article appeared in the Finance & economics section of the print edition under the headline “Steel yourself”
Finance & economics January 13th 2024
- Xi Jinping risks setting off another trade war
- A guide to the Chinese Communist Party’s economic jargon
- Will spiking shipping costs cause inflation to surge?
- Bill Ackman provides a lesson in activist investing
- What happened to the artificial-intelligence investment boom?
- Has Team Transitory really won America’s inflation debate?
More from Finance & economics
![Solar panels installed on the roof of a building at Skardu in Pakistan's Gilgit-Baltistan region.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP002.jpg)
Cheap solar power is sending electrical grids into a death spiral
Pakistan and South Africa provide a warning for other countries
![People walk at Zaryadye park with the Kremlin and St. Basil's Cathedral in the background in Moscow, Russia.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FNP502.jpg)
Russian inflation is too high. Does that matter?
In a strong economy, price pressure can endure for a long time
![illustration of a house cut in half diagonally, the lower corner being a bill.](https://www.economist.com/cdn-cgi/image/width=1424,quality=80,format=auto/content-assets/images/20250215_FND001.jpg)
Why you should repay your mortgage early
For the first time in decades, the arithmetic suggests settling housing loans
How AI will divide the best from the rest
Optimists hope the technology will be a great equaliser. Instead, it looks likely to widen social divides
The danger of relying on OpenAI’s Deep Research
Economists are in raptures, but they should be careful
Elon Musk is failing to cut American spending
DOGE has so far disrupted everything in government bar the deficit