korrents · piece

Chartbook 462: China shocked - beyond 1.0 and 2.0 to the "Big One".

Adam Tooze · 29 Jul 2026

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China's industrial lead was manufactured by deliberate state industrial policy rather than by market forces alone.

Their wordsWhat China is delivering in the 2020s is an industrial policy shock of global scale.

Also said by Dan Wang

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Every claim below was made in this piece, quoted word for word and numbered in the order the piece makes them, so you can read it there rather than take our word for it. The sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording. Each quote was checked against a stored copy of the page at build time; where the two differ, the quote is the fact.

Our reading
The second China shock is landing on Europe, where the first one landed on the United States.

Their wordsIn China shock 1.0 the key target was the US. In China shock 2.0 it is Europe.
Our reading
The original 'China shock' research was about American institutions failing the communities that were hit, not about unfair Chinese competition.

Their wordsThe original point of the China Shock 1.0 discourse was not to foreground the unfairness of Chiense competition, so much as the malfunctioning of US policy and societal institutions in the face of concentrated globalization shocks.
Our reading
The second China shock threatens Europe's highest-status manufacturing, not an industrial backwater the way the first one did in America.

Their wordsChina shock 2.0 threatens high status manufactured goods: European cars and engineering.
Our reading
China's industrial lead was manufactured by deliberate state industrial policy rather than by market forces alone.

Their wordsWhat China is delivering in the 2020s is an industrial policy shock of global scale.
Our reading
Beijing drew its own conclusions from the first China shock and set out to engage the world economy from a position of technological leadership.

Their wordsIt wasn’t just the West that drew conclusions from China shock 1.0. Beijing learned from China Shock 1.0 too.

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