WHILE the United States remains the world’s most attractive destination for global capital, China continues to pose a formidable strategic challenge—but in specific and well-defined domains rather than across the full economic spectrum. China’s competitive strength does not lie in capital-market depth, investor protection or institutional transparency. Instead, it rests on scale-driven manufacturing, state-directed industrial policy and the capacity for rapid infrastructure execution.

In sectors such as electric vehicles, batteries, solar panels, rare-earth processing and select segments of artificial-intelligence hardware, China has achieved cost leadership and market dominance through extensive subsidies, centralized planning and tight control over supply chains. Its ability to mobilize capital swiftly for priority industries, combined with vast domestic demand, allows Chinese firms to scale faster than competitors in many industrial segments.

Beyond manufacturing, China also presents a long-term challenge in global trade logistics and infrastructure diplomacy, particularly across Asia, Africa and parts of the Middle East. In many emerging markets, Chinese companies often outcompete Western firms on cost and execution speed, even when governance, transparency and compliance standards are comparatively weaker. Furthermore, China’s advances in applied technologies—such as industrial automation, smart manufacturing and large-scale green-energy deployment—provide it with growing influence over future production ecosystems.

Structurally, however, the two economies follow fundamentally different models with distinct long-term trajectories. The US economy—valued at over USD 27 trillion in nominal........

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