The Western press is filled with stories of foreboding about the Chinese economy. We are told regularly that China’s fast growth is over, that China’s data are manipulated, that a Chinese financial crisis looms, and that China will suffer the same stagnation as Japan during the past quarter century. This is U.S. propaganda, not reality. Yes, the Chinese economy faces headwinds – mainly created by the United States. Yet China can – and I believe will – overcome the U.S.-created headwinds and continue on its path of rapid economic development.

The basic fact is that China’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew at 5.2 percent in 2023, compared with 2.5 percent in the United States. On a per capita basis, the growth gap is even larger: 5.4 percent in China compared with 2 percent in the United States. In 2024, China will again significantly outpace the United States. There is no great growth crisis despite the fervid rhetoric in the U.S. press. Yes, China is slowing as it gets richer, but it is still growing considerably faster than in the United States and Europe.

There are problems to be sure, but the main ones come from the United States, not from inside China’s economy.

First, there is the perception problem. The United States is pushing a negative narrative about China. We actually learned recently that former U.S. President Donald Trump tasked the CIA with spreading malicious propaganda about the Chinese economy on social media starting back in 2019. One specific CIA tactic was to bad-mouth China’s important Belt and Road Initiative.

Second, there is the rise of U.S. protectionism. During the 20 years from 2000 to 2020, China was busy building up its new green and digital industries: mastering electric vehicles, 5G, battery supply chains, solar modules, wind turbines, fourth-generation nuclear power, long-distance power transmission, and other cutting-edge technologies. The White House and Congress, in the meantime, were in the hands of the oil, gas, and coal lobbies, and therefore without a strategy for the new energy technologies. Finally, U.S. President Joe Biden and Congress agreed to protect U.S. industries to give America time to recover some lost ground.

Third, there is the U.S. “Grand Strategy” to maintain U.S. “primacy” over China. For the U.S. security establishment, it’s not good enough to compete with China on an honest basis. The U.S. government also puts obstacles in the way of China’s economy. It seems incredible that the United States would go out of its way to undermine China’s economy, and yet it actually does so. Such an approach was spelled out by a senior U.S. diplomat, former Ambassador Robert Blackwill, in March 2015, in an article for the Council on Foreign Relations published with co-author Ashley Tellis. The article, in my view, was the public launch of a new Washington policy towards China, one that has been followed by Presidents Obama, Trump, and Biden.

It is worth quoting Blackwill and Tellis at length to understand the U.S. game plan:

Since its founding, the United States has consistently pursued a grand strategy focused on acquiring and maintaining preeminent power over various rivals, first on the North American continent, then in the Western hemisphere, and finally globally…

Because the American effort to “integrate” China into the liberal international order has now generated new threats to U.S. primacy in Asia – and could eventually result in a consequential challenge to American power globally – Washington needs a new grand........

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