2 words explain China export ‘surge’: Global South

Contrary to a meme that’s popular among Western policy analysts, there is no Chinese “export surge.” China’s exports to developed markets have stagnated for years, but have doubled to the Global South.

Not only have China’s exports to the Global South in total risen by an unprecedented margin, but its exports to every region of the Global South – Asia, Latin America, Africa, Middle East/North Africa and Central Asia – have risen in lockstep

Some of China’s export success in the developing world, to be sure, reflects a new kind of triangular trade motivated by the 25% tariff on some $200 billion of Chinese imports that the Trump administration imposed in 2019. China ships components and capital goods to Mexico, Vietnam, India and other countries, which then assemble them into finished products for sale in the United States.

Asia Times first documented this grand circumvention of US tariffs in an April 3, 2023 analysis. Since then the World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Bank for International Settlements and the Peterson Institute have published studies documenting the same conclusion: America is more dependent than ever on Chinese supply chains.

China’s exports to the Global South (left-hand scale) are tracked by US imports from the Global South (right-hand scale), with a lag of about two months. China’s exports to the Global South have jumped from about $90 billion a month in 2020 to $150 billion a month today, or by $60 billion a month. About half of that, or $30 billion a month, shows up as higher US imports from third countries. Tariff avoidance through the extension of Chinese supply chains to the developing world, that is, explains about half of China’s export growth to the Global South.

The other half comes