Gita Gopinath

So just that, right?

So there's nothing, there's no sense in which China ultimately gets to do everything.

Secondly, usually if you get to a point where if you're so good at manufacturing, making everything,

you ultimately are going to have very high levels of investment.

Given the level of savings in your country, that usually means that you start running trade deficits, right?

So it cannot be a story of China being very successful in its investment and being very productive, because any kind of high productivity investment boom story means the country running deficits.

What has happened in China is basically a lot of consumption suppression.

Because of that, you're seeing surpluses that the country is running.

And we are also now seeing all the problems of very high levels of investment that's come from the crash in the property market, which, despite the last four years of interventions and government policies,

is actually looking quite bad.

So the weakness in the property market is the weakness in consumption.

If China is running surpluses at this point, it is because investment has dropped in China.

You have that's come both from the property market crash, but also because of all the excess supply and the overcapacity that they've created.

you've seen a decline in investment.

So 2025 was the first year when investment in China actually declined.

That explains why it's running a big trade surplus.

Now, yes, there are a lot of exports coming out of China.

Forget about the surplus deficit part, but just the fact that they are sending a lot of goods out of their country is a source of competition for manufacturers around the world.

I believe that this is not sustainable.

I don't think Europe or other Asian economies in East Asia are going to just say, well, that's OK.