Beijing’s outstripping of competitors in global manufacturing is well documented. The ostensively communist-ruled country industrialised at a rapid pace in the 20th century, growing to rival the dominance of the US and former USSR for industrial output.
The scale of China’s manufacturing might have been broken down, making clear the stunning gulf in capacity between China and the rest of the world.
Among figures and statistics collected by a China-based journalist perhaps the most striking is that China has already built enough car factories to produce every vehicle sold domestically as well as in European and US markets.
Similarly, Chinese companies produce enough solar panels to meet the world’s needs, according to Keith Bradsher of the New York Times.
In the petrochemical sector, the story is the same, with Mr Bradsher declaring that by the end of 2024, the number of Chinese factories built in the past half-decade will beat all those currently in operation across Europe, Japan and South Korea.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has been strengthening ties with Chinese leader Xi Jinping following the invasion of Ukraine which left Moscow frozen out of Western markets and institutions.
China has allowed Russia some international cover over the conflict in Ukraine by refusing to overtly condemn the invasion, choosing to instead remain neutral.
Beijing has opened up much-needed financial links to Russia which have helped the Kremlin keep the economy afloat amid heavy Western sanctions.
Some analysts argue that the ever-growing closer ties between Russia and China have the former as the more junior party, with Putin increasingly dependent on the goodwill of Xi.
MEP Daniel Hannan has noted that battle lines are being drawn up as ill-liberal regimes looked to take advantage of the West “losing ground.”
Writing in the Telegraph, Mr Hannan declared: “Hence the grotesque coalition that the Russians and Chinese are assembling. Its members have next to nothing in common.
“Some are Marxists, some Islamists, but all resent what they see as Western, liberal arrogance, and exult in the belief that a reckoning is nigh.”
