China's leaders should show they can.

"China's trade surplus topped $1 trillion for the first time as manufacturers seeking to avoid President Donald Trump's tariffs shipped more to non-US markets in November, with exports to Europe, Australia and Southeast Asia surging." "Chinese exports overall grew 5.9% year-on-year in November, customs data showed." Reuters. "China's electric-vehicle industry captured half its domestic industry in just a few years," Chinese legacy automakers dumped gas-guzzlers on Poland to South Africa to Uruguay. While Western countries levied tariffs on heavily subsidized Chinese EVs, "Fossil-fuel vehicles have accounted for 76% of Chinese auto exports since 2020, and total annual shipments jumped from 1 million to likely 6.5 million this year." Reuters. "In the past five years, its export volumes have soared while imports have flatlined. China is swallowing up a growing share of the world's market for manufactured goods. This reveals an uncomfortable truth: Beijing is pursuing a 'beggar thy neighbor' growth model." WSJ. Except for Japan and Bangladesh, the rest of Asia is facing serious disinflation. "One culprit is Chinese overcapacity, which has entrenched deflation domestically. It has also put pressure on prices elsewhere, since 2022 China's export-price index has fallen by 15%, even as exports have risen overall." Asian nations are losing manufacturing jobs. The Economist. In 2020, "Growth in America's trade deficit with China since 2001 has resulted in the loss of nearly 4 million domestic jobs - a quarter of which were in California and Texas - according to a new report from the Economic Policy Institute." US News. China's consumer price index (CPI) rose 0.7% year-on-year in November from 0.2% in October, "mainly driven by food prices, while factory-gate deflation deepened, with underlying trend suggesting domestic demand remains weak and unlikely to recover in the near term." Reuters. "China is gripped by an insidious problem that is eroding its economy: It is trapped in a cycle of competition so fierce that it is destroying profits, driving a brutal rat race among workers and fueling a deflationary spiral. This is 'involution'." "Generally, it means excessive competition, but it has become shorthand for a range of maladies, especially deflation and overcapacity." WSJ. While China is producing vast amounts of manufacturing goods it is not producing babies, with the total fertility rate (TFR) at about 1.1, nearly half the replacement level of 2.1 (Britannica). Aggravating the fall in fertility is the male to female ratio. According to the World Population Prospects 2024, there are 44.4 million men in the 24-29 group, which should be on the cusp of procreation, but only 38.4 million women." In the 0-4 age group there are 24.9 million males to 22.5 million females. Asia Sentinel. So the demographic mismatch is going well into the future. "China will impose a value-added tax on contraceptive drugs and devices - including condoms - for the first time in three decades, its latest bid to reverse plunging birth rates that threaten to further slow its economy." ET. Considering Chinese President Xi Jinping has only one daughter (wikipedia), a tax on contraceptives is a spiteful dog in the manger (wikipedia) policy. Instead, the leaders should set an example. If they still can.