Chapter 3
Merchandise Exports: From China’s Lead to China’s Dominance?
China has been elevating its share of world exports at a tremendous speed, drastically changing the global trade power balance within a remarkably short time.
By 2008, it had risen to the position of the number one exporter of manufacturing products with a share of 12.7 percent of the world’s total. (Manufactures account for almost 70 percent of the country’s total merchandise exports.)
The following year it became the largest exporter of merchandise goods as a whole, overtaking Germany; China’s share of the world’s total reached 10 percent. In 2010, it moved further ahead of the followers. Also, Germany ceded the number two position to the United States.
Between 2001 and 2010, China’s exports increased 5.9 times as opposed to 1.4 times for the United States, 2.2 times for Germany, 1.9 times for Japan, 1.6 times for France, 1.5 times for the United Kingdom, and 1.8 times for Italy. India’s exports grew 5.0 times (WTO 2011).
In 1983, it accounted for a meager 1.2 percent of global exports against 11.2 percent for the United States, 9.2 percent for Germany (the data for 1983 are for West Germany only), 8.0 percent for Japan, and 5.2 percent for France. Until 1993 it increased its portion twofold and within the next 10 years 2.4 times (Table 3.1).
Table 3.1 Share of the World Merchandise Exports (%)
Source: WTO International Trade Statistics.
In other words, since the early 1980s China has at least doubled its ...
