China Shock
Eurointelligence discusses China shock in its article Technology Is Why We Are Losing.
We are not sure that the effect of high tariffs on Chinese electric cars will work quite as intended. We are also skeptical of hydraulic theories of global trade flows – of Chinese goods suddenly starting to swamp European markets.
The much bigger problem at least for German industry has nothing to do with trade policy, but with China crowding in on previously monopolistic and oligopolistic markets dominated by German firms.
Handelsblatt alerts to research just published by the economics team of Allianz that in our view comes much closer to explaining the current dynamics. Previously, the partnership between Germany and China was complementary. The Germans built the factories and the Chinese made the consumer products. Or the Germans specialized in fuel-driven cars, and the Chinese in electric cars. China is now challenging Germany in areas Germany dominated previously. These are the largest parts of the German industrial economy: machines, chemical and electrical engineering. The study says that in many segments of the market, the Chinese are more successful than the Germans. Ludovic Subran, the Allianz chief economist, predicts that the China boom will be followed by a China shock.
We see this similarly. In our own research on the shifting nature of German competitiveness, we find that the most important issue is not trade, but technology. Digital technologies are encroaching on classic engineering. Apple’s latest commercial of a large steel press crushing a whole bunch of analogue devices caused a lot of criticism. Apple apologized, but the commercial is a good visualization of what is currently happening to parts of the German economy…
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