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Does China’s weak domestic demand really lead to excess capacity?: People's Daily_我的网站

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A worker fulfills orders for energy-saving and environmentally friendly boilers destined for export in a manufacturing enterprise in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu Province on August 4, 2026. The enterprise offers products including industrial waste disposal equipment, with sales to more than 30 countries and regions. Photo: CNS PhotoIn recent years, some economies, anxious about their own industrial competitiveness and market position, have politicized economic and trade issues, taking turns to hype false narratives such as "China overcapacity" and a "China Shock 2.0," and using them as pretexts to roll out protectionist measures.
But what are the facts on the ground?
China's Ministry of Commerce recently released a document titled China's Position on the So-Called Excess Capacity Issue. Reviewing the evolution of the global capacity landscape from a historical perspective, it offers an objective analysis of how industrial subsidies, trade surpluses, economic imbalances and market competition relate to "overcapacity," sets out China's policy practices and the direction of its efforts, and puts forward China's ideas and proposals - a forceful response to the "China overcapacity" narrative.
Plainly, the argument that "China's inadequate domestic demand gives rise to excess capacity" rests on a logical sleight of hand - it takes a localized phenomenon at the micro level of the market and applies it wholesale to the structure of the macroeconomy, a picture far removed from reality.
China is not only a major manufacturing power but also a major consuming power. Domestic demand has long been the main engine of the Chinese economy.
To see through the logical fallacy of the "overcapacity" narrative, one must first be clear about where the Chinese economy actually sits in the global landscape.
In the course of economic globalization, China has actively integrated itself into the international division of industrial labor and become the "world's factory" in the truest sense. Chinese manufacturing has enriched the global supply of goods, lowered living costs for consumers in countries around the world, and played an important part in easing global inflationary pressure. But to define China simply as a "producer" on that basis, and from there to conclude that it suffers from "inadequate domestic demand and overcapacity," is a proposition that does not hold water.
From 2013 to 2024, domestic demand contributed an average of 93 percent to China's economic growth, with consumption and investment accounting for an average of 55 percent and 38 percent respectively. China's total retail sales of consumer goods rose from 23.8 trillion yuan ($3.53 trillion) in 2013 to 50.1 trillion yuan in 2025, doubling in size.
Measured at the World Bank's purchasing power parity rates, China's total retail sales of consumer goods in 2025 were 1.7 times those of the US, making the country the world's largest market for consumer goods in all but name. China today ranks first globally in the physical volume of goods consumed, and its per capita annual consumption of some industrial products already approaches the levels seen in developed economies.
China keeps expanding its domestic demand and is working toward a higher-level balance between supply and demand.
Growth in China's total retail sales of consumer goods has slowed somewhat in recent years, and some have taken this as proof of weak domestic demand. That reading is neither objective nor complete.
A strong domestic market provides strategic support for Chinese modernization. The outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period devotes a dedicated part to building such a market, stressing the need to adhere to the strategic focus of expanding domestic demand, to expand effective investment, to further implement special actions to boost consumption, to promote the expansion and upgrading of commodity consumption, to unleashing the potential of service consumption, to strengthening the foundation of residents' consumption and to continuously improve the consumption environment - using new demand to guide new supply, and using new supply to create new demand, so as to promote a virtuous cycle between consumption and investment, and between supply and demand, achieve a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand.
The slowdown in retail sales growth is consistent with China's shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development, and it also reflects the upgrading of the country's consumption structure. China's consumer market is moving faster from one dominated by goods toward one in which goods and services carry equal weight. Spending on services is growing rapidly and is expected to account for more than half of the total by 2030.
China's super-sized market is not only the bedrock of its own development but also a broad platform on which countries around the world can share in the dividends of that growth.
China has ranked as the world's second-largest importer for 17 consecutive years and is a major export destination for nearly 80 countries and regions. It has granted zero-tariff treatment to 63 countries and regions, becoming the first major economy in the world to extend full zero-tariff coverage to every African country and every least developed country that has diplomatic relations with it. It is also the only country to host an international import expo, having staged eight editions of the China International Import Expo with cumulative intended deals worth more than $580 billion. Over the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) period, China's cumulative imports topped 90 trillion yuan. These facts and figures show clearly that China is not just the "world's factory" but, still more, the "world's market."
Looking ahead, China's middle-income group is set to exceed 800 million people within little more than a decade, and per capita GDP is expected to reach the level of a moderately developed country. With vast room for consumption and ample potential and vitality, domestic demand will remain the main engine of China's economic development and will keep injecting strong momentum into world economic growth.
This was compiled and translated by the Global Times English edition based on an article published in the "Chisu Jinsheng" economic commentary column of the People's Daily on August 6, 2026.
。近日，前NBA球员拉简·隆多在Road Trippin’ Show节目中表示，由于在休赛期遭遇的种种轻视，杰伦·布朗下赛季将让全联盟胆寒。隆多表示：“整个夏天他（杰伦.布朗）受尽了外界的轻视。

B | 当一名球员被激发出这种斗志，加上他刚打完那样一个出色的赛季，他有太多的东西需要去证明。说真的，伙计，下赛季的他绝对会让全联盟感到恐惧。” 今夏，杰伦.布朗成为球员交易市场最大的“受害者”，雄鹿核心字母哥申请交易离队后，布朗就成为了凯尔特人的核心筹码。当时有媒体报道称凯尔特人愿意用布朗+两个首轮签换字母哥，但雄鹿管理层对凯尔特人的报价并不满意。

C | 之后雄鹿和热火达成交易，字母哥前往迈阿密，希罗、韦尔等球员则要身穿雄鹿战袍。布朗交易未果后，凯尔特人管理层也意识到了他们必须继续采取交易，并且要在最快的时间送走布朗。当布朗得知自己成为交易筹码之后，已经是“身在曹营心在汉”，没有哪个球员想成为交易筹码，更何况他还是球队当家球星。

D | 联盟对布朗感兴趣的球队大有人在，勇士、开拓者等西部球队都想得到布朗，最终凯尔特人和76人达成交易。 76人只付出了保罗.乔治和首轮签就得到了布朗，而且76人和凯尔特人还是同区竞争对手，这笔交易也让凯尔特人管理层遭到外界质疑。自己什么都没做，而自己却成为了所有交易的主角，这就是布朗在今夏面对的问题，他刚打出了生涯巅峰表现。隆多认为布朗在下赛季开始后必定爆发，他会通过自己的方式去证明自己，现在所有人都在期待布朗新赛季的表现。