Resilience over returns: How China’s economic model sparks a rethink about global competition

CHINA’S rise has forced a fundamental rethinking of long-held assumptions about political economy, innovation and global competition.

For decades, conventional wisdom in the West held that sustained frontier innovation required liberal democratic institutions, secure private property, open civil society and financial efficiency.

China’s trajectory challenges each of these premises. Its economic strength does not rest on maximising financial returns or fostering consumption-led growth. Instead, it is rooted in production-system dominance: the deliberate construction of dense industrial ecosystems capable of rapid scaling, technological absorption and manufacturing depth.