Testimony before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission Hearing on Consumer Products from China: Safety, Regulations, and Supply Chains

March 1, 2024, Testimony: "Over the last three decades, China has emerged as a global industrial powerhouse. The spectacular growth of the country’s manufacturing sector has turned the nation into the world’s factory. Initially, much of this growth was based on labor-intensive manufactured goods, such as apparel, footwear, furniture, and consumer electronics. China has since diversified into more technologically advanced products, such as cellphones, laptops, solar panels, semiconductors, and electric vehicles. Although China remains the world’s largest exporter of manufactured goods, its period of rapid growth ended more than a decade ago. Today, China is a lumbering economic giant, beset by the inevitable growth slowdown that follows a period of rapid economic opening, policy choices that have undermined the foundation of the country’s earlier growth, and rising barriers to its access to foreign capital, markets, and technology. In this testimony, I discuss the origins of China’s export manufacturing boom, the reasons behind China’s recent move into technologically advanced manufacturing, prospects for continued growth in China’s manufacturing sector, and policy options facing the United States."