Welcome to the new ‘Made in China’

Change in the value of China’s ten biggest export categories in 2015, a decade later, adjusted for inflation

For years “Made in China” meant cheap t-shirts and plastic toys. Today it also means your electric SUV.

A new wave of Chinese exports is rewriting what it means to be made in China. Textiles, furniture and cheap electronics are being joined by a new generation of high-tech, high-quality products once associated with Japan, Europe or the United States.

Autos are the most visible, and a high-profile source of tension between the world’s second-largest economy and its trading partners. China now sells more cars abroad than Germany and the United States combined. Exports are also surging for complex machinery, high-end chemicals and data centre equipment. At the same time, exports of longstanding “Made in China” goods like shoes, toys and furniture have declined or stagnated.

The new export wave is the product of a 10-year-plus state-backed push to move China up the global manufacturing value chain.

China’s factories are booming, buoyed by generous government subsidies aimed at keeping the economy ticking over until policymakers resolve a long-running property crisis and consumers, whose wealth is tied up in housing, feel confident about spending again.

For millions of people around the world, that means cheap, modern and desirable products. But if they work in U.S. or German factories that are struggling to compete, their jobs may be at risk.

Artificial Intelligence

The development of AI has set off a new arms race between China and the US. But it has also highlighted that global companies simply can’t build AI without Chinese parts.

A set of eight line charts showing change from 2015 to 2025 in the value of exports of key AI-infrastructure components from the top exporters of each components. In every case, China’s exports have increased and in five of the eight China is the top exporter.

The most advanced AI chips are designed by U.S. firms and made in Taiwan. But around them sits a vast, cheaper layer of hardware that China supplies: mature-node chips, conventional memory, server parts and the transformers, cables and control boards that data centres use.

Image of a factory worker wearing a gray face mask and holding a circuit board, seen through a gap in stacks of circuit boards. — An employee works on a production line manufacturing circuit boards at a factory in Shenzhen, China, March 19, 2026. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

A worker peering closely at a circuit board, which they are holding up close to their face. — An employee inspects a printed circuit board at a factory, in Dongguan, China, March 16, 2026. REUTERS/Tingshu Wang

“AI is changing China’s trading landscape,” said Ruby Osman, senior geopolitical advisor at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. “When you look at the mature chips and the physical inputs that surround them, once again, it’s just China in the lead again.”

Chinese chip shipments nearly doubled in the first half of 2026 to $177.28 billion, and computer and server shipments rose 41.3%.

Chemicals

Look around the room. The paint on the walls, the foam in the sofa, the bin liner, the shampoo in the shower: your home is packed with cheap products made from Chinese chemicals.

For years China made the simple stuff and bought higher-value chemicals from Europe, Japan and America.

Now, your home is also welcoming a range of more sophisticated new products that show how Chinese companies are stepping up the value chain. That includes the stretchy plastics used in your car bumper, the solar panels on your roof and the carbon fibre your road bike is made from.

Two line charts show the value of exports of organic chemicals and plastics from the top exporting countries of these categories from 2015 to 2025. In both cases, China’s exports have grown and it has become a top two exporter in both categories. There are also four small slope charts, showing the change in the value of exports of important sub-categories of chemicals and plastics from 2015 to 2025. In each case, China’s exports have increased and made it the top exporter.

Much of that is the result of Chinese government largesse.

Chinese chemical firms received about $75 billion in subsidies over the past decade, peaking at roughly $15 billion in 2023, according to OECD data.

Some 5,000 new chemical companies were established between 2018 and 2023, according to Chinese data. That has resulted in a glut of the commodity chemicals used to make things like footwear and adhesives, forcing factories to idle and producers to push inventories onto overseas markets.

BASF, Dow, LyondellBasell, Sumitomo Chemical, INEOS and Mitsubishi Chemical have warned investors over the past year that increased Chinese competition on prices and scale threatens their profits.

A man in a brown shirt works on a piece of equipment in a factory. There is a large pile of white plastic cords next to him. — An employee works on USB cables production at a plastic accessories factory in Dongguan, China, April 2, 2026. REUTERS/Go Nakamura

Factory Equipment

Consider a country that buys heavily from China. Its trade deficit has become a political problem. Factories are shutting and workers are losing their jobs.

The remedy looks simple: identify the goods China sells too cheaply, place tariffs on them and rebuild domestic industry by building new factories – an aim adopted by U.S. President Donald Trump.

The catch is that China has become the factory for factories. Its industrial robot exports have risen more than 300% since 2015, taking market share from American, German and Italian makers, whose shipments have fallen. China has also overtaken Germany as the world’s biggest exporter of machine tools.

Two line charts showing the value of exports of machinery and industrial robots from 2015 to 2025 from the top exporting countries of those categories. In machinery, China is steadily increasing its exports and has reached the level of the top exporter, Germany. In industrial robots, China has also increased exports and is now second behind Japan.

Europe still dominates capital goods, but its grip is loosening. It now accounts for 43% of global demand in volume terms, down from 54% in 2005, while China’s share has risen from 7% to 24%, Goldman Sachs estimates.

German optics and Dutch chipmaking machines remain hard to replicate, but China is racing up the value chain for all kinds of the more mundane but still essential machinery needed to fill a factory.

Image of a woman with a filtration mask and a red bandana is working on a large piece of red and black equipment in a large factory space. — A woman works in the Tianye Tolian Heavy Industry Co. factory in Qinhuangdao, China, December 2, 2016. REUTERS/Thomas Peter

“Building a factory may require Chinese machinery, but the bigger issue is that the production process itself will likely remain dependent on Chinese-made components,” said Fred Neumann, chief Asia economist at HSBC.

Vehicles

“No one is attracting the opposite sex, or indeed the same sex, in this car.” So began one review of the Chinese Leapmotor 7 SUV. Jeremy Clarkson, a British motoring pundit, was ruder still about the BYD Seal 6, which he described as “Chinese wallpaper paste with windscreen wipers”.

European drivers don’t seem to agree. Sales of models made by China’s Leapmotor in Europe rose 558% in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2025, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, while sales of BYD models are up 146%.

An image of a gray electric vehicle is in the middle of a dark showroom surrounded by spectators. — Visitors look at a BYD Seal at the launch event of Chinese electric vehicle (EV) maker BYD in Buenos Aires, Argentina, October 8, 2025. REUTERS/Alessia Maccioni

Cheap Chinese cars have become the poster child for the country’s export boom, spurring the US and Europe to put up trade barriers to protect their automakers from tough Chinese competition.

Two line charts next to each other. The first shows that the value of China’s vehicle exports have risen from 2015 to 2025 so that it is now the second biggest exporter after Germany. The other shows the percent change in exports of different vehicle types from China, showing that the biggest increase by far has been in cars.

They are popular because they are cheap, and they are cheap because there are simply too many of them, cranked out by Chinese factories which can’t sell them at home.

As a result, the value of Chinese car shipments has soared 1,871% since 2015, with growth accelerating from 2020 as manufacturers were forced to look overseas for buyers.

Echoing the ‘Japan shock’ of the 1980s, Europe and the US have responded by putting up trade barriers to Chinese cars.

Smart Household Appliances

China does not have a lot of grass lawns, but it does have a lot of robotic lawnmowers. With almost no market at home, Chinese makers must sell them overseas, and are rapidly overwhelming their foreign rivals.

While China has long been a leading producer of cheap electronic goods, its firms are now piling into higher end smart appliances.

Two line charts showing that China has been the top exporter by value of vacuum cleaners and powered lawn mowers since 2015, and its lead over other countries has increased over the same period.

That is allowing them to find new ways to monetise the AI, big data and satellite-positioning systems they developed to cash in on a state-backed boom in the automotive industry, a sector that is now saturated. Robotic mowers, for instance, use the same kind of high-precision satellite positioning as EVs’ assisted-driving systems to map lawns and stay within virtual boundaries.

And they are building them at a rate that has been devastating for Western rivals.

iRobot, the Massachusetts company behind the Roomba robot vacuum cleaner, filed for bankruptcy last December after losing ground to Chinese competitors such as Picea, a household-appliances manufacturer in the southern technology hub of Shenzhen that was once its supplier and is now its owner.

For the makers of robot lawnmowers, the grass is greener in Europe. The continent is the world’s biggest buyer of robotic lawnmowers, and Chinese firms have cut a wide swathe through it.

An overhead photo of a workers hands as they assemble a robot vacuum cleaner. — An employee works on the production line of a robot vacuum cleaner factory of Matsutek in Shenzhen, China, August 9, 2019. Picture taken August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Employees in blue caps along a production line of a factory making robot vacuum cleaners. — Employees work on the production line of a robot vacuum cleaner factory of Matsutek in Shenzhen, China, August 9, 2019. Picture taken August 9, 2019. REUTERS/Jason Lee

Last November, Brussels opened an anti-dumping investigation after a local producer complained that Chinese rivals were undercutting them by some 40%.

The US has been the biggest loser from China’s move into powered mowers, with its shipments slumping $746 million last year from $1 billion in 2023, while China’s more than doubled to $2.8 billion from $1.3 billion.

Sources

ITC Trade Map, The Observatory of Economic Complexity

Edited by

Ella Koeze, Philip McClellan, Clarence Fernandez