A third of Chinese economy depends on exports, but Wall Street Journal argues that a U.S. slowdown won’t hurt China much (chart: China’s exports as percentage of GDP, via wsj.com):
About a fifth of China’s exports go to the U.S., its biggest single foreign market. And those shipments have been a major driver of China’s fast growth: China’s total exports have been rising by about 30% a year for the past five years, and are equivalent to roughly a third of the annual economic output of what is now the world’s fourth-largest economy.
Yet barring a major collapse in the U.S. and world economy, there are good reasons to believe China could weather slowing demand from the U.S. Most economists are penciling in a possible loss of just one or two percentage points from China’s recent annual economic growth rates of 10% or more.
Recent history doesn’t offer much cause for concern about a slump in the U.S. buffeting China. Economic growth in the U.S. during the last recession slowed from 3.7% in 2000 to less than a quarter of that — 0.8% — in 2001. China’s growth rate, by contrast, barely budged: its economy expanded 8.4% in 2000 and 8.3% in 2001. [Full Text]
