How Much of China’s GDP Was Made in America?
This record rebound wasn’t built entirely from scratch. Look past the impressive headlines and some vulnerabilities emerge.
A helping hand.
Photographer: Bloomberg Creative/Getty ImagesChina kicked off the year with a record expansion that even surpassed the glory days of the 1990s, when manufacturing and export stardom beckoned. The first-quarter performance — stellar as the headlines are — masks shortcomings and vulnerabilities that will likely constrain the economy in coming months.
Gross domestic product jumped 18.3% in the first quarter from a year earlier, the National Bureau of Statistics said Friday. That's an impressive performance, albeit one flattered by comparisons with the first three months of 2020, when Covid-19 first hit. Compared with the fourth quarter, growth was less stratospheric — just 0.6%, down from a previously reported 2.6%. Retail sales, considered a soft spot in the recovery, soared by more than a third in March from a year earlier, according to monthly data released simultaneously.