What looks like weak internal demand (surging exports, stagnant imports) is in fact Chinese industrial policies working incredibly well. When a Chinese consume

What looks like weak internal demand (surging exports, stagnant imports) is in fact Chinese industrial policies working incredibly well. When a Chinese consumer buys a (purely) Chinese-made car or phone instead of a (partly) foreign-made one, it shows up like that in the statistics even though it has nothing to do with weak demand. China has the explicit policy of subsidizing and otherwise supporting output in high-value-add industries (what they call "new productive forces“), creating a flurry of new companies with competitive offerings in all sorts of sectors — from electric cars to semiconductors and medical equipment.