31 Oct 2018

Forbes

Surprising as it may be, China is pulling down the rest of Asia. A slowing Chinese economy is impacting the overall trade numbers of IMF’s emerging economies & developing Asia category. A bigger shocker is however the fact that Asian trade would have grown faster without China. The divergence between China and the rest of Asia is nonetheless a reality now and gives a fair bit of nuance regarding the things to come. Bearing in mind this reality, repercussions pertaining to the US-China trade war, China’s reducing trade surplus and global commodity volatility suddenly become even more pronounced for Asia now. Even though it is clear that China will continue playing a leading role in forthcoming decades, there are visible signs of realignment in Asia and this cannot be ignored.