The writer is chief economist for Asia-Pacific at Natixis and senior research fellow at Bruegel
In health, the distinction between good and bad cholesterol is deceptively simple. Both circulate through the same system, yet one builds resilience while the other quietly clogs the arteries.
China’s corporate world works in much the same way. Its most competitive companies — which are winning global market share by, for example, dominating battery technology and pioneering electric vehicles — are not being strangled by US tariffs or EU policy. However, they are being damaged from within by an underclass of less productive domestic rivals kept alive by the generous and often misguided support of local governments.