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Does China’s weak domestic demand really lead to excess capacity?: People's Daily_我的网站

一 |     COPENHAGEN, Denmark -- Denmark’s deputy prime minister and economy minister announced Monday he was leaving politics and stepping down as head of the center-right Liberal Party to spend more time with his family.The Liberals, however, are staying on in the three-party governing coalition, which has been in office since December 2022. For now, Defense Minister Troels Lund Poulsen would take over Ellemann-Jensen’s posts and take on the roles of deputy prime minister and economy minister.A visibly moved Ellemann-Jensen said Monday he was taking the consequences following internal party criticism over dwindling support. He said he is resigning because he didn’t want to stand in the way of his party’s revival. The party had seen support plunge from 24.6% in September 2019, when he became party leader, to 8.7% in an Oct. 3 opinion poll.Critics also alleged that Ellemann-Jensen was too weak of a figure in a government where Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen and Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen were taking up much of the limelight."I am taking this decision because it is the right thing for the Liberal Party,” Ellemann-Jensen said and insisted his sick leave was not a factor in his decision. Earlier this year, he was on a five-months sick leave following a medical check-up. Senior party member Stephanie Lose will assume the party leadership until a party convention next month. On Aug. 22, a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy had thanked Danish lawmakers for providing Kyiv with F-16 warplanes, Ellemann-Jensen swapped posts with Lund Poulsen. Ellemann-Jensen became economy minister while Lund Poulsen became defense minister. During Ellemann-Jensen's sick leave, Lund Poulsen had acted as defense minister.Frederiksen announced a majority coalition that crosses the left-right divide on Dec. 15, 2022, following the Nov. 1 general elections. It was the first time in 44 years that such a centrist government had been formed, bringing an end to the two blocs that have opposed each other for decades. The Liberals joined Frederiksen's center-left Social Democrats and the centrist Moderate party headed by Foreign Minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen — a former prime minister who once headed the Liberal Party but left it and created the centrist Moderates.Ahead of the 2022 election, the Liberal Party had splintered. Løkke Rasmussen had created a new party as did former immigration minister Inger Støjberg, who then was the Liberal Party deputy leader. After the fracturing, Ellemann-Jensen had tried to rebuild the party but the two newcomer parties had eaten away support for the Liberals.。    

    A worker fulfills orders for energy-saving and environmentally friendly boilers destined for export in a manufacturing enterprise in Nantong, East China's Jiangsu Province on August 4, 2026. The enterprise offers products including industrial waste disposal equipment, with sales to more than 30 countries and regions. Photo: CNS PhotoIn recent years, some economies, anxious about their own industrial competitiveness and market position, have politicized economic and trade issues, taking turns to hype false narratives such as "China overcapacity" and a "China Shock 2.0," and using them as pretexts to roll out protectionist measures.
But what are the facts on the ground?
China's Ministry of Commerce recently released a document titled China's Position on the So-Called Excess Capacity Issue. Reviewing the evolution of the global capacity landscape from a historical perspective, it offers an objective analysis of how industrial subsidies, trade surpluses, economic imbalances and market competition relate to "overcapacity," sets out China's policy practices and the direction of its efforts, and puts forward China's ideas and proposals - a forceful response to the "China overcapacity" narrative. 
Plainly, the argument that "China's inadequate domestic demand gives rise to excess capacity" rests on a logical sleight of hand - it takes a localized phenomenon at the micro level of the market and applies it wholesale to the structure of the macroeconomy, a picture far removed from reality.
China is not only a major manufacturing power but also a major consuming power. Domestic demand has long been the main engine of the Chinese economy.
To see through the logical fallacy of the "overcapacity" narrative, one must first be clear about where the Chinese economy actually sits in the global landscape.
In the course of economic globalization, China has actively integrated itself into the international division of industrial labor and become the "world's factory" in the truest sense. Chinese manufacturing has enriched the global supply of goods, lowered living costs for consumers in countries around the world, and played an important part in easing global inflationary pressure. But to define China simply as a "producer" on that basis, and from there to conclude that it suffers from "inadequate domestic demand and overcapacity," is a proposition that does not hold water.
From 2013 to 2024, domestic demand contributed an average of 93 percent to China's economic growth, with consumption and investment accounting for an average of 55 percent and 38 percent respectively. China's total retail sales of consumer goods rose from 23.8 trillion yuan ($3.53 trillion) in 2013 to 50.1 trillion yuan in 2025, doubling in size.
Measured at the World Bank's purchasing power parity rates, China's total retail sales of consumer goods in 2025 were 1.7 times those of the US, making the country the world's largest market for consumer goods in all but name. China today ranks first globally in the physical volume of goods consumed, and its per capita annual consumption of some industrial products already approaches the levels seen in developed economies.
China keeps expanding its domestic demand and is working toward a higher-level balance between supply and demand.
Growth in China's total retail sales of consumer goods has slowed somewhat in recent years, and some have taken this as proof of weak domestic demand. That reading is neither objective nor complete.
A strong domestic market provides strategic support for Chinese modernization. The outline of China's 15th Five-Year Plan (2026-30) period devotes a dedicated part to building such a market, stressing the need to adhere to the strategic focus of expanding domestic demand, to expand effective investment, to further implement special actions to boost consumption, to promote the expansion and upgrading of commodity consumption, to unleashing the potential of service consumption, to strengthening the foundation of residents' consumption and to continuously improve the consumption environment - using new demand to guide new supply, and using new supply to create new demand, so as to promote a virtuous cycle between consumption and investment, and between supply and demand, achieve a higher level of dynamic balance between supply and demand.
The slowdown in retail sales growth is consistent with China's shift from high-speed growth to high-quality development, and it also reflects the upgrading of the country's consumption structure. China's consumer market is moving faster from one dominated by goods toward one in which goods and services carry equal weight. Spending on services is growing rapidly and is expected to account for more than half of the total by 2030.
China's super-sized market is not only the bedrock of its own development but also a broad platform on which countries around the world can share in the dividends of that growth.
China has ranked as the world's second-largest importer for 17 consecutive years and is a major export destination for nearly 80 countries and regions. It has granted zero-tariff treatment to 63 countries and regions, becoming the first major economy in the world to extend full zero-tariff coverage to every African country and every least developed country that has diplomatic relations with it. It is also the only country to host an international import expo, having staged eight editions of the China International Import Expo with cumulative intended deals worth more than $580 billion. Over the 14th Five-Year Plan period (2021-25) period, China's cumulative imports topped 90 trillion yuan. These facts and figures show clearly that China is not just the "world's factory" but, still more, the "world's market."
Looking ahead, China's middle-income group is set to exceed 800 million people within little more than a decade, and per capita GDP is expected to reach the level of a moderately developed country. With vast room for consumption and ample potential and vitality, domestic demand will remain the main engine of China's economic development and will keep injecting strong momentum into world economic growth.
This was compiled and translated by the Global Times English edition based on an article published in the "Chisu Jinsheng" economic commentary column of the People's Daily on August 6, 2026.
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