Comment by rswail
6 hours ago
They have their own internal market, which now has a middle class equal in size to the entire US population.
They have all of Asia, with a market of another ~2B, and a completely undeveloped market in Africa of another 1B people.
That's part of what the Chinese Belt and Road Initiative is, an industrial policy to establish trade links and infrastructure dependencies across the world that uses Chinese direct FDI and industrial policy to establish new markets for their own industries.
Which is exactly the same policy that the US adopted as part of the Marshall Plan and its use (up until 2025) of soft power to promote US FDI across the world.
It's the US that is dependent on a defense industry and foreign sales for its industrial capacity.
That's why the US defense budget is 50% of the total and over USD1T/year and is why the US is demanding that NATO nations buy US defense equipment.
`They have all of Asia, with a market of another ~2B, and a completely undeveloped market in Africa of another 1B people.`
This is not the market size. Maybe 1% of it. India median income is $300/month. African income is less than $100/month.
You cannot sell EVs, drones and foldable phones there. But you could convince their govs to buy your fancy defense drones.