'Industrial coup': How China grabbed pole as the world kept napping

Was it happenstance, or reflective of an already acquired manufacturing might, or strategic foresight, or that the West was caught napping? The full story is that it is all of these, writes T N Ninan

Amidst the debate on China’s slowdown and “China plus one” strategies, there is the danger of forgetting just how much China has locked itself into pole position on the key businesses of the next several decades: Solar and wind energy, electric vehicles, batteries, newly important materials, and (at some stage, perhaps) semiconductors. As countries figure out how to deal with such dominance, it is important to understand whether China’s present dominance was happenstance, or merely reflective of an already acquired manufacturing prowess. How important was strategic foresight, or was the West simply caught napping?

The answer is all of these. What