by Shan Saeed

The global economy is entering an era in which resilience may command a premium comparable to efficiency.

Geopolitical fragmentation, tariff escalation, technological rivalry, energy insecurity and recurring disruption across strategic trade corridors are rewriting the architecture of global commerce. Corporate strategy is consequently shifting from just-in-time toward just-in-case: efficiency remains important, but redundancy, optionality, inventory security and supply-chain sovereignty increasingly carry measurable economic value.

Against this fractured backdrop, China possesses an asset that is extraordinarily difficult to replicate: industrial depth at continental scale.

China is no longer simply the factory of the world. Increasingly, it is becoming the factory to the factories of the world -- supplying the machinery, electronic components, intermediate inputs, batteries and capital equipment that enable production elsewhere.

Supply chains may geographically diversify away from final assembly in China while remaining deeply connected to Chinese upstream industrial capability. Diversification, therefore, does not automatically mean decoupling. That is the deeper meaning of China's resilience.

China's economic strategy has increasingly been organized around technological self-reliance, industrial modernization, domestic economic resilience, infrastructure connectivity and deeper commercial engagement with emerging markets.

The objective has been broader than headline gross domestic product growth. It has been to strengthen China's ability to absorb external shocks while progressively moving higher along global value chains.

China's emphasis on technological capability and strategic manufacturing has consequently become central to China's economic positioning. In an era of export controls, tariffs and strategic rivalry, economies possessing deep domestic industrial ecosystems enjoy greater capacity to withstand external shocks than those dependent on narrow segments of global production.

China's next economic chapter will increasingly be defined by artificial intelligence, robotics, electric vehicles, batteries, renewable technologies, advanced machinery and digital infrastructure.

China has constructed an industrial ecosystem of unusual breadth: manufacturing scale, supplier density, leadership in several clean-energy technologies, rapidly expanding technological capability, sophisticated infrastructure and increasingly diversified trade relationships.

That is China's resilience premium. And in an age defined increasingly by fragmentation rather than frictionless globalization, industrial depth may prove to be one of the most valuable forms of economic power.

Editor's note: Shan Saeed is global chief economist at Juwai IQI, a global proptech company, and has more than 25 years of experience in global financial markets.

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Xinhua News Agency.