Exports and affluence

25 Jun Exports and affluence

Today, China leads the world in port infrastructure investment and thus, most significantly, displays elements of the Asian Doctrine. Its container infrastructure sustains an endless stream of the exports that are the basis for its growing gross domestic product—a figure that has increased at an average rate of 9.5 percent a year for the last thirty years and that tripled to reach more than US$11 trillion from 2002 to 2012. The value of this infrastructure is further exemplified by the fact that in 2015 China was home to the world’s second-largest economy and to nine of the world’s busiest twenty-five container ports. These ports allowed China to surpass the U.S. in 2012 to become the world’s largest trading nation (as measured by the sum of the exports and imports of goods). Fundamentally, the massive ports constructed in Asia, particularly in China, during the 1990s were investments in the changing configuration of international trade and the new era of globalization. Factories whose goods used these ports found there the lowest rates and lowest costs in regard to saved time and money. It has become clear that a nation with an outdated infrastructure or with inefficient ports is a country that faces obstacles to finding a larger role in the global economy.