Question

How much did China’s exports grow between 1991 and 2013? How did our trading relationship affect the US DEMAND for skilled labor and blue collar labor?

Answer 1

China has made rapid stride in industrial development and science and technology over the four years decade. The real GDP growth rate of china between 1979-2017 was 10%. The growth in its manufacturing and service sectors also increased the China's bilateral trade with USA, European Union (EU) and other countries.

The trade plays a significant role in GDP growth of Chinese economy. Before 1990, China's trade volume with communist countries accounted for 75% of its total trade. But after disintegration of Soviet Union in 1991, China started improving its trade relations with EU, USA, Japan, South Korea, India and other non-communist countries of the world. China has favorable balance of trade with most of its trade partners. China's exports consists of electronics and electrical goods, textiles and footwear and its imports include heavy duty engineering items such as personal computers, plant machinery, semiconductors etc. During the 1991 the China's total exports and imports with USA accounted for $18,969.2 and $6278.2 millions respectively. During 2013, the China's exports to USA rose to $440430 millions and China's imports from USA also rose to $121746.2 millions. EU is the second largest trading bloc of China after USA. There has been significant increase in total trade volume between China and EU during 1992-2013. The China's total exports to EU during 2008 was over $250000 million and China's import from EU during the same year was over $100000 millions.

The China-USA bilateral trade supports approximately 2.6 million jobs in the US economy. China imports bulk quantity of engineering products and automobiles and supports millions of jobs in engineering and automobile companies in USA. The middle class families in China is continuously expanding and it will soon exceed the total US population in the near future. This will create opportunities for US companies in China for investments and expansion of their business that will also raise the demands for white collars and blue collar jobs in both China and USA. Though China's favorable trade balance with USA affected some manufacturing jobs in USA, that loss is offset by the increase in US exports of heavy duty items such as cars, trucks, tractors, construction machinery, computers and semiconductors to China. China's imported product and services worth of $165 billion from USA in 2015, that was 7.5% of US total exports in 2015. The communist government of China is continuously making economic reforms that will make entry of foreign companies including US companies more easy in China. This will further increase the US demand for skilled and blue collar workers in manufacturing sectors especially.