Frameworks for Learning How China Wins

Looking past the headlines to distill what actually drives China’s success

Jan 31, 2026

I recorded the Asymmetric podcast on China with Shantanu, Revant and Chirag a few months ago.

I didn’t post it here at the time.

It made its way around anyway, with hundreds of thousands of views, especially in India, which surprised me a bit, and then it slipped into the background as other things took over.

Here’s the episode:

it helps to reflect on what has actually happened over the last few months. These are small, concrete moves that look ordinary in isolation and feel more meaningful when placed side by side. Lined up together, they show how China has been making steady progress all the time.

Signals from the last ~4 months

Sir Keir Starmer visits China, reopening senior-level economic and trade engagement after years of distance. Visa-free travel for UK nationals.
Canada resumes trade talks with China, including movement in sensitive areas like agriculture and EVs.
India eases select import restrictions, shifting from defensive decoupling toward managed economic engagement.
China–India diplomatic channels remain active, with border de-escalation holding and practical cooperation continuing.
China expands visa-free or simplified travel for multiple countries, restoring business and people flows.
Chinese exports keep growing via ASEAN, Middle East, Africa, and Latin America, offsetting slower US trade.
Chinese trade surplus sets a new annual record at over $1.2Tn
EU–China economic and climate dialogues continue despite strategic tension, reflecting ongoing manufacturing and supply-chain interdependence.
China deepens engagement with Gulf states (Saudi Arabia, UAE) across energy, infrastructure, and industry.
Steady Chinese investment across Africa in infrastructure, logistics, and energy, with execution outweighing announcements.
Sustained Chinese trade and asset presence in South America, large enough to trigger renewed geopolitical attention.

Pattern: reconnection, pragmatic engagement, diversified trade, capability continuing to build under the radar.

However, People keep asking the same question, sometimes directly, sometimes indirectly: Is China actually doing well. Is it still winning.

The debate stays focused on what’s visible in the news in the West. Property stress. Demographics. Confidence numbers. These are real and important but they don’t explain why one in 8 new cars in the UK is now Chinese and likely one in 4 will be Chinese in the next couple of years.

Chinese companies keep showing up in global markets with products that are cheaper, faster, and often better than expected.

China has built is an environment where ideas move very fast. They get copied immediately. If something works, it spreads across companies, suppliers, and categories almost without friction. If it doesn’t, it disappears just as quickly. There’s very little attachment to who came up with something first. What matters is whether it survives contact with reality.

That dynamic came through clearly in the podcast, even though I didn’t frame it as a theory at the time. It’s also what later pushed me to write about Xemes. Learning doesn’t stay neatly contained inside a single firm. It leaks. And that leakage is not a flaw. It’s the system doing its job.

The same lens helps explain pricing, which is where a lot of external commentary gets stuck. From the outside, it looks irrational or destructive. From the inside, it’s calculated. Cost keeps coming down while capability keeps going up. Scale accelerates learning. Learning sharpens execution. Profit gets pushed further out in time in exchange for position, for optionality, for staying in the game while others hesitate.

Then there’s pressure. Chinese companies grow up surrounded by it. Domestic competition is brutal. Policy shifts are frequent. Capital expects progress. You don’t get to hide behind plans or narratives for very long. That environment trains a certain kind of reflex. Adaptation becomes muscle memory. External pressure feels familiar rather than shocking.

Put all of that together and the picture changes. Trade friction slows movement at the edges. Headlines swing back and forth. But underneath, capability keeps building. That’s why Chinese firms continue to surprise competitors abroad even when the prevailing mood says they shouldn’t.

If you want to go deeper on the ideas that sit behind it, these pieces connect directly:

I’m curious where you think the next big misread of China will come from?