Uganda, April 14 -- During her recent visit to Beijing, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen criticised her Chinese counterparts, arguing that China's government subsidies have led to overcapacity in crucial sectors like alternative energy and electric vehicles (EVs).

This, she contended, provides Chinese companies with unfair cost advantages that enable them to outcompete American firms. But while Yellen was right to point out China's overcapacity problem, her assertion that government subsidies are the root cause was misplaced.

For Chinese people of my generation, the leap from scarcity to abundance over the past four decades has been a dream come true.

Until the early 1990s, everything in China was rationed; nowadays, it is hard to fi...