India, Dec. 10 -- The Chinese growth story has always been recognised as an export-led one. It started decades ago. But what is now becoming starker by the day is the scale of Chinese export dominance, even though its growth is a somewhat pale shadow of what it used to be. China's January-November 2025 merchandise trade surplus crossing the $1 trillion threshold - no country has ever achieved this - is yet another reminder of its export prowess. That this feat was achieved in a year when Donald Trump tried to fight a trade war with China and initially imposed triple-digit tariffs on it, only proves Chinese resilience even further. There is good reason to believe that the US has also allowed Chinese imports to be redirected via other countries. Sure, not all of the Chinese export resilience is thanks to pure and benign competitiveness. A lot of the US's backdown on tariffs was because the Chinese threatened to hold back the supply of critical rare earths that are indispensable for modern manufacturing. But what is also equally true is that completely decoupling from China today is easier said than done for any country. The fact that the Trump administration has done away with even sector-specific restrictions imposed by the previous regime - Trump's approval for selling H200 Nvidia chips to China is the latest example - shows that even most cutting-edge companies might be lobbying on behalf of China in other countries. Does all of this mean China has some sort of invincible position in today's world? Nothing can be further from the truth. It is a country in demographic decline, past its peak growth and struggling to make consumption the anchor of its growth. There are also concerns about debt overhang and huge excess capacity in the economy. All these concerns can make an authoritarian government extremely worried. However, the point is not to read these fault lines and predict a preordained implosion of the Chinese economy. Rather, the focus should be on ironing out other countries' concerns about Chinese trade in multilateral forums, most of which, unfortunately, are almost comatose today. Trade can work for everyone when it is fair, not just free. A zero-sum portrayal of it, where Beijing gained at the cost of Washington and Washington felt it could turn the tables, will only generate more paranoia than goodwill about trade....