Overcapacity

China has too many incinerators. Southeast Asia has the trash

China built a vast waste-to-energy industry — then ran short of trash. As incinerators sit idle at home, Chinese firms are heading to Southeast Asia, pitching modern plants as a fix for looming landfill crises. Lianhe Zaobao correspondent Lim Zhan Ting reports.

Lim Zhan Ting

15 Jan 2026

Why are China’s store prices lower than online? The overcapacity puzzle

China’s overcapacity crisis is pushing physical store prices below online deals, reversing the usual trend. Rising e-commerce costs, fierce platform competition and logistics expenses have made in-store shopping a surprisingly cheaper option in cities like Chengdu. Lianhe Zaobao senior correspondent Chen Jing takes a look at how China and the outside world are handling the overcapacity issue.

Chen Jing

07 Oct 2025

Sunburnt: Why China’s solar success became its own worst enemy

China’s rapid rise as a solar powerhouse fuels global growth but exposes deep cracks — overcapacity, trade tensions and the limits of state-driven industrial policy, says EAI deputy director Chen Gang.

Chen Gang

24 Sep 2025

China’s surging auto sales mask an industry in crisis

While 2025 is shaping up to be another stellar year for China’s auto industry on paper, what do factories, dealerships and corporate boardrooms really show about the state of the industry?

Caixin Global

01 Aug 2025

Storing sunshine: How northwest China is making renewable energy reliable

Sustainable energy has had a reputation for being notoriously unreliable — up until now, that is. Lianhe Zaobao Beijing correspondent Sim Tze Wei looks at China’s Gansu province, where several sustainable energy factories have come up with innovative storage solutions to mitigate the volatility and wastage of renewable energy sources.

Sim Tze Wei

12 Nov 2024

China’s overcapacity and Southeast Asian economies: A blessing despite concerns

China’s purported industrial overcapacity is a double-edged sword for Southeast Asian economies. How can Southeast Asian countries attract investments from China without becoming too reliant on them?

Maria Monica Wihardja, Sherry Tao Kong

21 Aug 2024

Chinese ‘involution’ seeps overseas, overwhelms competitors

Lianhe Zaobao China news editor Yang Danxu notes that the involuted Chinese market has permeated through all sorts of industries, even into the local governments, and is now seeping across borders.

Yang Danxu

20 Aug 2024

Why ‘overcapacity’ is a vague and misleading term

EAI senior research fellow Lance Gore notes that US concerns over what is perceived as China’s overcapacity might be unfounded and even indicative of US protectionism, and the fear that China might dominate manufacturing.

Lance Gore

03 May 2024

How do the West’s concerns about China’s overcapacity stack up?

Although China’s industrial overcapacity, which sits near the worst levels in the last decade, looms large in the minds of foreign leaders and policymakers, it is not new in the country.

Caixin Global

03 May 2024

China's overcapacity draws concern from global market

China's production overcapacity is an issue that its officials are well aware of, and it has even drawn the criticism of the outside world, most recently US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen. Given the fact that high-end manufacturing is facing overcapacity pressures and risks just after it has taken off, how will China mitigate the impact of overcapacity on the geopolitical landscape and its external environment?

Han Yong Hong

01 Apr 2024