Second, it leads to a growth of output that cannot be absorbed by a national economy in which wages constitute a diminishing share of output, except by still more accumulation-or by ever greater stress by firms on exports.
But there is enormous competition in export markets-not just from enterprises abroad, but with other enterprises operating in China. The increasing pattern has been one of Chinese factories assembling components produced elsewhere in East and South East Asia, with the final output then being exported. This ties Chinese based exporting firms into competing multinational supply lines: "The percentage of exports produced by foreignbased corporations grew from 17.4 percent in 1990 to 50.8 percent in 2001".46 By the early 2000s the result of such competition was a level of output that could not always be absorbed completely by the world market any more than by the domestic market. The National Statistics Bureau reported that "of all Chinese manufactured products, 90 percent are in oversupply" ,47 despite massive price cutting: "Among Chinese companies the price war is particularly intense because competitors often chase market share rather than trying to increase short term profitability," a Financial Times correspondent could report: "Relentless competition among local suppliers keeps profit margins almost invisible for many firms" ,48
The Years of Delusion
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