A recent article in the New York Times outlined China’s future economic investments: manufacturing. This may seem unsurprising: in many ways we are of course living in a world dominated by Chinese manufacturing, but Beijing’s plans are to double down on the current paradigm as it moves away from more unstable market sectors, like real estate. The scale already is impressive.

China’s factories have been gaining dominance for decades. The country’s share of global manufacturing has grown nearly five times, to 31 percent, since 2000, according to data from the United Nations Industrial Development Organization. The United States’ share has tumbled to 16 percent, while the share of developing countries not including China has stayed level at 19 percent.

Much has been made about the U.S. domestic investment in manufacturing sectors like semiconductors, but compare that to the scale of China’s current investments:

China has already built enough solar panel factories to supply the entire world’s needs. It has built enough auto factories to make every car sold in China, Europe and the United States. And by the end of 2024, China will have built in just five years as many petrochemical factories as all of those now running in Europe plus Japan and South Korea.

For years there have been international rumblings about trade imbalances, and there is sure more political jockeying to come as the world navigates the magnification of the current trade dynamics. Read more about it here.