The news that China is poised to overtake the US as the world’s largest producer of manufactured goods would cause alarm in some quarters –were it not for the fact that the people likely to be alarmed about foreign competition tend to assume that China overtook the US 15 years ago.

The rise of Chinese manufacturing is no cause for hysteria; while it poses some challenges, the good news far outweighs the bad. Nowhere is this more so than in China itself: millions of people are being lifted out of poverty each year by the country’s rapid economic growth, a story of human progress too rarely acknowledged by those who fear China. Yet citizens of the developed world also benefit from the “China price” as consumers.