China Shock 2.0 jolts global economy as Trump does Xi’s work

On top of the tariffs, wars and inflation upending the global economy, US chieftains are grappling with a new question: which tech companies might get “BYD-ed” next? The reference here is to the Chinese electric-vehicle juggernaut that’s zoomed past Elon Musk’s Tesla and its peers to become No. 1 globally.

The idea that the Shenzhen EV company was an aberration has since been dispelled by the “DeepSeek shock,” which disrupted the artificial intelligence realm, and by a number of other startup successes, from Horizon Robotics to autonomous vehicle shop Qcraft.But as 2026 unfolds, and US President Donald Trump prioritizes trade wars over investing in raising America’s tech game, China is not so quietly grabbing market share around the globe despite Trump’s tariffs and trade curbs.

And thanks to the “Made in China 2025” program Xi Jinping launched in 2015, this isn’t spin but economic reality. And this latest “China shock”, increasingly known as “China shock 2.0”, is becoming the talk of corporate boardrooms everywhere.

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