CDF2025 | Jeffrey Sachs: There is no overcapacity in China, just great capacity

南方财经全媒体记者 施诗、杨雨莱 北京、广州报道

“There is no overcapacity in China. There is just great capacity, and that great capacity can be harnessed for the sake of the entire world.” Jeffrey Sachs, the professor at Columbia University accepted the interview of SFC journalist at China Development Forum 2025. He shared his insights on China’s role in climate change and international trade of the world.

SFC Markets and Finance: Facing climate change, what can the international community work together?

Jeffrey Sachs: We need the urgent action. The United States obviously provides the wrong action. The U.S. is very destructive in the world community today, the wrong direction, the wrong ideas, the wrong approach. China is in the right direction very much. China is developing exactly the technologies, the industry and the capacity to help the whole world solve its problems. I pointed out that China's solar industry capacity is about twice what the world is using right now.

So we should double the world's demand and we should increase the exports from China to Africa, to ASEAN countries, so that the global transformation is faster. This can be done with good financial strategies. So China's vast capacity is at the center oftransforming the world in the way that we need. And I really applaud China's tremendous success in developing these industries, in building up their scale, in advancing the technology and lowering the costs and in introducing win-win programs like the Belt and Road Initiative. And my appeal is that now the United States is clearly not going to play a constructive role, China should play an even larger role for the sake of the whole world. This will be good for China and really vital for the whole world.

SFC Markets and Finance: Do you think China is facing overcapacity crisis?

Jeffrey Sachs: There is no overcapacity in China. There is just great capacity, and that great capacity can be harnessed for the sake of the entire world. And when people ask how to stimulate the Chinese economy well, China should be selling another 500 billion Watts of solar power, for example, that can be arranged with good cooperation internationally and the right financing. China could really double or more its sales of solar capacity in short order that's how to stimulate the economy. China should be selling more electric vehicles abroad, China should be selling more solar capacity, China should be selling more fast rails, China should be selling more 5G, because these are all the technologies that the world wants, China has vast capacity. And that means a vast capacity to increase its exports. Where will those exports go? They'll go to ASEAN, they'll go to the Arab region, they'll go to Russia, they'll go to Central Asia, they'll go to Africa. And how will they be repaid? They'll be repaid out of the future earnings and growth of all of those countries because if China partners with those regions. Those regions will achieve rapid economic growth and then be able to repay loans that China has made to sell its exports. So this is definitely a win-win proposition.

SFC Markets and Finance: How will the U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade policy affect China and the world?

Jeffrey Sachs: Remember that the United States and Europe combined is 800 million people. That's one tenth of the world population. There's the rest of the 90% of the world population that wants China's products, that wants China's trade relations, that wants to be part of the Belt and Road Initiative. So my sadness is that the United States is mismanaging its economy, but this is not really going to hurt China because China's relations are with all the rest of the world. The United States is just 4% of the world population. And that means that if the U.S. is stupid enough to block trade with the rest of the world, China will be smart enough to open trade widely with all the rest of the world. This is going to be for the mutual benefit of China and the rest of the world.

Chief Producer: Yu Xiaona

Supervising Producer: Shi Shi

Editor: He Jia

Reporter: Shi Shi, Yang Yulai

Video Editor: Li Qun

New Media Coordination: Ding Qingyun, Zeng Tingfang, Lai Xi, Huang Daxun

Overseas Operations Supervising Producer: Huang Yanshu

Overseas Content Coordinator: Huang Zihao

Overseas Operations Editors: Zhuang Huan, Wu Wanjie, Long Lihua, Zhang Weitao

Produced by: Southern Finance Omnimedia Group