China Meets Global De-industrialization: Industrial Structural Transformation of China

Akira Kohsaka ()
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Akira Kohsaka: Osaka School of International Public Policy, Osaka University

Chapter Chapter 9 in Challenges of Global Economic and Social Transformations, 2026, pp 201-273 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract This chapter examines China’s industrial structural transformation over the past several decades. Noting that the conventional rise-and-fall pattern of manufacturing’s share in labor and output is observed only among a select group of industrializers, we compare China with a few notable (de-)industrializers, specifically Japan, Korea and the US. Using sets of international comparable databases on structural transformation, we decompose productivity growth into sectoral productivity growth and inter-sector resource reallocation, analyzing structural transformation patterns as part of the income catching-up process. We find alternating leading sectors in terms of contributions to productivity growth, with significant time differences across these (de-)industrializers. Contrasting to the US, manufacturing continues to be a key driver of productivity growth in China and even amid de-industrialization in Japan and Korea. Moreover, by extending our analysis to more disaggregated databases, we identify significant contributions by business service and ICT as well. Finally, despite China’s remarkable productivity growth, substantial gaps persist in all sectoral productivity levels between China and the other economies. We explore how fast these gaps could be narrowed by current growth trends.

Keywords: Structural transformation; (De-)industrialization; Productivity growth; Reallocation; Growth decomposition; China; East Asia (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-032-06022-8_9

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-032-06022-8_9

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