But at what cost? The fiscal expense is impossible to calculate. One attempt by the Centre for Strategic and International Studies, a think-tank, estimated that China spent over 1.7% of GDP on industrial policy in 2017-19, which would add up to over $3trn in today’s dollars if sustained for a decade. That money could have been spent on other things, such as health care, which might have better served the public

Or they could have funneled those trillions into the private pockets of a few billionaires.