In China’s north-eastern rustbelt city of Shenyang, the sprawling Brilliance Dongxing automotive components plant captures the contradictions at the heart of the world’s second-biggest economy.
Even as China’s trade surplus tops $1tn and the country’s leaders hail its ability to develop cutting-edge AI and withstand a global trade war, the Brilliance group is being kept on life support by the city government and dividends from a joint venture with German carmaker BMW.
Once a homegrown automotive champion that sold everything from minibuses to sedans, today its lossmaking non-BMW operations rank among China’s thousands of so-called zombie enterprises, groups that do not generate enough profits to service their debt.
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