A man holds a Chinese flag in front of the Forbidden City in Beijing during China's National Day Golden Week holiday, Oct. 6. AFP-TNS

From U.S. President Donald Trump’s trade war to AI developments, 2025 has been full of dramatic twists and turns. One of the most consequential takeaways is to never, ever underestimate China.

At the onset of the year, the world’s second-largest economy was left for dead. Economists were predicting lost decades akin to what Japan experienced in the 1990s, and its dominance of manufacturing was being challenged by Trump’s second term and the drive by exporters to diversify their supply chains and move operations abroad. Global investors had largely fled, seeing that the country’s 3D problems — deflation, debt and demographics — were structural and insurmountable.

By year-end, the perception couldn’t be any more different. President Xi Jinping was the only foreign leader that stood up to Trump’s bullying tactics on trade and forced him to back down by weaponizing Beijing’s control of rare earth materials. It has kept its status as the world’s most vibrant factory, so much so that some are lamenting that Europe, for one, has nothing to sell to China. As for global money flows, foreigners are returning as an AI boom has lifted the Hong Kong bourse to a four-year........

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