China dominates the global sale of solar panels and has caught up with Japan as the world’s largest car exporter. It is even gaining in the worldwide sale of low-tech products like shoes.

Now Beijing is weighing whether to deploy its considerable power as an exporter to try to stabilise an economy labouring under distinctly home-grown problems – a real estate crisis and weak spending by consumers, still cautious after nearly three years of stringent pandemic restrictions. The decision could reverberate throughout the global economy and provoke a backlash among trading partners that are already under siege by China’s exports.