Baosteel and Chinese steel industry dominance

Baosteel as world's largest steel company today, producing 2× US total. Used to set up the tragedy-of-the-commons argument about state-subsidized steel exports.

I used to be the POSCO professor in the 1990s. In 1978 the premier of Korea — Park — went to Colonel Park, who was his chief of staff, and said, we want to build a steel mill in Korea so we can be rich like the Japanese. Colonel Park became, overnight, from being a military attache, head of this new steel company in Korea. By the time I went over there as the POSCO professor to give a talk, it was the world's largest steel company. They basically hooked up with US Steel, who sold them the technology, and built the world's largest steel company in Pohang, Korea — that's why it's POSCO. Except it's not the world's largest anymore. Anybody know the world's largest steel company today? It's Baosteel. It's Chinese. They make twice as much steel as the entire United States. And we were the big guys. After World War Two we made seventy-five percent of the world's steel. Anyone figure out why? Because we bombed out the competition. A world war is a wonderful thing for rising to the top if they're not dropping bombs on your country.