Asia Chart of the Week:Hey,who said China lost its edge?

　　As if on cue: the renminbi starts to look a bit wobbly and, presto, the worrywartsbegin to look for a big depreciation. Soaring wage growth in recent years, so theirargument goes, has deprived China of its competitiveness. From this perspective,a sharp exchange rate adjustment is a "necessity" to lift exports and GDP growth.Well, not quite. Sure, exports are lacklustre, especially compared with their headypace of the mid-2000s. But that's because global demand is weak, not becausethe Mainland has lost its edge. In fact, last year, China once again raised its sharein global exports – and at double the usual pace. Therefore, it's tough to arguethat competitiveness is what ails China, or that a lack thereof necessitates majorexchange rate realignment (of course, there are other considerations for policychanges, which our FX strategists frequently write about).For Asia more broadly,changes in global export shares also provide a handy guide to individual markets'competitive positions. Korea has held up well (although the maturing smartphoneand global mining capex cycles will make life tougher). India and Vietnam, too, lookpeppy. By contrast, Malaysia, Indonesia, Taiwan, the Philippines, Thailand, andJapan have either lost market share or stagnated, presumably being hurt the mostby China's tenacious competitive edge.