Well, I agree with Milton Friedman about not getting heartburn over so-called “trade deficits”. Having more imports than exports is not on its face a bad thing necessarily. Shoot, look at Hong Kong’s history - an investment and economic giant on a rocky precipice - they didn’t have any natural resources, imported everything, and the free market with no tax turned them into an economic powerhouse.
I think if we take care of business by kicking our mostly unconstitutional government out of our marketplace affairs, we’ll soon be back humming as the greatest economic power in the world.
There’ll probably always be those who will have the Pavlovian reactions to inflammatory terms like “trade deficits” and “unfair trade practices” thinking we need government “solutions” like tariffs, but I think countries who have the freest market come out on top regardless of what other nations do. Let the supply and demand of the free market in the voluntary self interested cooperation between buyers and sellers set the price points You’ll come out ahead in the long run.
But I would assert their economy is a "House of Cards" and it wouldn't take all that much for it to collapse.
Hong Kong is China's duty free port for the wealthy leadership and technocrats in the good graces of the leadership along with something of a safety valve for small time smugglers bringing in baby powder, chocolates, and whatever else the government chooses to ignore.
Looking at something and saying it's exceptional without taking note of the exceptions that created that exception is absurd. At best an inability to think the situation through and at worst a straw-man argument which is exactly what Friedman acolytes use it for, a straw-man argument.
The US grew into an industrial powerhouse with tariffs as the primary source of Federal funding. Not only did they protect US industry, relying on tariffs rather than income taxes limited the power of the Federal government.
People talk about the inequity of the income tax and how Congress is out of control saying "we have to get back to the Constitution". You can't get there from here as unless the 16th and 17th Amendments are repealed.