China’s manufacturing growth slowed in October, raising fears in a country that has grown reliant on exports to drive economic growth. Intense domestic competition has pushed producers to cut prices, moves that will likely anger China’s trading partners that are already frustrated by a flood of imports they say is undermining their domestic industry.

Western countries are also growing increasingly worried about Chinese industrial expansion into new sectors, challenging other advanced economies. In just the last five years, the Asian giant has doubled its chemical production, now accounting for around half the world’s products in a sector once dominated by Western firms, “raising the prospect of further tensions with the EU and US,” the Financial Times said.