For years Western experts have been talking of China being on the verge of financial and economic ruin. So far it has survived. But China’s uneven post-Covid recovery has brought Western gloom about its economic prospects to new heights this year.
This dismal thinking draws on real economic problems. China slipped into price deflation in July, as growth in retail sales and industrial output slowed. And in August, Country Garden, a major property developer, missed payments on some of its debt. To cap all this off, Beijing announced last month that it will stop publishing youth-unemployment figures, after reporting record highs – a sign that the authorities are keen to bury bad economic news.
So, might the dire expectations from Western economists finally come true this time? Certainly, economic growth has slowed substantially since those heady days during the 1990s and 2000s, of growth rates of more than 10 per cent per annum. But since China has survived all the previous portents of ruination, it would probably be wise not to hold our breath. Gloomy predictions of China’s imminent economic collapse say more about the West than they do about China.
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