If you take any numbers produced by the Chinese government at face value – as this author appears to – your chances of understanding what is actually happening are pretty low.
The CCP will eventually discover that you cannot buck the market for ever. There is a massive build up of bad debt becoming evident in China at present. Housing is a disaster – a literal Ponzi scheme. Countries duped into signing up for Belt and Road are now defaulting or is severe trouble (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, …). The future demographics for China are terrible.
I tend to take much of what this author writes with a pinch of salt. Everything is unrelentingly positive towards autocrats such as Xi and Putin, whilst simultaneously proclaiming the west is one day away from implosion.
Look it’s fine, UnHerd supports an eclectic mix of opinions no matter how batty and we should seek to keep that going, there is no reason why the Beijing payroll should not be accommodated.
Indeed, it is a major strength of open systems that dissenting voices, even propaganda is allowed – it reveals a whole lot about the speaker, their organisation or country, and they may even make some good points (your enemy is sometimes your best critic).
Al Hut
1 year ago
As someone in the financial sector I must say your optimism is one of extreme delusion. China faces similar problems the US faced in the 1930s, the great difference is the US had an open market and a massive war coming that they were not initially part of, and the current Superpower that needed bailing out. The US had a growing population and a population they could lean on for financial support, they had natural resources and considerable agricultural resources. This is not the case with China, they have a shrinking youth population, a nation that has no wealth except fake property that will never have value and their geography causes serious issues around water, food supply and most importantly oil imports. Basically, China is going to end up like every nation before since 1950 that has been said will be the next superpower or tiger from Japan, Taiwan, EU, Mexico, Venezuela and the list goes on.
now that china is below the 6% growth target they will no longer be able to manage the international debt over the next 10 years. This will cause serious civil unrest, supply shocks and hopefully the complete and utter collapse of the CCP.
Socialist communism thankfully has its own internal self-destruct button and that button is being beaten every day by the CCP with every stupid action they take.
If I hear another idiot talk about the west plans on year and the Chinese plan for centuries Im going to explore. If that were the case they would not have killed 40million people during the great leap forward. They would not have built +10million empty apartments they will never be completed and fall to pieces in 15 years. they would not have had the 1 child policy, they would not have the zero covid policy. The CCP planning only shows their absolute incompetence and gangsterism that least them to plan for immediate self-preservation.
The idea China thinks in centuries or whatever does my head in as well. It seems like one of those things that some Western commentator said once and it just gets repeated over and over again.
I don’t see much long term thinking from the CCP at all. All I see is them flailing about kicking own goals.
JP Martin
1 year ago
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read that the Three Gorges Dam is about to flood half of China or that the country has already fallen off a demographic cliff. Maybe it’s all copium, I don’t know. I’ll be the first to confess that I have no idea where to get reliable analysis of China.
rob monks
1 year ago
good to have a viewpoint which isn’t hysterical about China.
There are too many Western self appointed arm chair experts or laptop experts on China who want to put down the country.
an interesting piece Philip
If you take any numbers produced by the Chinese government at face value – as this author appears to – your chances of understanding what is actually happening are pretty low.
The CCP will eventually discover that you cannot buck the market for ever. There is a massive build up of bad debt becoming evident in China at present. Housing is a disaster – a literal Ponzi scheme. Countries duped into signing up for Belt and Road are now defaulting or is severe trouble (Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Bangladesh, …). The future demographics for China are terrible.
I tend to take much of what this author writes with a pinch of salt. Everything is unrelentingly positive towards autocrats such as Xi and Putin, whilst simultaneously proclaiming the west is one day away from implosion.
Look it’s fine, UnHerd supports an eclectic mix of opinions no matter how batty and we should seek to keep that going, there is no reason why the Beijing payroll should not be accommodated.
Indeed, it is a major strength of open systems that dissenting voices, even propaganda is allowed – it reveals a whole lot about the speaker, their organisation or country, and they may even make some good points (your enemy is sometimes your best critic).
As someone in the financial sector I must say your optimism is one of extreme delusion. China faces similar problems the US faced in the 1930
s, the great difference is the US had an open market and a massive war coming that they were not initially part of, and the current Superpower that needed bailing out. The US had a growing population and a population they could lean on for financial support, they had natural resources and considerable agricultural resources. This is not the case with China, they have a shrinking youth population, a nation that has no wealth except fake property that will never have value and their geography causes serious issues around water, food supply and most importantly oil imports. Basically, China is going to end up like every nation before since 1950 that has been said will be the next superpower or tiger from Japan, Taiwan, EU, Mexico, Venezuela and the list goes on.m going to explore. If that were the case they would not have killed 40million people during the great leap forward. They would not have built +10million empty apartments they will never be completed and fall to pieces in 15 years. they would not have had the 1 child policy, they would not have the zero covid policy. The CCP planning only shows their absolute incompetence and gangsterism that least them to plan for immediate self-preservation.now that china is below the 6% growth target they will no longer be able to manage the international debt over the next 10 years. This will cause serious civil unrest, supply shocks and hopefully the complete and utter collapse of the CCP.
Socialist communism thankfully has its own internal self-destruct button and that button is being beaten every day by the CCP with every stupid action they take.
If I hear another idiot talk about the west plans on year and the Chinese plan for centuries I
The idea China thinks in centuries or whatever does my head in as well. It seems like one of those things that some Western commentator said once and it just gets repeated over and over again.
I don’t see much long term thinking from the CCP at all. All I see is them flailing about kicking own goals.
I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve read that the Three Gorges Dam is about to flood half of China or that the country has already fallen off a demographic cliff. Maybe it’s all copium, I don’t know. I’ll be the first to confess that I have no idea where to get reliable analysis of China.
good to have a viewpoint which isn’t hysterical about China.
There are too many Western self appointed arm chair experts or laptop experts on China who want to put down the country.
an interesting piece Philip