PRC Economy - New Reflections : April 20 2015

[A_Gupta]

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles ... nomic-data
China Must Get to Grips With Dodgy Data
Economic analysis is equal parts art and science as Beijing flatters the numbers

[yensoy]

At best, the US has bought itself a few decades, give or take.

However, the loss of face for the chinese is a massive blow and unforgiving as they are wont to be, they will wait and bide their time. Even with all their massive and extensive weaponry along with their huge standing armies, navy and airforce, not to mention their ginormous foreign exchange reserves and stupendous financial muscle, they were unable to deter trump. Man, that's got to hurt.

The fragility of their system has been exposed by trump. The dodgy chinese accounting practices, their devious and often hyped numbers which were simply taken at face value and seldom questioned by eager gora hordes scrambling to invest/relocate into china for manufacturing are slowly coming home to roost.

The italicized part of your quote is exactly why the Chinese don't have all the time in world to "bide". The system is a house of cards, ready to collapse and it's getting even more unbalanced with every passing "stimulus" or "reform". Meanwhile the population is no longer dazzled by the heady growth trajectory, and is having to deal with real issues like runaway inflation especially for the essentials of rent, education & health care. The state's finances are a secret, taxation is a joke since governments have been funding themselves with land sales (from originally confiscated lands, no doubt redeveloped with terrific infrastructure). What happens to development after every Chinese family owns 3 homes?

It's far from a slam dunk for the Chinese. In course of time, we will know if the emperor is naked. But if he is found to be naked, there is more than just the emperor at stake, the entire empire may come crumbling down.

[CalvinH]

Trump vision of trade war is an impulsive behaviour meant for his constituents who will vote for him.

For as long as he gets the desired result for 2018 and then in 2020 that is what he is aiming at.

The question of course is what does he wants really. And I am sure the answer has changed since this was started.

[nam]

This will happen in industry by industry, sector by sector where Cheen is often the world’s largest market. Not just the Europeans, Samsung is already gearing up investment and production to replace the US in the chini chip market. Oz is angling for the massive void of animal feed left by the tariffs on American soybean. Toyota is going after GM’s number two position in the chini market (after VW.)

UNLESS the US makes it clear that they are not going into this trade war just so the allies can benefit.

Well let's step in.. and make a deal with Trump babu. "You want access to the future 2nd largest market in the world, sell your soyabeans etc, we want these [..]. You can meanwhile continue the twitter fist fight with China."

A friend taking advantage of a need.. is friend indeed.

I frankly don't care if he does trade war with Martians or brings down world economy, as long as we are making money and deals.

For the first time, we have a US leader who is openly going against our FUTURE adversary. This is our lifetime opportunity.

[chola]

This will happen in industry by industry, sector by sector where Cheen is often the world’s largest market. Not just the Europeans, Samsung is already gearing up investment and production to replace the US in the chini chip market. Oz is angling for the massive void of animal feed left by the tariffs on American soybean. Toyota is going after GM’s number two position in the chini market (after VW.)

UNLESS the US makes it clear that they are not going into this trade war just so the allies can benefit.

Well let's step in.. and make a deal with Trump babu. "You want access to the future 2nd largest market in the world, sell your soyabeans etc, we want these [..]. You can meanwhile continue the twitter fist fight with China."

A friend taking advantage of a need.. is friend indeed.

I frankly don't care if he does trade war with Martians or brings down world economy, as long as we are making money and deals.

For the first time, we have a US leader who is openly going against our FUTURE adversary. This is our lifetime opportunity.

Trump expects access to our future largest market anyways as we’re supposed to be a free and fair market. Otherwise, we’ll get the same treatment as Cheen us getting now. lol

There is no bargains period. Trump is going into a tariffs war with Cheen and he is crushing them on his own. He doesn’t need to bargain with anyone else.

Let’s hope Cheen doesn’t capitulate and drags out a losing fight. If they give in on “Made in China 2025” all it means is the chinis will use US standards, technology and currency instead of chini ones. It doesn’t weaken them vis a vis the rest of the world. It just means less independence for them and they don’t challenge the top position.

[JayS]

Mod NOTE: This is second warning and there won't be anymore. This thread is not about Trump's Trade war. We have other appropriate threads such as Geopolitics and Geo-economics. Take the discussion there. Keep the thread focused on PRC economy only.

[A_Gupta]

China Developers' Funding Source at Risk in Sales Crackdown
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... -crackdown

Guandong province is considering scrapping so-called "pre-sales" in which the developer receives the entire sales proceeds of apartments upfront before construction completes.

[A_Gupta]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... m-november
China to Cut Tariffs on Imports Including Machinery, Textiles

Wednesday’s decision will lower the average most-favored nation tariff rate to 7.5 percent from 9.8 percent. China still has a higher average tariff rate than many developed economies. The U.S.’ average applied MFN rate was 3.4 percent in 2017, and in general the Trump administration has accused China of being a protectionist economy.

Any reduction of tariffs usually must be offered to all countries equally under World Trade Organization rules, but U.S. goods would still be subject to China’s retaliatory tariffs.

[Neshant]

There revolution will not be televised.

----

"They Are Worried About Panic": China Blocks Bad Economic News As Economy Slumps

China's Shadow-banking system is collapsing (and with its China's economic-fuel - the credit impulse), it's equity market has become a slow-motion train-wreck, its economic data has been serially disappointing for two years, and its bond market is starting to show signs of serious systemic risk as corporate defaults in 2018 hit a record high.

But, if you were to read the Chinese press, none of that would be evident, as The New York Times reports a government directive sent to journalists in China on Friday named six economic topics to be "managed," as the long hand of China's 'Ministry of Truth' have now reached the business media in an effort to censor negative news about the economy.

The New York Times lists the topics that are to be "managed" as:

Worse-than-expected data that could show the economy is slowing.
Local government debt risks.
The impact of the trade war with the United States.
Signs of declining consumer confidence
The risks of stagflation, or rising prices coupled with slowing

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-10- ... wth-slumps

[mappunni]

China May Have $5.8 Trillion in Hidden Debt With ‘Titanic’ Risks

• Local governments relying on LGFVs to fund projects, S&P Says
  
  Citigroup analysts agree markets right to worry over debt risk

China’s local governments may have accumulated 40 trillion yuan ($5.8 trillion) of off-balance sheet debt, or even more, suggesting further defaults are in store, according to S&P Global Ratings.

“The potential amount of debt is an iceberg with titanic credit risks,” S&P credit analysts led by Gloria Lu wrote in a report Tuesday. Much of the build-up relates to local government financing vehicles, which don’t necessarily have the full financial backing of local governments themselves.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... anic-risks

[chola]

Deleted.

Mod Note - Stick to the topic. I already gave two warnings not to discuss "Trump's Trade War" here.

[anupmisra]

China May Have $5.8 Trillion in Hidden Debt With ‘Titanic’ Risks

Local governments relying on LGFVs to fund projects, S&P Says

Chinese growth was largely stage managed by debt-based financing of real estate and infrastructure development (Google - China's ghost cities), and the commercial banks were forced to lend to fly by night borrowers with poor credit backed by over inflated land values (land supplied by the commies) and, when the loans were called, the commies asked the banks to write off all the bad bank debt. One hand washes the other.

After a while, bad debt catches up.

[chola]

China May Have $5.8 Trillion in Hidden Debt With ‘Titanic’ Risks

Local governments relying on LGFVs to fund projects, S&P Says

Chinese growth was largely stage managed by debt-based financing of real estate and infrastructure development (Google - China's ghost cities), and the commercial banks were forced to lend to fly by night borrowers with poor credit backed by over inflated land values (land supplied by the commies) and, when the loans were called, the commies asked the banks to write off all the bad bank debt. One hand washes the other.

After a while, bad debt catches up.

Creating infrastructure is a good thing in the turd world because what makes them turd world is the very lack of infrastructure.

If you can finance infrastructure at will (and overdo it in the case of Cheen) then you are no longer third world.

What makes poor nations underdeveloped is the fact they can’t raise debt to finance any infrastructure. India lacks infrastructure not because we want to live without it. We simply cannot raise the capital. We can’t print that kind of money without going into hyperinflation.

The fact that Cheen is able to create debt to build this infrastructure is far more interesting than just saying “it was just done through debt.”

It is like just saying “he hit pidgeon while levitating.” The far more important question is how he levitated not that he hit a pidgeon. It is far more important and interesting how they generated that kind of credit and debt in the first place.

[nam]

Majority of the Chinese debt is local. Also the fact that you can have any amount of debt you want, as long as you are able to service it.

Their export driven market and currency manipulation allows them large inflow of money. This allows the industries to service their debt. Chini currency was 16 to a dollar in 2006. Now it is 6. That is more than 100% increase in value from 2006.

As I mentioned earlier, as long as Chinis are producing something which the world is ready to buy, they can continue this debt binge.

Same is the case with US. It can have huge debt, since it is able to service it. It produces stuff which the world buys and being the reserve currency has it's perks.

Majority of our debt is local as well. We need to produce stuff which the world is ready is buy.

[yensoy]

...Their export driven market and currency manipulation allows them large inflow of money. This allows the industries to service their debt. Chini currency was 16 to a dollar in 2006. Now it is 6. That is more than 100% increase in value from 2006...

Not true. Renminbi was historically around 8 to the dollar, 8.27 to the dollar during its long hard pegged regime which ended in 2005.

[g.sarkar]

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/15/ch ... i-jinping/
China’s Great Leap Backward
For decades, the country managed to avoid most problems suffered by dictatorships. Now Xi Jinping’s personal power play risks undermining everything that made China exceptional.
BY JONATHAN TEPPERMAN, OCTOBER 15, 2018
In the last 40 years, China has racked up a long list of remarkable accomplishments. Between 1978 and 2013, the Chinese economy grew by an average rate of 10 percent a year, producing a tenfold increase in average adult income. All that growth helped some 800 million people lift themselves out of poverty; along the way, China also reduced its infant mortality rate by 85 percent and raised life expectancy by 11 years.
What made these achievements all the more striking is that the Chinese government accomplished them while remaining politically repressive—something that historical precedent and political theory suggest is very, very difficult. No wonder, then, that the China scholar Orville Schell describes this record as “one of the most startling miracles of economic development in world history.”
The miraculous quality of China’s achievements makes what is happening in the country today especially tragic—and alarming. Under the guise of fighting corruption, President Xi Jinping is methodically dismantling virtually every one of the reforms that made China’s spectacular growth possible over the last four decades. In the place of a flawed but highly successful system, he is erecting a colossal cult of personality focused on him alone, concentrating more power in his hands than has any Chinese leader since Mao Zedong.
In the short term, Xi’s efforts may make China seem less corrupt and more stable. But by destroying many of the mechanisms that made the Chinese miracle possible, Xi risks reversing those gains and turning China into just another police state (think a gigantic, more open version of North Korea): inefficient, ineffective, brittle, and bellicose. And that should worry not just China’s 1.4 billion citizens but the rest of us as well.
To understand what makes Xi’s personal empire-building campaign so dangerous, it helps to first understand what made China exceptional for so long. Throughout modern history, most tyrannies and one-party states have shared a few basic traits. Power is held by a very small number of individuals. To maintain their power, those individuals repress dissent and rule by intimidation. Because bureaucrats and citizens live in fear, they compete to flatter their bosses. Nobody tells the truth, especially when it could make them or their leaders look bad. As a result, cloistered tyrants—their egos bloated by constant, obsequious praise—find themselves increasingly cut off from reality and the rest of the world (think Kim Jong Un, Bashar al-Assad, or Robert Mugabe) and end up ruling by whim and instinct with little sense of what’s actually happening in their own countries. The impact of this ignorance on domestic and foreign policy is disastrous.
For 35 years or so—from the time Mao died and Deng Xiaoping launched his reforms in the late 1970s until Xi assumed power in 2012—China avoided many of these pitfalls and defied the law of political averages by building what scholars have called an “adaptive authoritarian” regime. While remaining nominally communist, the country embraced many forms of market capitalism and a number of other liberalizing reforms. Of course, the old system remained highly repressive (remember Tiananmen Square) and was far from perfect in many other ways. It did, however, allow the Chinese government to function in an unusually effective fashion and avoid many of the pathologies suffered by other authoritarian regimes. Censorship never disappeared, for example, but party members could disagree and debate ideas, and internal reports could be surprisingly blunt.
No longer. Today, Xi is systematically undermining virtually every feature that made China so distinct and helped it work so well in the past. His efforts may boost his own power and prestige in the short term and reduce some forms of corruption. On balance, however, Xi’s campaign will have disastrous long-term consequences for his country and the world.
Perhaps the most unusual feature of the system Deng created was the way it distributed power among various leaders. Rather than let one person exercise supreme authority, as do most dictatorships, Deng divided power among the Communist Party’s general secretary (who also gets the title of president), the premier, and the Politburo. Deng hoped this system would ensure that no one person could ever again exercise the kind of control Mao had—since his unchecked power had led to vast abuses and mistakes, such as the Great Leap Forward (during which an estimated 45 million people perished) and the Cultural Revolution (during which Deng himself was purged and his son was tortured so severely he was left paralyzed). As Minxin Pei, a China expert at Claremont McKenna College, explains, the collective leadership model Deng designed helped weed out bad ideas and promote good ones by emphasizing careful deliberation and discouraging risk-taking.
Since assuming power in 2012, Xi has worked to dismantle China’s collective leadership system in several ways. First, in the name of fighting corruption—an important goal and one China badly needs—he has purged a vast number of officials whose real crime, in Xi’s view, was failing to show sufficient loyalty to the paramount leader. Meng Hongwei, the Interpol chief who China abruptly detained two weeks ago, is just the latest, high-profile case; his story is hardly unusual.
......
Gautam

[A_Gupta]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... ate-buying
China's Late Stock Rally Has All the Hallmarks of State Buying

[pankajs]

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-econ ... my-slowing
Weak business sentiment suggests Chinese economy slowing faster than expected

* Beijing may introduce new support measures as indexes for both manufacturing and service sectors slide in October
* Analysts warn of worse to come next year with export orders likely to slump as a result of ‘front loading’ happening now

China’s economy appears to be slowing faster than expected at the start of the fourth quarter, a bad omen for growth early next year when the full force of the trade war with the United States comes to bear.

[pankajs]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... apartments
A Fifth of China’s Homes Are Empty. That’s 50 Million Apartments

Soon-to-be-published research will show roughly 22 percent of China’s urban housing stock is unoccupied, according to Professor Gan Li, who runs the main nationwide study. That adds up to more than 50 million empty homes, he said.

The nightmare scenario for policy makers is that owners of unoccupied dwellings rush to sell if cracks start appearing in the property market, causing prices to spiral. The latest data, from a survey in 2017, also suggests Beijing’s efforts to curb property speculation -- considered by leaders a key threat to financial and social stability -- are coming up short.

“There’s no other single country with such a high vacancy rate,” said Gan, of Chengdu’s Southwestern University of Finance and Economics. “Should any crack emerge in the property market, the homes to be offloaded will hit China like a flood.”

[kancha]

China launches strong financial support for firms to keep stable employment

China will return 50% of the unemployment insurance fees in the previous year to firms that are under financial strain yet refuse to lay off their employees, as part of the measures to prioritize steady employment amid increasing economic downward pressure

[anupmisra]

8 Reasons Why The Economy Of China Will Collapse. This summary captures many of the reasons in above posts.

[Austin]

China's ‘One Belt, One Road’ global investment plan mapped out

[kancha]

As trade war bites, China advisers recommend lowering 2019 growth target

[ArjunPandit]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-scamme ... 1545044402
Behind paywall, but has telling stories of corruption/bribery and data security even in china's pvt sector

[ArjunPandit]

https://www.wsj.com/articles/huaweis-ne ... 1545047671
BBye California, welcome DC

[Austin]

Defiant Xi Jinping Says No One Can Dictate Reforms to China

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... emium-asia

[Neshant]

Defiant Xi Jinping Says No One Can Dictate Reforms to China

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... emium-asia

That means he is about to bend over.
They are going to lose the trade war with the US and US is far from done on that front.

[Austin]

Defiant Xi Jinping Says No One Can Dictate Reforms to China

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... emium-asia

That means he is about to bend over.
They are going to lose the trade war with the US and US is far from done on that front.

I doubt they will loose the trade war , check China position on this on EU diplomat message leak. As US interest rate is rising and Fed is not playing to trump tantrums we are in a cocktail mix here even Alan greeenspan says US bull market run is done with

And now Fed says too
https://mobile.twitter.com/GregMannarin ... 7822403584


Of course time will tell how this shapes up

[Neshant]

That means he is about to bend over.
They are going to lose the trade war with the US and US is far from done on that front.

I doubt they will loose the trade war , check China position on this on EU diplomat message leak. As US interest rate is rising and Fed is not playing to trump tantrums we are in a cocktail mix here even Alan greeenspan says US bull market run is done with

And now Fed says too
https://mobile.twitter.com/GregMannarin ... 7822403584


Of course time will tell how this shapes up

Greenspan is Captain Obvious.

He gives predictions after the fact, so it's worthless.

Post 2008, he's worried his legacy will be that of a snakenoil salesman.

So he needs to get one prediction right before he dies.

Except it's not a prediction if it's already happening.


It would be interesting to see what percentage of loans in China are non-performers and how leveraged up that junk is.

Rising interest rates destroys leveraged bets on bad investments and destruction is what we should be seeing.

Big time destruction.

[Austin]

China’s imports to top $2 trillion in 2018 – Beijing

https://www.rt.com/business/447304-chin ... -trillion/

The total volume of Chinese imports is going to set a fresh record this year, exceeding the two trillion dollar level, according to Song Xianmao, a senior official at China’s Ministry of Commerce.
Song added that Beijing is planning to step up efforts to boost the quality of foreign trade and further expand imports.

In 2018, Chinese authorities have lowered import tariffs on a wide range of vital goods including drugs, cars and daily necessities. The total tariff level has been reportedly reduced from 9.8 percent to 7.5 percent.

[Austin]

Engine of growth: Trade turnover across China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’ exceeds $5 trillion since 2013

https://www.rt.com/business/447240-silk ... ands-jobs/

It’s been five years since Beijing announced the ambitious multi-trillion-dollar Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Chinese companies have already built 82 economic and trade cooperation zones in 24 countries along the BRI routes.

The project has created more than 240,000 jobs in BRI countries, according to China’s top diplomat Yang Jiechi.

“Over the past five years, trade volume in goods between China and countries involved in the initiative exceeded $5 trillion, and direct investment stands at over $70 billion,” said Yang Jiechi, head of the office of Foreign Affairs of China’s Communist Party.

[ArjunPandit]

The amount of negative reporting in NYT and other western houses is increasing by day. Interesting cadence. Even SCMP is throwing up balloons

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/24/worl ... a-dam.html

https://www.scmp.com/economy/china-econ ... ng-economy

https://www.ft.com/content/a3564812-363 ... beb0903fa3

https://www.theguardian.com/business/chinese-economy

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business ... 13f1c1839d

Even at the time of Bahubali 2(2017), TimesSquare had a near permanent presence of opressions under communist regime, highlighting deaths etc under commie regimes..

[Austin]

Chinese Central Banker Details Upcoming Stimulus to Support GDP Growth

https://sputniknews.com/business/201812 ... l-bankers/

[JayS]

chetak, yensoy et al, please continue the non-PRC economy specific discussion to "understanding China after 19th Congress" thread. That thread can be used to discuss general China specific discussion. I will move your last few posts there.

[yensoy]

chetak, yensoy et al, please continue the non-PRC economy specific discussion to "understanding China after 19th Congress" thread. That thread can be used to discuss general China specific discussion. I will move your last few posts there.

Noted and thank you, I was going to ask you to do your "mod magic"

[hgupta]

chetak, yensoy et al, please continue the non-PRC economy specific discussion to "understanding China after 19th Congress" thread. That thread can be used to discuss general China specific discussion. I will move your last few posts there.

Where is this thread? Can not find it.

[chetak]

chetak, yensoy et al, please continue the non-PRC economy specific discussion to "understanding China after 19th Congress" thread. That thread can be used to discuss general China specific discussion. I will move your last few posts there.

Noted and thank you, I was going to ask you to do your "mod magic"

ditto, thanks

[Austin]

The US-China trade war dynamic: What’s in it for India?

https://www.orfonline.org/expert-speak/ ... dia-46871/

[Shanmukh]

China's real estate market goes for a toss. If this really plummets, then I think China will be in deep trouble. Not sure how they can weather that upheaval. But then again, this is all western news and who knows how much they are cooking up stuff to keep the Chinese under pressure?

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/2018 ... omies.html

[Singha]

my friend was saying rents in shanghai are a lot lower than HK. for a small 2bhk in HK, one can get a large 3BHK in shanghai. and that most of the sinic elites have property investments in usa, canada, nz and aus and some are holding foreign passports to step out quickly if targeted by political czars.