At the monthly press conference China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) now regularly gives whenever the Big Three economic accounts are updated (this time along with quarterly GDP), spokesman Liu Aihua was asked by a reporter from Reuters to comment on how the global economic recession might impact the Communist government’s long range goal of reaching its assigned GDP target. [...]
Here they are again, seemingly at odds over how to proceed. Reminiscent of prior battles over whether to revive the economy or just let it go where it will, it appears as if China is in for Xi vs. Li Round 2. Or is it all just clever politics?Li Keqiang may be nominally the Chinese Premier but he’s a very [...]
Has the Keynesian intellectual been able to re-assert himself with China’s economy once again on the brink of breaking down? Li Keqiang is nominally the Communist number two but had seen his role especially in economic affairs curtailed after a 2015-16 struggle with Xi Jinping. The issue was debt versus growth.As a trained Economist, Li was responsible for the government’s [...]
The Chinese are well past their trough, so there may be some meaningful interpretations for us to take from their data. Then again, we already know there’s not much there from China’s trade figures. Exercise caution, in other words.One key reason why is that China’s going to get hit with a second wave. Virus outbreak maybe, economic disruption definitely. The [...]
Questioning the veracity of Chinese estimates (for anything) has always been something of an amateur sport. For a stat like real GDP, everyone “knows” that it is managed. In a complex world where an economic system for a billion and a half is incomprehensibly unpredictable, there’s really no other way to always hit your government’s mark (unless the Chinese are [...]
These numbers are essentially meaningless. They aren’t completely devoid of content, of course, just that such substance is of limited use. The Chinese have confirmed that their economy had shut down in the January-February period. The estimates for the Big 3 accounts were way below any and every consensus, thus demonstrating the severity of the disruption. First, the figures: Industrial [...]
Chinese Industrial Production accelerated further in December 2019, rising 6.9% year-over-year according to today’s estimates from China’s National Bureau of Statistics (NBS). That was a full percentage point above consensus. IP had bottomed out right in August at a record low 4.4%, and then, just as this wave of renewed optimism swept the world, it has rebounded alongside it. Rather [...]
The Chinese government was serious about imposing pollution controls on its vast stock of automobiles. The largest market in the world for cars and trucks, the net result of China’s “miracle” years of eurodollar-financed modernization, for the Chinese people living in its huge cities the non-economic costs are, unlike the air, immediately clear each and every day. A new set [...]
Perhaps ominously, there were overcast and hazy conditions in Beijing back on October 1 when China put on its largest display of military force in the nation’s history. To celebrate the Communist’s regime 70 years of that history, the country’s Chairman Xi Jinping dressed up like he was its original founder Chairman Mao. Joined by his immediate two predecessors, Jiang [...]
China’s growing troubles go way back long before trade wars ever showed up. It was Euro$ #2 that set this course in motion, and then Euro$ #3 which proved the country’s helplessness. It proved it not just to anyone willing to honestly evaluate the situation, it also established the danger to one key faction of Chinese officials. The entire world [...]
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