China’s Economic Numbers Have a Credibility Problem

Enda Curran
Bloomberg
China’s gross domestic product grew 6.8 percent in the first quarter, smack on its pace in the preceding quarter, which was unchanged from the quarter before that.

China Quietly Releases 2017 Provincial GDP Figures

Salvatore Babones
Forbes
Provincial GDP figures don't add up to the reported national growth rate.

China's Debt Levels Pose Stability Risk, Says IMF

Guardian
Fears that China risks being the cause of a fresh global financial crisis have been highlighted by the International Monetary Fund in a hard-hitting warning about the growing debt-dependency of the world’s second biggest economy.

Why China's GDP Growth Rate Tells Us Nothing about Its Economy

Fortune
China clocked in GDP growth of 6.9% in the first three quarters of 2017, and is set to end the year at 6.8%. But Peking University finance professor Michael Pettis believes that the figure is no indication of the actual state of the Chinese economy.

Chinese Manufacturing Expanded More Than Expected in November

Yen Nee Lee
CNBC
China reported on Thursday that factory activity expanded at a quicker pace in November, with the official manufacturing Purchasing Managers' Index coming in at 51.8 — topping expectations.

Books

06.20.17

Shadow Banking and the Rise of Capitalism in China

Andrew Collier
This book is about the growth of shadow banking in China and the rise of China’s free markets. Shadow Banking refers to capital that is distributed outside the formal banking system, including everything from Mom and Pop lending shops to online credit to giant state owned banks called Trusts. They have grown from a fraction of the economy 10 years ago to nearly half of all China’s annual 25 trillion renminbi (U.S.$4.1 trillion) in lending in the economy today.Shadow Banks are a new aspect of capitalism in China—barely regulated, highly risky, yet tolerated by Beijing. They have been permitted to flourish because many companies cannot get access to formal bank loans. It is the Wild West of banking in China. If we define capitalism as economic activity controlled by the private sector, then Shadow Banking is still in a hybrid stage, a halfway house between the state and the private economic. But it is precisely this divide that makes Shadow Banking important to the rise of capitalism. How Beijing handles this large free market will say a lot about how the country’s economy will grow—will free markets be granted greater leeway? —Palgrave Macmillan{chop}

China Has a Huge Debt Problem. How Bad Is It?

CNN
Credit rating agency Moody’s downgraded China this week, warning that the country’s financial health is suffering from rising debt and slowing economic growth. It’s the first time the agency has cut China’s rating in nearly three decades.

China Is Facing a Catch-22 Dilemma

Jacob Shapiro
Business Insider
A subsidiary of the Industrial and Commercial Bank of China (ICBC) has recently reached deals with seven Chinese state-owned enterprises to convert about 60 billion yuan ($8.7 billion) of unpaid loans into equity shares.

Asian Shares Mixed as Investors Eye Trump’s Inauguration

Aza Wee Sile
CNBC
Asian markets were a mixed bag on Friday after China’s latest set of economic data suggest the economy is recovering, even as risk sentiment sours ahead of Donald Trump’s inauguration

The Chinese Government Finally Admitted That Its Economic Data Was Made Up

Zheping Huang
Quartz
For many who have long believed that China’s economic growth figures seemed too good—and tidy—to be true, they now have official confirmation of that skepticism.

China Banks Extend Record 12.65 Trillion Yuan in Loans in 2016 as Debt Worries Mount

Sue-Lin Wong and Lusha Zhang
Reuters
China’s banks extended a record 12.56 trillion yuan ($1.82 trillion) of loans in 2016 as the government encouraged more credit-fueled stimulus to meet its economic growth target

China Should Set More Flexible GDP Growth Target in 2017: Central Bank Adviser

Reuters
China should set a more flexible economic growth target this year to create more room for reforms, a central bank adviser told the official Xinhua news agency, suggesting a range of 6.0 to 7.0 percent versus 6.5 to 7.0 percent in 2016. China has...

Trump’s Misleading Comparison of the U.S. and Chinese Economies

Ian Talley
Wall Street Journal
Emerging markets run faster than advanced economies because of the rule of diminishing returns

Economists Question China’s Consistent Growth Numbers

Mark Magnier
Wall Street Journal
China says its economy grew 6.7% for the third consecutive quarter

Conversation

05.24.16

How Much Debt Is Too Much in China?

Yukon Huang, Houze Song & more
In the first quarter of 2016, Chinese debt rose to 237 percent of GDP—a level comparable to that of the U.S. or the Eurozone and yet much larger than that of most developing economies, according to analysis by The Financial Times. Additionally,...

Viewpoint

03.24.16

Why China’s Economy Can’t Collapse

from Radio Free Asia
China’s economic outlook once again became the focus of attention for many last week. For one thing, the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) listed the possibility of a hard landing for China’s economy as the topmost of the world’s top 10 risks. There...

Caixin Media

02.19.16

Central Bank Governor on Reforming the Exchange Rate, Adopting a Digital Currency

Recently Zhou Xiaochuan, Governor of the People’s Bank of China (PBOC), China’s central bank, had an interview with Caixin and talked about the yuan exchange rate regime reform, macro-prudential policy framework, digital currency, and other topics...

How China’s Anti-Corruption Drive Is Hurting Growth

Katy Barnato
CNBC
Chinese authorities' anti-corruption campaign has knocked between 1 percent and 1.5 percent off the country's gross domestic product (GDP).

The BRICs are dead. Long live the BRICs!

Edward Hadas
Reuters
Brazil, Russia, India, China – BRIC.

What Is China’s 'New Normal'?

Robert Peston
BBC
What a difference two years make, in China.

China's Xi Says Economy Resilient, Has Huge Potential: State Radio

Judy Hua and Jake Spring
Reuters
China's economy is resilient and has the capacity to maintain a long-term medium-to-high growth rate.

Conversation

01.26.15

Does Size Matter? (In the U.S. and Chinese Economies, That Is...)

Taisu Zhang
Last week, President Obama’s State of the Union Address touted a U.S. economic recovery. Meanwhile, China’s economic growth is slowing and Ma Jiantang, head of the National Bureau of Statistics, has said that China’s economy, contrary to overseas...

As Growth Slows, China Pins Hopes on Consumer Spending

Alexandra Stevenson
New York Times
The economy increased by 7.3 percent in the last quarter of 2014 and 7.4 percent for the full year, the country’s National Bureau of Statistics said Tuesday. While many countries would welcome such growth, the rate fell short of the government’s...

It’s Time to Give China Some Time

William Pesek
Bloomberg
There’s also evidence the country may be approaching something of a Henry Ford moment, when a manufacturing-based economy matures to point where workers can afford to buy the products they're making.

All Eyes Will Be On China This Week

Jeremy Gaunt
Business Insider
China's economy, the second largest in the world, gets a spot check this week with a barrage of data due that should indicate how successful Beijing has been in supporting growth.

China’s Economy Just Overtook The U.S. In One Key Measure

Mark Gongloff
Huffington Post
Here's another way of looking at it -- China's share of the global economy is now slightly bigger than America's, at 16.5 percent to 16.3 percent.

Media

05.06.14

Chinese to the World: Ignore Our GDP

The U.S.-based World Bank grabbed everybody’s attention by announcing that China was poised to displace the United States as the world’s largest economy based on purchasing power. But a survey of the Chinese web shows people at home aren’t buying it...

Conversation

04.30.14

Will China’s Economy Be #1 by Dec. 31? (And Does it Matter?)

William Adams, Damien Ma & more
On April 30, data released by the United Nations International Comparison Program showed China’s estimated 2011 purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rate was twenty percent higher than was estimated in 2005. What does this mean? China's...

The World’s Second Biggest Consumer

S.C.
Economist
Based on The Economist's calculations, China outpaced Japan as the world’s second-biggest consumer economy last year.

Caixin Media

02.11.14

Local Governments Aim for Lower GDP Growth This Year

Most of the local governments that have announced their GDP targets for this year aimed lower than they did in 2013, citing the need to rebalance the economy and improve the quality of growth. Many missed their growth targets last year.The...

Media

02.03.14

‘Chicken Fart Decade’: GDP Vs. Smog

Chinese media have debated why January saw pollution so extreme it closed schools and airports, chased away foreign tourists, and even prompted a ban on Lunar New Year’s fireworks. It’s likely that a substantial portion of this smog is caused by...

Infographics

08.12.13

Is China’s Massive Infrastructure Spending Wise or Wasteful?

China leads the world in infrastructure investment. The new roads, new railroads, new skyscrapers, even whole new cities that seem to spring into existence every day leave little doubt that investment has been ambitious. But has it been wise? This...

China’s Baffling G.D.P. Figures

Yueran Zhang
Atlantic
After Q1 2013, no single province claimed a real GDP growth rate lower than the nationwide number. The contradiction between the national and provincial data is nothing more than a continuation of a long-time trend. 

Conversation

03.28.13

Will China’s Renminbi Replace the Dollar as the World’s Top Currency?

Patrick Chovanec, Damien Ma & more
Patrick Chovanec:This week’s news that Brazil and China have signed a $30 billion currency swap agreement gave a renewed boost to excited chatter over the rising influence of China’s currency, the renminbi (RMB). The belief, in many quarters, is...

Lies, Damned Lies, And Chinese Statistics

Tom Orlik
Foreign Policy
Although the information provided by the National Bureau of Statistics is not completely transparent, it has taken steps to free national data from the influence of local exaggeration.

Pressures at Home, Tensions Offshore

Bill Bishop
Deal Book
It is tempting to conclude that the increasingly dangerous dispute between China and Japan over the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands is driven in part by Beijing’s need to distract its populace from problems at home

China GDP: If Not 10%, Then What

Rahul Jacob
Financial Times
Standard Chartered economist says China's GDP is likely to grow 7% over the next five years without big interim reforms.

Debating China’s Economic Future

Nicholas Lardy and Michael Pettis
Wall Street Journal
Is China’s economic growth destined to plunge down to 3% to 4% a year, or can it be sustained in the current 7% to 8% range? China Real Time has asked heavyweight experts Michael Pettis of Peking University and ...

China Faces Tough Choice on Growth

TOM ORLIK And BOB DAVIS
Wall Street Journal
China's latest evidence of sputtering growth underlines a dilemma for its incoming leaders: They can shore up the economy by doubling down on an exhausted growth model, or take a risky political bet on reforms that could worsen the slowdown in...

Buyers Dry Up in China as Economy Slows

Aaron Back
Wall Street Journal
China's soft August trade data could presage further weakness in its key export sector in the months ahead, suggesting that the world's No. 2 economy will continue to slow.The data released Monday showed that China's external and...

Deeper Slowdown Suspected in China

TOM ORLIK And AARON BACK
Wall Street Journal
Official data due this week are expected to show growth in China slowing to its lowest rate since the global financial crisis. But some economists say they are turning up evidence that the true picture could be even worse.

China's Coming Economic Transformation

Andrew Batson
Wall Street Journal
China is grappling with an economic downturn, but there is more than the usual amount of disagreement about how fast it's slowing down. The battle is not between the usual bulls and bears. The most interesting split this time is between those...

Reports

04.01.12

Is China Slowing Down?

John H. Makin
American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research
With problems in the manufacturing, housing, and export sectors in China, we will likely see slower gross domestic product growth for the world’s second largest economy in 2012. China’s leadership is changing for the first time in a decade, and its...

Reports

02.13.08

How Large is China’s Economy? Does it Matter?

Wayne M. Morrison, Michael F. Martin
Peony Lui
Congressional Research Service
China’s rapid economic growth since 1979 has transformed it into a major economic power. Over the past few years, many analysts have contended that China could soon overtake the United States to become the world’s largest economy, based on estimates...

Reports

01.01.05

Exchange Rate and Monetary Policy in China

Nicholas R. Lardy
Cato Institute
China's account surplus has increased sharply as a product of economic growth and manipulation of its undervalued currency. This paper argues that China's account surplus is actually higher than reports indicate. China’s monetary...