It's the economy, stupid!

New on the site this time:

​Two pieces on the Chinese economy, both sparked by the massive intervention of China’s central bank into the Chinese stock market on September 24, the effects of which are being followed by China-watchers everywhere.

I was in China for the month of September, and my broad impression is that people in general were less tense than last year, when many were still reeling from the effects of the sudden end of China’s zero-covid policy at the end of 2022. At the same time, many Chinese seem definitively convinced that the boom is over and hard times are coming.

Sun Liping’s blog post, “Rethinking Some of My Ideas in the Light of the Current Situation,” reflects this pessimism. He seems resigned to the possibility that China may go through something like Japan’s “30 lost years,” during which China can solve its overcapacity problem and rethink what kind of economy it wants. By contrast, Zhao Yanjing (“With the Huge Turmoil in the Stock Market, China’s Economy Reaches its Most Perilous Moment”) remains confident that if the central bank holds firm, government intervention can shock China’s economy out of the moribund state in which is currently finds itself.

Enjoy!