8/8
Beijing might feel that it has no choice but to push the problem forward because of unemployment concerns domestically and trade tensions externally, but if the US is ever able to get its act together on trade, these adverse conditions are actually likely to get much worse.
1/4
Interesting article by Yanmei Xie: "Why does involution defy repeated attempts to purge it?" she asks. "Because the foundational structure of China’s political economy breeds it."
https://t.co/XnWRFLwoJH
1/15
Very good Bloomberg piece on Beijing’s recent push to curb overcapacity through an “anti-involution” campaign. It is important to remember in this context that while excess capacity has been...
https://t.co/PSgEwSgFD0
5/16
That's the problem: the cost of creating these investment assets was much greater than the value these assets generated for the economy
In an economy governed by hard budget constraints, the losses would have been expensed, and so would not have added to overall GDP.
7/ This time, Democrats won. We stopped Trump from being able to cut taxes for billionaires. But Elon’s ability to kill a bill on China that would hurt his bank account shows you exactly who Republicans work for. It’s not you. It’s the billionaires and special interests who don’t give a shit about you. Democrats can win—but we need to show up & expose this corruption every. single. time.
9/9
That's why it's so difficult to reverse the transfers – they imply a contraction in investment and manufacturing that in the short term is likely to exceed the expansion in consumption.
That, I think, explains why Beijing's unwillingness is wrong, but not "bizarre".
In the latest episode of Pekingology, Freeman Chair Jude Blanchette speaks with @jacobstokes on his new report “Beyond China’s Black Box: Five Trends Shaping Beijing’s Foreign and Security Policy Decision-Making Under Xi Jinping.” https://t.co/MjryrbH8fB
6/15
They represent, instead, excess capacity for China's overall economy, driven by a "competitive" advantage in manufacturing that is based not on manufacturing efficiency but rather on the relative suppression of wages and transfers to households.
7/15
They also mean that the rest of the world must absorb China's weak domestic demand and its excess savings.
Without these surpluses, Chinese domination of certain sectors would simply mean that China is producing for the world goods in which it has comparative advantage.
1/8
Although Russell Napier is right to identify China's high and soaring debt as a major problem for the economy, he then says: "China needs to not just reflate its economy but to inflate away its debts."
https://t.co/Xacqr2lqg2 via @ft
4/5
This does indeed mark an astonishing discovery for "standard economics". People are not just consumers. They are also producers, and the extent to which they can consume does not depend on how cheap consumer products are, but rather on how much they produce.
7/8
But while that may be a solution for specific areas of overcapacity, it cannot be a solution for China's overall problem of excess capacity unless the rest of the world agrees to reduce its manufacturing share to allow China's need to expand its manufacturing share.
SO EXCITED the new @CSISCBE report, "US-China Scholarly Recoupling," features 25 fantastic scholars from top American & Chinese universities & think tanks. Together the explain the value of US-China scholarly ties & provide a practical pathway forward.
https://t.co/pBGLSBZBG7