Chinese Economics Thread

[Blitzo]

What are your objections exactly? He always comes across as even handed on most of his posts. Not to mention whatever you feel about him doesn't invalidate what he wrote. Even in the comments people from moderate Sinophiles like Ralph Litzinger to the hardcore pro-China nationalist like Cyrus Janssen seem to be in agreement.

Fundamentally, he does not view things in terms of geopolitical competition or contemporary technological competition, and tends to draw false equivalencies, and also he tends to minimize or disagree with the CPC in terms of what are key strategic goals and priorities of the state.

Furthermore, in this specific case, reliance on anecdotes and his own personal encounters (which in turn depends on his own degree of selection bias) are the flaws. That isn't to say personal anecdote is useless, and I think we can pretty reasonably say that there are domains of the Chinese economy and society that have varying degrees of pessimism, but posting him as if he is one of the "best China commentator on twitter" is amusing.


Describing him as "not the worst Chinese shitlib type on Twitter" perhaps is more accurate.

 

[Proton]

6.3% growth for Q2, below predictions of 7.1%. Still enough decently performing sectors in the economy on top of the revenge spending during public holidays to offset some of the weaker aspects. Will be interesting to see how the recovery will continue for the rest of the year. Most concerning of all is that youth unemployment rose to 21%.

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Looks like quarterly growth is above expectations, but last years growth has been revised. With Q2 (the baseline for yoy) seeing less decline while Q3 and Q4 has less growth.

 

[xlitter]

Retail sales are doing poorly

Consumption is good, but is trapped by a 7.9% drop in exports and real estate development investment.

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In the first half of the year, the total retail sales of social consumer goods reached 22,758.8 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 8.2%, 2.4 percentage points faster than the first quarter. According to the location of business units, the retail sales of consumer goods in urban areas were 19,753.2 billion yuan, an increase of 8.1% year-on-year; the retail sales of consumer goods in rural areas were 3,005.6 billion yuan, an increase of 8.4%. In terms of consumption types, retail sales of goods were 20,325.9 billion yuan, an increase of 6.8%; catering revenue was 2,432.9 billion yuan, an increase of 21.4%. The sales of basic daily necessities grew steadily, and the retail sales of clothing, shoes, hats, needles, textiles, grain, oil and food by enterprises above the designated size increased by 12.8% and 4.8% respectively. The sales of upgraded commodities grew rapidly, and the retail sales of gold, silver and jewelry, sports and entertainment products, and cosmetics in units above the designated size increased by 17.5%, 10.5%, and 8.6% respectively. National online retail sales reached 7,162.1 billion yuan, a year-on-year increase of 13.1%. Among them, the online retail sales of physical goods was 6,062.3 billion yuan, an increase of 10.8%, accounting for 26.6% of the total retail sales of social consumer goods. In June, the total retail sales of consumer goods increased by 3.1% year-on-year and 0.23% month-on-month.

 

[pipaster]

First direct shipping for between Brunei and China opened on July 8.

Solar panels making big changes in the lives of nomadic herders.

 

[fatzergling]

YoY numbers are noisy because of last year's lockdowns during the same period. It's better to look at QoQ but at an annualised pace. QoQ was 0.8% and annualised that comes to 3.2%.

Zooming out, we can see the big drop in Q2 of 2022 in this graph:

View attachment 115992

China's GDP has been expanding between the 4-5% band since before Covid. Which is actually not that bad. Everyone understands that the era of superhigh growth is over. The focus should now be on quality of growth.

China was growing at ~5% before the 2022 lockdowns damaged growth. We could expect a convergence back to 5% once China is fully recovered.

 

[GiantPanda]

6.3% growth for Q2, below predictions of 7.1%. Still enough decently performing sectors in the economy on top of the revenge spending during public holidays to offset some of the weaker aspects. Will be interesting to see how the recovery will continue for the rest of the year. Most concerning of all is that youth unemployment rose to 21%.

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Youth unemployment is a peculiar stats in China. We know there is a lack of labor and increasing wage growth in manufacturing which is partly what is driving the China Plus 1 strategy of exporters, both foreign and domestic:

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There is also the "Lie Flat" movement that came as the result of the "996" overwork tendency in Chinese private firms especially in technology.

So I don't think it is an issue of jobs creation (which is the main underlying concern of umemployment) but that of rising expectations as well as a societal shift from "living to work" to "working to live" in China.

Basically, the young are are holding out for better jobs or no jobs at all if they can swing it.

This is not the mass of the proletariat needing to work of they starve. It is youngsters, more educated than ever before, looking for something better.

Not overly concerning in my opinion. China needs to automate its factories faster and working on providing more jobs for its educated class.

Which is a good thing that China uses AI for industry and manufacturing instead of ChatGPT-type soft-production on analysis and office work. China's mismatch is an abundance of factory jobs and a corresponding lack of office related white-collar ones.

 

[mossen]

Youth unemployment is a peculiar stats in China

China includes students looking for part-time work in their measurement. If you exclude students, it falls to around 10%.

IMO, the panic over youth unemployment is overdone.

 

[TK3600]

China includes students looking for part-time work in their measurement. If you exclude students, it falls to around 10%.

IMO, the panic over youth unemployment is overdone.

That is a relief.

 

[sunnymaxi]

That is a relief.

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1678849429670096896

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1678849453837684736

read this. its around 7 percent only. LOOL

 

[Bellum_Romanum]

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1678849429670096896

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1678849453837684736

read this. its around 7 percent only. LOOL

Well, you can't really fault the western lemmings and the pretend concern people (who are almost always exclusively white western people and self-hating Asians) for going with 20% and now supposedly 21% when the stats they use come from Chinese government. But notice how these same lemmings and liars would parrot every supposed bad news and stats from China if it fits their IDEOLOGICAL MESSAGING I.e. China collapsing theory ergo See See Pee must go and or fully privatized their economy to receive "Shock therapy" that's been very effectively applied in post Soviet Russia LOL..

When the stats show the opposite of what these western propagandists want to see, they go on overdrive to suggest and insist that Chinese data from government is not only suspect but actually DOCTORED, FAKE, FALSIFIED because that's what COMMIES DO. They can largely get away with such pedestrian reasoning in their respective countries and to their respective peoples since most people in the west have been successfully brainwashed to view anything that comes out from China's political system as both corrupt, incompetent and scary at the same time. Where people live under severe repression under the brutal dictatorship of the See See Pee.