Chinese Economics Thread

[Biscuits]

Compare with per-pandemic youth unemployment rate, China youth unemployment rate is 7% to 8% higher now. However, China isn't the only one who had a jump in youth unemployment rate during the pandemic. It took other countries 1 year to get their youth unemployment rate back to pre-pandemic level. As China is just coming out of pandemic restrictions in just a few months, it is not a fair comparison at the moment. If China couldn't get its youth unemployment lower to or near the per-pandemic level within a year or so, then China has much more serious problem. However, I have always said that it is the housing downturn that is the biggest drag on consumption and the economy.

MSM has weaponized the youth unemployment data number and published hundreds of articles to paint a picture of China's imminent collapse. Such propaganda war is having an effect on China's global image. Continuing publishing youth unemployment rate would only give MSM more munition to attack China but does nothing to help the situation. Chinese government is already aware of the urgency to address youth employment so it is irrelevant for such data to be published or not. Taking the data offline for a few months, so that the government can concentrate of solving the economy problem without rushing to enact costly and ineffective policies.

A minor drop just half a year after the end of covid herd immunity isn't an "urgent situation". It just represents fluctuations from people coming back to the job markets.

Few people inside China, least of all the 18 yr olds which mostly would want to get education/training, are worried about jobs out of all things.

All the economy has lost is the cheap extra growth from NATO demand due to their economic downturn. The baseline growth from domestic consumption is working as usual. Of course the total would be slightly reduced when a lot of potential markets have caused themselves to go into recession, but since these markets represent countries China would like to contain and destabilize, it is hardly a loss worth shedding much tears for.

 

[Minm]

Can't really hide behind "China calculate unemployment differently" when China is compared to itself pre-covid. Overall hiding data to pretend nothing happened is a shitty thing to do. I don't care what anti China folks say, their opinion never mattered. You bet if American government did this this forum will all be laughing for good reason.

At this point, publishing the number does more harm than good. Of course it doesn't make China look good, but publishing it would make China look even worse, causing consumers and investors to avoid spending their money in China

 

[aqh]

What more can Chinese consume without inflation or inventing new fees?

What specifically is China missing according to you?

Household appliances are near 100% saturation even in rural areas, cars have record sales already and are only limited by parking spaces which can't be created easily. University tuition is cheap and limited by test scores not finances. What, exactly, can be consumed more?

The PRC can actually give low earning Chinese consumers money in the form of welfare and let them decide what they want to buy with it instead of trying to decide for them through cuts for specific industries. This is like how everyone prefers 100 dollars over a 100 dollar gift card. The latter has less flexibility.

 

[FairAndUnbiased]

The PRC can actually give low earning Chinese consumers money in the form of welfare and let them decide what they want to buy with it instead of trying to decide for them through cuts for specific industries. This is like how everyone prefers 100 dollars over a 100 dollar gift card. The latter has less flexibility.

What products have not reached market saturation?

How to prevent the money from being saved for asset bubbles?

How to prevent the money from being taken up by higher living costs like rent, healthcare, education?

 

[Overbom]

What products have not reached market saturation?

How to prevent the money from being saved for asset bubbles?

How to prevent the money from being taken up by higher living costs like rent, healthcare, education?

They should be given as a form of voucher that can only be used for specific product categories (exl. houses, investments, wealth products, healthcare etc)

However that would then create a whole race for everyone involved to package house sales as "consumption" items that can also use the vouchers lol

 

[vincent]

Giving money for consumers to spend is basically pulling future demands forward, since the government can't keep giving money forever.
Just let the market balance itself out.

 

[Overbom]

Giving money for consumers to spend is basically pulling future demands forward, since the government can't keep giving money forever.
Just let the market balance itself out.

I mean, giving any mind of money like that is a stop-gap, not a real solution.

There are structural issues that need to be fixed first. Rural-Urban divide, Hukou reform, unified market (more like divided market with all that local protectionism..), transparent and predictive policy-making etc

 

[KYli]

Hukou isn't a big factor anymore as most cities except top tier ones already ended any restrictions on resident registration. Local protectionism needs to be dismantle but special interests are so intertwined that it would not be easy.

Transparent policies would be hard to come by as the central government actually wants to rein in monopolies, corruption, inequality and social and environment issues but most of these initiatives would be too costly so the government needs to find an equilibrium between the great goods/long term interests versus short term interests/pragmatism.

The central government might have to abandon any effort to rejuvenate rural especially those mountainous rural counties. Most of the rural villages, towns and districts need to consolidate. As population declines and people move to urban and more developed regions, inhabitants would be asked to move and live in counties' central districts and surrounding area so health care, electricity, water, sanitation, infrastructure and schools can be provided with minimal costs and sustainable.

Provinces would consolidate their resources to invest and develop a few major metropolis within their provinces so these cities can be competitive and attractive for investment and youngsters. Over 80% of people would live in urban and the rest in rural.

 

[Deleted member 23272]

Talking down about China, waging psychological warfare, injecting hates and negative sentiment, and brainwashing Chinese as inferior, breaking Chinese faith in the system, government and economy. Consumer confident is very important for the general economy.

Right, because foreign propaganda that most Chinese don't have access to and can't read anyways is what's going to break their morale and confidence in the system, not the reality they live in currently of bleak job prospects, which leads to a hesitancy to spend and invest.

 

[Blitzo]

Right, because foreign propaganda that most Chinese don't have access to and can't read anyways is what's going to break their morale and confidence in the system, not the reality they live in currently of bleak job prospects, which leads to a hesitancy to spend and invest.

Unironically yes, because foreign news media isn't quite as impermeable to the domestic populace as you think, and there are also domestic media and individuals on social media who use such news and data for such purposes as well.

Instead of choosing to actively censoring it, simply cutting off the flow of oxygen is more effective. If individuals and news organizations have chosen to be spiteful with the data they have access to from the government, then the government will respond in kind.