You forgot you cite your source.
Source: Western China Watchers
Chinese Economics Thread
- Thread starter Norfolk
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Source: Western China Watchers
Is it crazy to understand that what the CEO tells small groups of investors are not what they tell the media - are you really as naïve as to think they would tell the entire world that they are under pressure? Put another way, should we also take whatever US generals say to the public about PLAAF capabilities as the fact and absolute fact? Lol. You should know better. Curious how you apply different standards to different issues when it suits your view of the world.
Yes, confidence/sentiment today vs. the end of 2022, has deteriorated, save for a blip in hope at the beginning of the year. If you are suggesting that the end of 2022 was somehow a 'great place in the confidence of Chinese population in economic growth' from which we are only seeing a 'mere deterioration', I have a bridge to sell you.
It indeed is directed at you, as government stimulus directly feeds into the economy and therefore sentiment - the deterioration of the sentiment, from an extremely fragile/poor place, as at in late 2022, is *in context* of the additional stimulus, without which things would undoubtedly be worse off.
I'm going to end my post with this final point I'll make on this matter:
How the population feels about itself is a different issue as to how you think they should feel - you, living in an excuse of a city in the US or Canada facing fentanyl crisis/gun violence/deterioration of social services, obviously see the strength of China as reflected in its HSR and great infrastructure and technology opportunities. But do not be surprised that people in China do not feel good about it, because they take these 'strengths' for granted - they want more - and when they are accustomed to 30 years of 9% CAGR in GDP, 5% feels atrocious. Sentiment is a function of expectations vs reality, not reality in of itself.
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A few months ago you were calling for 6% to 6.5%. That was before the couple of trillions of stimulus the central government pumped into the economy in terms of the deficit increase as well as front-loading of SPBs. Lets not mis-remember.
I never said anything about absolute fact or otherwise, the only reason I quoted that article is because you happened to bring up Yum China to begin with and the article had some numbers for context as well as a quote associated with it.
If you have direct quotes and context that you want to specify, that's another matter.
The evidence you have shown have not demonstrated the phrases that you used before, specifically:
"Confidence/sentiment is Atrocious" and "As such, the majority of the population do not share the overall positive sentiments espoused by those on this forum".
Even the Morgan Stanley graphs you provided do not suggest that.
I think we may have differing views as to how significant the current stimulus measures are, and the array of other structural, geopolitical, outside factors that have influence on both the economy and sentiment.
And even as you wrote below, sentiment is a function of expectations and reality.
I think you may be making a few assumptions as to what my beliefs of the Chinese economy or China as a nation are, but I do agree that sentiments are a function of expectations and reality.
What I have been challenging you on this entire time is what actually is the population level sentiment that currently exists and whether there is credible basis to use the severity of phrases you've utilized. But maybe we have different perceptions of what "atrocious" or "majority" means, so if you want to leave it at that it's fine with me.
We can agree to disagree here, but the fact remains that people went on the streets in Shanghai and Henan and Xinjiang at the end of 2022 due to a confluence of different factors - call it COVID control or economic malaise - would in my book be an atrocious circumstance. Its pretty simple, people do not protest when they are happy.
This is simply not true, consumption downgrade as shown by the latter chart is not something people do when they feel upbeat and rosy about the economy.
If there is any confusion, consumers across the entire spectrum (save the Uber rich drinking Moutai and buying Hermes) are downgrading their consumption - is your view that this is not a relevant indication of 'sentiment'? Maybe you don't think this is atrocious, but the degree to which this sentiment has shifted from just a couple of years ago is significant.
You may argue that this is temporary or that it will get better (which I think is worthy of a discussion in of itself), but the present behaviour of consumers at large would indicate that they do not believe things will get better despite there being many objective reasons to believe so.
I agree there were protests and discontent in late 2022; whether that relates to whatever the current or past feelings of population economic sentiment, is another matter.
I'm not saying there is no link, but the nature of the relationship is yet to be established.
Let's put it this way, "atrocious" or "majority of the population do not share the overall positive sentiments espoused by those on this forum" could have been shown, for example if the Morgan Stanley six month economic outlook graph had over 50% of the population having a negative sentiment.
The % of those surveyed in October with negative outlook is at 11%, same at 33% and positive at 56%, which ain't quite it, but as I said we mayve have different interpretations of what "atrocious" or "majority of the population" means.
supercat
Major
According to the article, China probably under-reports the GDP to maintain its status as a developing nation as long as possible.
According to one estimate, China's economy will grow 5.6% this year.
I misremembered. 6-6.5% it is.
Lol
What is your proof that opening up in the middle of omicron would have necessarily helped the economy?
It's another thing if countries like India and US who chose to trade lives for supposed economy actually got growth out of it. When they in fact performed worse than China.
Out of all major economies, China defended its own exceptionally well from Covid. Saying things like "maybe they would have even more growth if they ignored healthcare" is mere what ifs with no basis in what happened in other economies.
Surprise, a global shutdown of travel is going to cause downward economic pressure. In this game, it's not about winning but about losing less than everyone else, and guess what, that's exactly what China got out of it.