The Chinese Ministry of Finance has announced that the government's total debt is 70.77 trillion yuan, accounting for 56% of China's 2023 GDP, including central government debt of 30.03 trillion yuan and local debt of 40.74 trillion yuan. The debt of the US government is $35.7 trillion, accounting for 130% of the US GDP in 2023. More importantly, the Chinese government's debt is mainly constructive, such as center gov's debt is to invest in military, high-speed railways and highways, and local gov's debt is invest in schools, subways and hospitals; The debt of the US government is mainly consumptive, such as borrowing money to pay for civil servants' salaries, benefits for immigrants, as well as medical insurance.
Having government debt (central and local) reach as high as 56.1% of GDP (GDP of +US$18 trillion) doesn’t actually seem as bad as it was once thought. Even if such numbers were even higher, because most Western copiums are claiming that the CCP data is unreliable, BeijingDai still begs the big question: how much of this debt is “backed” by actual infrastructure assets that were created by issuing this debt?
I once read a very good book that highlighted the "Singapore Model". The book gave a good introduction to this model adopted by Singapore, stating that the debt issued is always to build assets that create value and generate returns for society and consequently for the country's economic growth and development. Singapore did not issue debt to finance current government spending; the debt issued was always tied to infrastructure investments.
Singapore has an even higher debt proportionally than the US, but no one talks about it and there is a reason:
Because the country is a net creditor with
net debt. The Singapore government has a strong balance sheet with assets well above its liabilities. This is why international credit rating agencies such as Fitch, Moody's and Standard & Poors give Singapore the highest short-term and long-term credit ratings of AAA. This is not only due to the asset generated by the debt, but also to the large international reserves and the fact that it has one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world.
Public debt is used to invest in infrastructure such as ports, airports, highways and roads, and when completed, they are assets that have an intrinsic value. Therefore, Singapore does not borrow to use for current expenses but rather to build assets, all of its debt is tied to an asset of equal or greater value.
Gross debt - the value of the assets = low net debt, so they do not pay as much interest because there is a collateral asset.
I had a friend who visited Singapore a decade ago, he said that 82% of the population there lives in public housing where they rent or buy these apartments, where the government has built thousands of public residential apartment buildings.
Given the way China at the beginning of the reopening saw Singapore as a
, China could have used this "Singapore Model" and adapted it to its continental conditions. It would be extremely difficult for China to fully replicate the "Singapore Model", but the way in which debt is issued to build tangible and real assets that will provide returns to society is one of the foundations for Chinese development, which explains why even if China's debt were higher, it is being built on real assets, therefore obtaining a lower net debt if calculating debt minus asset value.