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Comment by meowtimemania | Hacker News Reader

I’m never sure if news about China’s upcoming economic problems is written because such an event is actually coming or if the media writes it just for the clicks.

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No one else can be certain either. It's always very difficult to tell whether the numbers coming out of China are real and how "real" certain markets are.

But personally I wouldn't buy into the "China is doomed" narratives that the internet loves to bring up yearly. Reality is usually far more boring and the issues (especially central gov ones) are usually far more deep rooted and survive long term like cockroaches.

Regardless the article links to some major long term worries in China's real estate which account for 30% of their assets. The number of defaults is declining but the housing market is still in a major slump:

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/26/china-signals-more-support-f...

Their problems always seem to look worse than it should be but functions better than expected.

I see China in 2023 where Japan was in 1991. Real Estate is falling apart. But in the end, the are the workbench of the world. They have Billions of people that can potentially work. Some of them are well educated and highly industrious. Japan survived so will China.

Where can I read more about Japan's experience at that time?

"Princes of the Yen" - both a book and documentary - well worth watching:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jsO0JYu_5WI

This is a pretty good multi-part documentary from 2000:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6HUrl1JwmJs

I mean economic crashes rarely cause a country to "die", but it will have a major setback in its economy and the individual people will suffer, if they aren't already. I mean I know lots of people are suffering in the west as well, despite there being plenty of jobs available and the economy being very good.

Average people in 1991 Japan were much wealthier than average people in China today.

The question is: do average people matter?

It doesn't seems so.

In the 80s Americans were worried that Japan would leave them in the dust, yet they've had 30 years with almost no economic growth. Not exactly a great roadmap for China to follow. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Decades

In 1980, Japan had a huge population boom in the 35-45 age range, of energetic people who had grown up during a golden age of technological and economic development. Then they were hit by a demographic timebomb...

https://www.nippon.com/en/in-depth/a01001/

By 2060 Japanese children will be in the low single-digit millions, maybe 1/3 of the number when the experienced workers of the 80s were kids in the 1960s. There is literally nothing that can prevent it except mass immigration on a scale that would totally transform Japanese society (and which consequently will never happen).

China has the same demographic timebomb. China's peak labor was like in early 2010s I believe. Their birth rate has been declining the last few decades.

China's demographic slump is actually much more dramatic than Japan's.

You can actual build a career by just keep predicting the upcoming economic crashes in China, e.g. Gordon Chang has been doing this for decades -

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_G._Chang

his book is a great joy to read after 22 years.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Coming_Collapse_of_China

It is so laughable to the extent that many Chinese argue that those journalists and writers are paid by the CCP to brainwash the west to let people believe that China is not a real threat as it faces so many internal struggles. ;)

Now even Gordon joined DeSantis team!

I think it's pretty clear by this point that it's like an extreme slow motion train crash.

In a free economy China would probably have had a proper crash and perhaps even a rebound by now. But China is doing everything that can to prevent a crash that can be blamed on the government, but the problems are so fundamental that they're just postponing a full crash - one that will probably end up being much worse - instead of fixing the root problems.

A decade ago you could say that the people predicting China's economic crash didn't have anything concrete to support their arguments. Things seemed to be going well. Now there's many real tangible signs of deep economic problems. Youth unemployment, buildings not being finished, banks failing, .. It's probably even more telling that China's government is stopping reporting of relevant data. Not that they were super reliable to begin with.

China probably won't crash in the way USA's economy crash. But that's kind of the problem. A crash is essentially a rapid correction of the economy. China won't allow that. Which puts them on the path of serious long term stagnation.

Agree, it's so hard to tell nowadays and consensus of different media outlets maybe helps.

FWIW on Evergrande, I always find Patrick Boyle's channel educational and insightful. He has a few videos on the topic. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXCpis_Mlwk&list=PLHC72UlhAt...

China has been tipped to fail any time now for the last 25 years. They have long term issues but they will play out over long term results. A whimper rather than a boom!

US economic crash has been forecasted perennially all the way up to 2007, none of them turned out true, until...

It's difficult to predict a dramatic crash, but it's much easier to detect an economy not doing well.

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