2023-09-26 03:00:06
Dmajor real estate developers in default, local authorities over-indebted, urban youth unemployment officially above 21%… The Chinese economy has obviously seen better days. However, deducing that nothing is going well in the Middle Kingdom and that it is on the verge of collapse seems largely excessive. Let’s not bury China too quickly.
On a daily basis, the crisis is even largely invisible. In Beijing, as in large provincial cities, consumers do not seem to shy away from restaurants or shopping centers. Finding train tickets for the days off granted during the Mid-Autumn Festival (September 29) is not easy. Despite the ambient nationalism and the launch, three weeks earlier, of Huawei’s new mobile phone, the Mate 60 Pro, the Chinese rushed to Apple stores on Friday, September 22, to buy the new iPhone 15. However, the version Pro Max costs a whopping 9,999 yuan (around 1,287 euros), or around two months’ salary of a housekeeper or courier. Despite everything, no less than 25,000 devices were sold online in the ten minutes following the opening of orders on September 15.
In short, if China is not doing very well, many Chinese are not doing badly at all. Most economists, including American ones, continue to forecast growth of at least 5% this year. And, as the population tends to decrease, GDP per capita will increase even further. While their savings rate was already one of the highest in the world, Chinese households have, due to the zero Covid policy, put aside in 2022 some 2,500 billion dollars (around 2,350 billion euros ) additional. The equivalent of French GDP! More than enough to afford a few iPhones, or even a few Teslas.
No massive disinvestment
Foreign companies make no mistake. Certainly the strong rebound hoped for after three years of zero Covid policy is less than expected, certainly the tensions between China and the West worry them, certainly the emphasis placed by Xi Jinping on national security weighs on them a sword of Damocles , certainly they are less optimistic than before… However, neither the Americans nor the Europeans are disinvesting massively from China. Quite the contrary. According to a survey published Tuesday, September 19, by the American Chamber of Commerce of Shanghai, 31% of US companies surveyed plan to increase their investments this yearmore than in 2022. More than half are also convinced that their turnover will increase.
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