Tag: Economic Conditions and Trends

The Economy Looks Solid. But These Are the Big Risks Ahead.

Chin@Strategy

The low-hanging fruit of the pandemic economic recovery has been eaten. As a result, the expansion is entering a new phase — with new risks. For months, the world economy has expanded at a torrid pace, as industries that were shut down in the pandemic reopened. While that process is hardly complete — numerous industries are still functioning below their prepandemic levels — further healing appears likely to be more gradual, and in some ways more difficult. Reopening restaurants and performance arenas is one thing. Fixing extraordinary backups in shipping…

Wonking Out: This Might Be China’s ‘Babaru’ Moment

Chin@Strategy

OK, who ordered that? You’d think that between Covid-19, climate change and U.S. democracy under siege, we would already have enough crises on our plate. A potential Chinese financial meltdown is the last thing we need. Yet here we are. The story of the moment is Evergrande, a huge, heavily indebted real estate company that appears on the edge of default. The echoes of the global financial crisis 13 years ago are obvious. The conventional wisdom is that Evergrande isn’t another Lehman Brothers, that any fallout from its woes, and…

For India’s Military, a Juggling Act With Pakistan and China

Chin@Strategy

CHANDIGARH, India — After the deadliest clashes in half a century with China, India’s military has taken emergency measures to reinforce a 500-mile stretch of the border high in the Himalayas. In the past year, it has tripled the number of troops in the contentious eastern Ladakh region to more than 50,000. It has raced to stock up on food and gear for freezing temperatures and 15,000-foot altitudes before the region is largely cut off for much of the winter. It has announced that an entire strike corps, an offensive…

Business groups are divided as China seeks self-reliance.

Chin@Strategy

China’s push for self-sufficiency in a wide range of industries is dividing foreign companies, with some welcoming it as another chance to invest there while others worry that it will cause risks to the country’s trading partners and its own economy. Two influential groups of foreign businesses in China issued very different reports on Thursday. They revealed a striking divide on whether international companies support China’s push to replace imports with a self-reliant emphasis on domestic production. China has been heavily subsidizing its manufacturers of semiconductors, commercial aircraft, electric cars…

Beyond Evergrande’s Troubles, a Slowing Chinese Economy

Chin@Strategy

BEIJING — Global markets have watched anxiously as a huge and deeply indebted Chinese property company flirts with default, fearing that any collapse could ripple through the international financial system. China Evergrande Group, the developer, on Wednesday said it reached a deal that might give it some breathing room in the face of a bond payment due the next day. But that murky arrangement doesn’t address the broader threat for Beijing’s top leaders and the global economic outlook: China’s growth is slowing, and the government may have to work harder…

China Evergrande Warns of Financial Pressure, Hires Advisers

Chin@Strategy

China Evergrande, the troubled property giant that has become a symbol of debt and excess in the world’s second-largest economy, said on Tuesday that it faced “tremendous” financial pressure and had hired restructuring experts to “explore all feasible solutions” for its future. The company’s fate, however, remains unclear, as it struggles in a country where business troubles often attract the direct attention — and the direct meddling — of Beijing. Evergrande’s admission that its finances have taken a sharp turn sent its already battered shares down by 12 percent on…

China Increasing Rejects English, and Outside Ideas

Chin@Strategy

As a student at Peking University law school in 1978, Li Keqiang kept both pockets of his jacket stuffed with handwritten paper slips. An English word was written on one side, a former classmate recalled, and the matching Chinese version was written on the other. Mr. Li, now China’s premier, was part of China’s English-learning craze. A magazine called Learning English sold half a million subscriptions that year. In 1982, about 10 million Chinese households — almost equivalent to Chinese TV ownership at the time — watched “Follow Me,” a…

The Delta Variant and China’s Need to Change Its Covid-19 Policy

Chin@Strategy

“How lucky I was born in China,” a young Chinese scholar declared last month in his WeChat. He was proud: Following the worst domestic Covid-19 outbreak since Wuhan, China had brought daily new case counts down to a few dozen. The case numbers — when contrasted with the United States, which has less than a quarter of China’s population yet daily average cases above 130,000 — might not seem too concerning on their own. But they illustrate that China’s zero-infections policy is no longer working as designed. At the outset…

China’s Xi Pressures Tycoons With ‘Common Prosperity’ Talk

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Four decades ago, Deng Xiaoping declared that China would “let some people get rich first” in its race for growth. Now, Xi Jinping has put China’s tycoons on notice that it is time for them to share more wealth with the rest of the country. Mr. Xi says the Communist Party will pursue “common prosperity,” pressing businesses and entrepreneurs to help narrow the stubborn wealth gap that could hold back the country’s rise and erode public confidence in the leadership. Supporters say China’s next phase of growth demands the shift.…

Supply Chain Shortages Continue Around the World. Get Used to It.

Chin@Strategy

Like most people in the developed world, Kirsten Gjesdal had long taken for granted her ability to order whatever she needed and then watch the goods arrive, without any thought about the factories, container ships and trucks involved in delivery. Not anymore. At her kitchen supply store in Brookings, S.D., Ms. Gjesdal has given up stocking place mats, having wearied of telling customers that she can only guess when more will come. She recently received a pot lid she had purchased eight months earlier. She has grown accustomed to paying…