“What Would a Hard Landing in China Mean for the World? Barry Naughton at U.C. San Diego, Jim McGregor of APCO Worldwide and Arthur Kroeber of GaveKal in Beijing take apart NYTimes columnist Paul Krugman’s recent assessment of what’s next for the world’s No 2 economy”. See here:
http://www.chinafile.com/what-would-hard-landing-china-mean-world
All comments carry some good insights. As for me, the worry goes a bit further. The Chinese economy and society has seen an accelerating set of problems, culminating in serious concerns on where China is heading. The 18th Party Congress showed the strains. As some Chinese said at the time, if the new leadership cannot handle the problems there might not be a 19th Party Congress. Maybe exaggerated, but this time the new leaders cannot swipe the issues under the carpet. Chinese society is weary of the host of problems, I don’t need to list them. With a worsening economy, public pressure will only become stronger. The new leaders are trying to tackle the core problems one by one (as I listed in my book). But they face deeply vested interests and their success is far from guaranteed. An easy way out is to blame the foreigners as we see too often (now the pharma companies). As a businessman commented yesterday to me (he has 25 years of China): the Chinese do not want foreigners to succeed here, except for some big companies like VW, GM etc. We see that everyday, just talk with a foreign restaurant or bar owner. Authorities check anything they can invent, flies, smoking, hygiene, you name it. You go to a locally owned place and you see another world where everything goes (welcome to smoke, don’t ask where the mear comes from, don’t eeven ask if they have a restaurant license, …). China has also the lowest possible amount of foreigners (in percentage of the total population). More and more of my friends are leaving this summer – visa problems. With all the nice talking by the authorities one can wonder, are we really welcome? As an active member in the European Chamber we see so many market access issues, while Chinese complain about “market access in the EU”. What a joke. After over 30 years here, I have some doubts right now.