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April 22, 2004

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A follow-up on yesterday's post on unsustainability of China's bubble. Andres Gentry, now travelling, was living in Zhangjiagang (his reflections on being a foreigner in China make good reading.) He writes:

...there's a whole lot of construction going on in that town [Zhangjiagang] and almost all of it is empty. Where's the money coming from to finance housing developments for which there cannot possibly be enough takers?

...

Here in Anqing overdevelopment is not a problem. However, any collapse in credit (i.e., when people start having to face China's bad loan problem) is going to devastate this place since it's already behind the rest of the country. In Zhangjiagang many of the immigrants are from Anhui province. This place is poor and if the east coast has problems with a depression, well, it sure isn't going to be better here.

It is easy to forget that the Chinese economic "miracle" does not extend far inland. As Andres points out, any bursting of the bubble in the richer areas is going to have far-reaching effects right across China. This is where 70% of China's population live. The CCP cadres in Beijing are well aware of this. That's why they're desperate for a "soft landing". Their current legitimacy stems for the economic bounty they have brought to the population - if that ends badly, they are going to need to find something else to rally the country around. Conrad mentioned this yesterday.

Taiwan, anyone?

 posted by Simon on 04.22.04 at 10:37 AM in the




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Taiwan anyone indeed.

 posted by: Martyn on 04.22.04 at 10:22 PM [permalink]




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