"We Track the Financial Collapse For You, so You'll Thrive and Profit, In Spite of It... "

Fortunes will soon be made (and saved). Subscribe for free now. Get our vital, dispatches on gold, silver and sound-money delivered to your email inbox daily.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

Safeguard your financial future. Get our crucial, daily updates.

"We Track the Financial Collapse For You,
so You'll Thrive and Profit, In Spite of It... "

Fortunes will soon be made (and saved). Subscribe for free now. Get our vital, dispatches on gold, silver and sound-money delivered to your email inbox daily.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.

We Give Up! Part 5: China Stops Deleveraging, Tells Cities To Ramp Up Spending

China’s growth over the past decade has been not just impressive, but historically unprecedented. No single country has ever added this many factories, roads, airports and entire new cities in so short at time.

But the transformation has come at a cost, in the form of a debt bubble that’s starting to look unstable. Beginning in 2015 non-performing loans and bond defaults both started trending upward and are now close to levels at which the risks become systemic. The following three charts tell that tale:

China debt
China non-performing loansChina corporate bond defaults

In response, China’s government has been trying to slow the bubble’s expansion without bursting it (which a quick glance at America’s track record would imply is impossible). Among other things, Communist Party leaders (that’s right, the Party is still in charge) have been tightening bank lending regulations and telling local governments to cut back on the empire-building.

But then – and this is how it always works for debt-addicted systems – a couple of things happened to make staying on the wagon much harder. The US began a trade war with China and other major trading partners (though mostly with China), which will if it continues, slow down global trade and cut the inflow of foreign capital to export-dependent economies. And the past couple of years’ credit restrictions have started to bite, slowing China’s domestic economy and making it harder to provide jobs for all the people who have come to expect upward mobility and might take to the streets if they don’t get it.

So – again as addicts tend to do – China has decided that maybe it’s wise to delay the tightening for a while and allow the leverage machine keep running. According to yesterday’s Wall Street Journal,

China’s Effort to Control Debt Loses Steam

BEIJING—China is letting up on its drive to keep a lid on debt growth as it faces a softening economy at home and escalating trade tensions with the U.S.

Senior Chinese leaders led by President Xi Jinping have been sending unmistakable signals that the campaign to rein in financial risk isn’t the overriding priority it has been. Financial regulators are delaying the release of rules to curtail risky lending by banks and other institutions out of concern that the regulations would choke off a source of funding and rattle financial markets already shaken by worries over trade and the economy, people familiar with the decision said.

In a turnabout, the State Council, China’s cabinet, stopped hectoring city halls and townships to restrain spending and instead last week launched an inspection to urge them to speed up already approved investment projects to re-energize growth. The central government often uses inspections as a way to evaluate local officials and get top-level directives across.

An April meeting of the Politburo, the inner sanctum of power, offered an initial sign of the shift in government priorities toward growth. Mr. Xi, who presided over the meeting, called for expanding domestic demand as authorities continued to contain financial risks. Such pro-growth emphasis had been absent in Politburo meetings since 2015.

China’s economic growth has been on a controlled descent for most of this decade, propped up at times by shots of easy credit that have helped make debt a long-term threat for the world’s second largest economy. With growth still buoyantly above the government’s 6.5% target, Mr. Xi has taken aim at debt and other financial risks the past two years to put the economy on sounder footing.

Now, that campaign is taking its toll. Signs are building that the economic expansion is losing steam—from weakening investment in factories to anemic household consumption and rising corporate defaults.

The trade fight with the U.S. puts growth further at risk, making Mr. Xi’s initiative look unsustainable, government advisers said.
The central bank in April began freeing up more funds for banks to make loans. The Chinese leadership is expected to further loosen China’s fiscal and monetary stance at a meeting later this month of the Politburo, government advisers and economists said.

Debt levels, especially for companies and local governments, have soared since China unleased a massive financial stimulus to ward off the 2008 financial crisis. Debt stood at 242% of economic activity at the end of 2017, according to Macquarie Group.

“If China has an across-the-board loosening up again, borrowing by state-owned enterprises might get more relentless,” said Zhu Chaoping, a market strategist at JP Morgan Asset Management. “This is the risk here.”

To paraphrase Joni Mitchell, all credit bubbles meet this same fate someday, as the prospect of stopping becomes too scary to contemplate. So the debt binge continues, with leaders promising to “contain financial risks” when really they’re just riding the tiger, hoping to hang on until … well, something happens to save them.

But experience – and we have a ton of it now – teaches that nothing can “save” a system that has taken on way too much debt. “Inflate or die” becomes the guiding principal right up to the end.

 

Emigrate While You Still Can

5 thoughts on "We Give Up! Part 5: China Stops Deleveraging, Tells Cities To Ramp Up Spending"

  1. The key to China’s future is a healthy, vigorous domestic Chinese market. It’s been moving in that direction. The prospect of no trade or erratic trade with the US, and if sanctions enter the picture with US allies, simply accelerates the time when that domestic market is needs to flourish.

    Nothing will stop the Chinese juggernaut as China heads to its rightful place as the world’s financial capital in 2032.

  2. Good article. I am conflicted over this. If I was a Chinese government official and I knew the trade war was going to hurt my economy, I’d start creating public works projects as well to keep people working and attempt to find a new best trading partner. When China stops making cheap goods for us, they will likely increase there material wealth because instead of making stuff for us, they might actually start consuming some of it themselves which should start raising their standard of living. Maybe they can get some wage raises. It seems like every economic action has losers and winners and nothing is simple. China may be able to prop up their economy and keep people working to create incomes and improve China.

    1. I just wonder when the world is going to stop accepting yuan in exchange for their goods. Real wealth is not created by accepted a currency that is rapidly devaluing, and soon all Chinese trading partners should begin to realize this and adjust their prices ever upward. Chinese citizens have diversified out of Chinese assets into other countries where they could get a better deal for their savings. Chinese citizens that did this are likely to retain real wealth. I just wonder what is going to happen when the Chinese government gets in trouble from excessively devaluing and starts coming after their citizens who illegally got money out of the country. I wonder if China won’t end up with a lot of dead citizens and the government staking claim to their wealth in foreign countries. It is not like the Chinese government has allowed them to have a lot of heirs to leave their wealth to. As a fellow human being I am concerned for Chinese citizens living in an oppressive Communist government that is desperate to retain control of its out of control government policies that will likely lead to disaster as all Communist/Socialists countries eventually seem to encounter. I wonder if this won’t cause World War and social unrest as well world wide. I think we are in for a wild ride from here.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *


Zero Fees Gold IRA

Contact Us

Send Us Your Video Links

Send us a message.
We value your feedback,
questions and advice.



Cut through the clutter and mainstream media noise. Get free, concise dispatches on vital news, videos and opinions. Delivered to Your email inbox daily. You’ll never miss a critical story, guaranteed.

This field is for validation purposes and should be left unchanged.