[kayewiggin]

Then Intel is going to have to wait for a very long time. At best, China is currently in a scenario similar to Japan's lost decade of 30 years or US's Great Depression. At worst, China's current deflation + massive debt seems eerily similar to Weimar Germany's early internal devaluation. China is pretty fucked.

[philipov]

It's unwise to forget that the thing that pulled both the US and Germany out of the Depression was war.

[kayewiggin]

US fully recovered from Great Depression in 1939, 2 years before entering ww2. Weimar Germany started in 1918 and ended in 1933 at the beginning of nazi Germany, 15 years later.

You can't start a war when you are truly broke, much like China is today. And China is aging super fast, unlike Germany or US during the 30s.

[ijidak]

China is broke? That's news to me.

They're undergoing a difficult time sure, but broke seems like a stretch.

Japan has struggled for 30 years, but during most of that time have they been broke? Most countries in the world would love to "struggle" like Japan.

What does broke mean?

China still has a currency earning export juggernaut and world class companies.

And, they build everything they need for war.

Russia with its energy and China with its manufacturing has sufficient assets to wage a World War 3 whether the U.S. wants it or not.

Wars aren't financed the same as peacetime economies.

Countries impress factories and manpower into service.

In some ways, if your country is sufficiently self sufficient, it's much cheaper than running a peacetime economy.

Of course, if you lose, then you're wrecked.

[kayewiggin]

Being in spiraling deflation while the rest of the world suffers from inflation is a big sign of being broke.

Having debt to GDP ratio of 310% and local governments being unable to pay out salaries for many months is a big sign of being broke. (google or chatgpt the salary news, they are everywhere)

Consumer spending dropping 20% y/y in November in Beijing and Shanghai is a sign of being broke.

52,000 EV-related companies shut down in China in 2023 and an increase of 90% on the year before, where most EV companies were the targets of government subsidies, is a sign of being broke.

30% drop in revenues from land sales in 2024, which the local government derive most of its revenue on, is a sign of being broke.

China is not self sufficient; it imports 80% of consumed soybeans and other food products, and 90% of semiconductor equipments. Nor is it even remotely at the same level as Japan when Japan entered the lost decades. 600M Chinese citizens earned less than $100/month as of 2020. Recently, a scholar reported 900M Chinese citizens earned less than $400/month.

[roenxi]

> Being in spiraling deflation while the rest of the world suffers from inflation is a big sign of being broke.

How would you handle the eloquent counterargument that spiraling deflation is not a sign of being broke? Deflation doesn't, in and of itself, signal anything except that the real value of a currency is going up.

China is one of the worlds largest creditors [0]. They may have a lot of organisational problems - I'd go as far as saying they are guaranteed to given they are quite authoritarian. But they aren't broke.

None of those metrics signal problems in and of themselves, and when put together ... they still don't. The consumer spending drop is the closest to something that might be a problem but it needs some supporting data to make a case.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Net_international_investment_p...

[kayewiggin]

Deflation by itself, sure. Deflation when coupled with huge and increasing debt to service, then you have a crippling problem. That means your ability to pay off your debt gets harder and harder as time goes on, and most of your income goes to service debt principal and interest, and not on actual income growth. China plans a record $411 billion special treatment treasury bond next year, for example, but most if not all of that is just helping local governments pay off debts.

China being the largest creditor doesn't mean much when a lot of their debt is issued to belt and road countries that can never be paid back, and will be written off in the future. It does have a large US debt holdings, but that has shrank from 1.27T (2013) to 772B (2024), and a large part of that being used for cross border transactions.

[mistrial9]

> US fully recovered from Great Depression in 1939

this is disinformation. source: relatives that were alive in California and other states at that time

[causality0]

Peter Zeihan is very witty but he's been saying the Chinese are three years away from cannibalizing each other for food for about ten years now.

[geysersam]

Tiresome take that's been repeated time and time again. China has problems like any other country larger than Luxemburg. But the conclusion that "china is fucked" sounds more like a wish than anything else to my ears. The Chinese economy is growing ~5% per year. It's got one of the worlds most well educated workforces. It's manufacturing everything from basics to high tech and very little indicates that's about to change anytime soon.

The chip technology sanctions might slow development in that area in China, but I wouldn't count on it.

[kayewiggin]

It's pretty tiring responding to folks who just parrot Chinese government's official 5% numbers and never bothered look into the actual details. Like its well educated workforces being laid off at age 35, and 80% of recent graduates are unemployed or driving didi or delivering food. Or China's low end manufacturing shutting down or moving to Southeast Asia, and high end manufacturing being tariffed/sanctioned.

Here are some actual experts take on China: Longtime China bull Ray Dalio fears economy faces problems as severe as Japan in 1990 https://fortune.com/2024/09/18/ray-dalio-china-property-bubb...

or Private equity investors trapped in China as top firms fail to find exit deals https://www.ft.com/content/0575e216-8dae-4df6-bf50-312f78468...

or Starbucks reportedly mulling China business stake sale https://www.worldcoffeeportal.com/Latest/News/2024/November/...