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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

China’s Economy Hits the Skids

What happens next isn’t clear but the era of torrid growth is likely over.

walter_russell_mead
walter_russell_mead
Ravenel B. Curry III Distinguished Fellow in Strategy and Statesmanship
A worker produces high-voltage silicon stack devices at a semiconductor manufacturing enterprise in Shandong, China, on July 17, 2023. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)
Caption
A worker produces high-voltage silicon stack devices at a semiconductor manufacturing enterprise in Shandong, China, on July 17, 2023. (CFOTO/Future Publishing via Getty Images)

The bad economic news from China keeps coming. Exports fell 12.4% in June. Between 2012 and 2022 China added at least $10 trillion more to its debt load than the U.S. Youth unemployment is at record levels, even as manufacturers report severe labor shortages. The residential property developers at the heart of China’s long boom look increasingly vulnerable, and local governments who have long relied on a red-hot real estate market for revenue are turning to Beijing with their hands out.

Some look at the troubling statistics and predict that China is headed for a catastrophic market bust. Such forecasts, for now, seem premature. The central government still has a lot of money to throw at its problems, and the increasingly totalitarian state that China is becoming has many policy tools at its disposal.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.