But, but, but, China....

[NeilT]

The US army study was probably for tasks within the US army not all tasks generally.

I was in the British Army.  We exercised with the US Army from time to time.  At the time I was working in the tank engine powerpack replacement section.  The packs were taken out of the tanks and swapped.  We stripped them and replaced the broken components.  Engines, geraboxes, transmissions, hydraulics, etc.

We watched the equivalent US resources.  The UK Army is smaller, very choosy, will not take people who do not have the requisite knowledge and won't allow cross transfer to roles unless they show an aptitude for the job.

In the US army it was upside down.  Extreme specialisation and also much lower expectations.  Where we had one person stripping a pack, with all the knowledge and experience to do so, the US teams had up to 6.  Different specialisations and one sergeant or above guiding and managing the team, providing the knowledge required.

At the time, in the 80's, the US Army was so big that it didn't matter if the 80% were adequate or less, because the 20% were so big, so good and so powerful that nobody wanted to take them on.

US Army studies have to be viewed with a level of knowledge about who they recruit and what they do with them after they do.

Trying to apply them to situations in India or China is at best hit and miss.

[kassy]

Lets focus on China since that is actually the topic.

Lots of industry left because of the Covid closures and political developments. They also have a big housing bubble that is going to pop. So the growth will slow down severely so energy use should follow.

[NeilT]

OK but that's treading China like a demand economy rather than a command economy.  China runs both.

Moving to internal consumption and growing internal GDP pushes them more towards that demand economy internally and that has political ramifications.

Not sure how it will play out over the long term.

[sidd]

Blast from the past: 2017 Tim Cook

"you find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere"

"the number one attraction is the quality of the people."

"The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I'm not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years ago."

"In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields."

"The vocational expertise is very very deep here, and I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational. Now I think many countries in the world have woke up and said this is a key thing and we've got to correct that. China called that right from the beginning."

https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html

sidd

[Alexander555]

Blast from the past: 2017 Tim Cook

"you find in China the intersection of craftsman kind of skill, and sophisticated robotics and the computer science world. That intersection, which is very rare to find anywhere"

"the number one attraction is the quality of the people."

"The popular conception is that companies come to China because of low labor cost. I'm not sure what part of China they go to, but the truth is China stopped being the low-labor-cost country many years ago."

"In the U.S., you could have a meeting of tooling engineers and I'm not sure we could fill the room. In China, you could fill multiple football fields."

"The vocational expertise is very very deep here, and I give the education system a lot of credit for continuing to push on that even when others were de-emphasizing vocational. Now I think many countries in the world have woke up and said this is a key thing and we've got to correct that. China called that right from the beginning."

https://www.inc.com/glenn-leibowitz/apple-ceo-tim-cook-this-is-number-1-reason-we-make-iphones-in-china-its-not-what-you-think.html

sidd

Maybe Tim Cook don't knows what arrives in US ports from China. The only thing he see's is his little world. And  his little world runs on printed money. That's how good he was. Printing money, tax evation, human exploitation.....

[johnm33]

Off topic removed the thread is about China and not IQ.

[NeilT]

So long as China wants to keep supplying the world with goods, it will have to resolve it's own carbon footprint.

There remains a danger that their exports will be constrained if they can't control that footprint so there has to be a model where they push more into the local market and less to the world.

For which their population and social structure has to change.

Education, politics, society.  It is all a huge risk for the Chinese government.

My bet is they will push harder for Net Zero and then point to other countries emissions if they are blocked.  It is a lower risk for a government which is essentially Communist.

[johnm33]

Off topic removed the thread is about China and not IQ.

The Chinese, like everyone, are in a cocreation relationship with their culture one of the consequences of their cultural choices is their high iq, probably best ignored then? 

[kassy]

Yes because all that is some sort of theory crafting.

[NeilT]

Well on the education front Asia has a focus which the Western worlds do not have and they stand so far above that Africa is a distant dot.

However I'm not sure genetics has as much to do with it.  Africans with access to good education can be every bit as intelligent as anyone and every culture has their "less intelligent" substrata.

The focus on education in China does have a part to play in their ability to draw the correct resources from the in country areas to keep wages down.

That being said, India has focused on the services industry, computing, back office, keeping businesses running.  Rather than the fairly manual work in the factories.  It is only in the last decade or so that younger Chinese have started to see the manufacturing companies in the same light as  their grandparents saw the fields they tilled.  A dead end nowhere job.  They aspire to the kind of Jobs India has already tied up.

India does not have to grow out of the political fetters that China does.  However India has other cultural issues in Caste and religion.  Which may be harder to overcome.

There is a race going on here.  Both are massive emitters of CO2, however India is growing emissions rapidly whilst China is working to cut them.

It would be a very sad day to have the western world move away from manufacturing in China on political grounds only to drive the same growth in emissions in India that we saw in China over the last 4 decades.

[kassy]

Education only goes so far. China stopped publishing the numbers on youth unemployment because they were so bad.

We can´t afford any emission growth so we better help India and many other countries with the transition.

[NeilT]

We can´t afford any emission growth so we better help India and many other countries with the transition.

My view too.  But it comes into employment protectionism which India is also using.

India is also heavily invested in Thorium reactors to get their fossil fuel use down.

[gerontocrat]

Has Xi caught Dictator Disease - the belief that he and only he, has the answer for everything?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/17/hes-had-a-bad-summer-xi-faces-calls-to-loosen-grip-as-chinas-crises-mount
‘He’s had a bad summer’: Xi faces calls to loosen grip as China’s crises mount
Floods, economic headwinds and disappearing ministers aside, experts say the Chinese leader’s iron grip on power may be his biggest problem

At the Brics summit in South Africa in August, Xi Jinping made headlines when he failed to appear at a leaders’ meeting to deliver a scheduled speech.

Another scene also did the rounds: a Chinese aide hurrying to catch up with Xi, only to be body slammed by security guards and held back, flailing, as the president cruised on through the closing doors, not bothered by the chaos behind him.

The first incident prompted rampant speculation about Xi’s health, a political crisis or conspiracy. The second, mostly memes. But it perhaps served as a metaphor.

Xi has had a rough few months, with natural disasters, economic headwinds, disappearing ministers, community dissent and international spats. But he sails on regardless, even as experts say it’s likely to get worse.

“It’s obvious he’s had a bad summer,” says New York University professor Jerome Cohen, a leading expert on Chinese law and human rights. From the international community to academia, Chinese people and the political elite, Cohen says “there’s a lot of signs of dissatisfaction”.

Xi has had “bad summers” before – 2018 was noted for its economic troubles, a trade war with the US and a vaccine corruption scandal, while 2022 saw the disastrous zero-Covid exit and “white paper” protests. But experts say the issues that have plagued him this year are at least partly because he has centralised so much power around himself.

“The major challenges Xi is facing seem to be the ones created by his iron grip on power,” says Rorry Daniels, managing director of the Asia Society Policy Institute. “When you make your circle of trusted advisers smaller and smaller, it’s hard to get good [intel].”

Domestically, the economy continues to falter, the housing market crisis has extended with another major development company, Country Garden Holdings, threatening to collapse. There have been factory protests over wages and conditions, and young people are probably still suffering record high unemployment rates – although it’s hard to know for sure because the government stopped publishing the negative data in August.

Xi’s plan for young graduates – facing fewer and fewer opportunities – to “eat bitterness” for the country and toil in the countryside was unpopular. “Some hardships have meaning … while others lead to nothing but despair,” said one young person.

Record-breaking rains brought flooding to regions across China twice in July and again last month, killing dozens and sparking the evacuation of about a million people.

Residents in Hebei province protested after authorities appeared to sacrifice rural areas to save Beijing in the August floods, with one local official promising to be the “moat for the capital”.

“My home, it’s in a pitiful state,” wrote one resident of Zhouzhou in the aftermath. “The roads are covered in mud and garbage, and the air is filled with a putrid stench.”

The zero-Covid policy showed that local officials will do almost anything to follow Xi’s orders without question, and to avoid being punished for their failures.

“Was there a policy in place to sacrifice these places? That seems ludicrous, but it’s significant the officials thought they should say it,” Daniels says. “It’s getting harder to parse what’s a good idea and what’s driven by political patronage and fear of being purged.”

After Xi emerged from the annual Beihdaie leader’s retreat he chose to visit flood-affected areas far away in north-east Heilongjiang.

“He’s facing distrust among the public in China’s ultimate direction, or at least China’s ability to surmount some of its mounting problems and challenges,” says Daniels.

There were other signs of turmoil. Nikkei Asia reported Xi faced criticism from party elders at Beidaihe. Citizens and legal academics openly accused the party of overreach with its draft law proposing to detain people without trial for clothing, symbols or comments that “harm the feelings” of China.

In July, the foreign minister, Qin Gang, was removed from his role after not being seen for weeks. On Friday, the defence minister, Li Shangfu, was reported to be under investigation after also vanishing. Li’s apparent removal followed the shock reshuffle of senior leaders in the People’s Liberation Army’s Rocket Force. The disappearance of Qin and Li, two “gateway” officials for the world, is a sign of Xi turning China inwards, says Drew Thompson, a senior fellow at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy.

Under Xi, China has grown increasingly isolated from global interactions with the US and other liberal democracies. Ties with the US improved after February’s balloongate saga, but then in June the US president, Joe Biden, called Xi a dictator, and in August he signed a historic security agreement with South Korea and Japan in direct response to “dangerous and aggressive behaviour” by China, infuriating Beijing.

A late August visit by the UK foreign secretary, James Cleverly, to Beijing looked promising until a row erupted over an alleged spy operating for China inside Westminster.

In August Xi snubbed the G20, a decision that observers worried would limit what the bloc could achieve, given his subordinates have so little decision-making power left.

The G20 would have also put Xi in a room with world leaders very unhappy about recent Chinese acts, including an updated national map that unilaterally claimed several disputed areas, aggressive manoeuvres in the South China Sea, ongoing military intimidation of Taiwan, and China’s continued support of Russia. But China’s shifting international ties are also by design, as Xi seeks to shift power away from western-dominated blocs like the G20.

Aside from missing his speech, Brics was largely a success for Xi as it expanded its membership. And the inaugural China-Central Asia summit in May produced several trade agreements and stronger support for domestic policies like the Xinjiang crackdown on Uyghurs, says Niva Yau, non-resident fellow at the Atlantic Council’s global China hub.

“China rewards countries willing to be on Beijing’s side,” says Yau. But she says people in China are noticing the big financial outlays when they’re suffering economic troubles back home.

Whether Xi heeds the lessons of the summer and hears the grumblings of his people is the key question, says Cohen. “He is capable of changing his course. The instinctive initial reaction seems to be to crack down harder. But he may be reaching the limit.

“You can’t put everybody in prison. I think there is going to be a reversal of policy eventually, even if Xi is still in office, this too shall pass. I don’t think this can go on indefinitely but we haven’t seen the worst yet.”

[kiwichick16]

heading into recession ?

https://edition.cnn.com/2023/08/21/economy/china-economy-troubles-intl-hnk/index.html

[kiwichick16]

demographics

https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/12/05/key-facts-about-chinas-declining-population/

[kiwichick16]

another take on demographics

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/25/beijings-demographic-crisis-means-china-could-get-old-before-it-gets-rich

[oren]

another take on demographics

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/25/beijings-demographic-crisis-means-china-could-get-old-before-it-gets-rich

Problems are in the eye of the beholder. I think China is much better placed to handle the coming environmental/carrying capacity troubles thanks to its low birth rate.

[Alexander55]

Probably they end up the same as all the rest. Globalisation triggers competition. That competition triggers automatisation. You want to make as much as possible as fast as possible to lower costs, productivity gains. That kept inflation low for a long time. But you need debt to grow. And to stay on top of all that debt, you need growth. Technically that older population would be better to handle the future. But they are in the same growth trap.

[interstitial]

(Bloomberg) -- China spends billions of dollars each year to enhance its image around the world, including by sponsoring online influencers and bolstering authoritarian governments through the export of “smart cities” technology, the US government says in a new report.


The State Department’s Global Engagement Center, which works to counter foreign disinformation and propaganda, labeled China a “leading concern” in an 81-page report released Thursday that argues Beijing has worked to spread false information around the world, amplify its propaganda and suppress and censor dissenting voices.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/china-spends-billions-on-global-disinformation-us-contends/ar-AA1hprmR


This is why I question some posters opinions about China.

[be cause]

I saw blocks of bots were visiting this page 2 days ago  when our 'guests' numbered over 500 ...

 or was it classrooms of children learning ?

[sidd]

Re: China spends billions of dollars each year to enhance its image

2023: "U.S. Agency for Global Media (USAGM), outlining $944.0 million in resources to fund critical international broadcasting efforts"

https://www.usagm.gov/2023/03/13/usagm-fy24-budget-responds-to-growing-threats-to-information/

VOA : 267 million 2023 : https://www.usagm.gov/wp-content/uploads/2023/01/USAGM-VOA-OneSheet-01-24-23.pdf

Choose your propaganda.

sidd

Radio free europe/radio liberty: 2022: 145 million
Radio free asia 2022: 62 million

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2022/03/22/radio-free-europe-congress-correct-to-fund/

National Endowment for Democracy: 2021 259 million

https://www.ned.org/annual-report/2021-annual-report-2/

Atlantic Council, 2021: 43 million

https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/in-depth-research-reports/report/2021-annual-report-financial-summary/

German Marshall Fund, US 2020: 165 million

https://www.gmfus.org/sites/default/files/GMF%20AFS%20053120%20Final.pdf

and on and on and on ...

sidd

[johnm33]

China recieves an endless stream of dollars for actual goods, which the US is now too backwards to manufacture, it could use them to add to it's collection of US treasuries but these are not particuarlly attractive as works of art and at best can only be swapped back again for dollars, what would be the point? 
So much to the chagrin of US policy makers, who expect to swap $100 bills which cost 15c for actual goods worth $100 and to pocket the difference, China instead chooses to bring forward other economies to smooth out it's supply chain with the unfortunate side effect, from those policy makers point of view, of raising living standards in and around the places invested in.
https://globalsouth.co/2023/09/27/full-text-a-global-community-of-shared-future-chinas-proposals-and-actions/

[interstitial]

Re: China spends billions of dollars each year to enhance its image

Yes most governments spend money on messaging. Obviously the messaging express conflicting narratives. Those narratives present the backers in the best light. One significant difference is China targets voices of dissent. Radio free Europe or the other groups listed have not set up illegal police stations in foreign countries or target website and individuals. The do not jail people who try to spread the word about mistreatment of ethnic groups inside their home country. They do not send those who disagree with their official narratives to be "reeducated" in essentially prisons. China is a bully with people as well as countries. They punished Australia by stopping hundreds of millions of dollars for the mere suggestion of a single politician that China deliberately released covid. Punishing people for their opinions is far different than sharing your narrative. Sadly the bullying is working.

[interstitial]

China recieves an endless stream of dollars for actual goods, which the US is now too backwards to manufacture, it could use them to add to it's collection of US treasuries but these are not particuarlly attractive as works of art and at best can only be swapped back again for dollars, what would be the point? 
So much to the chagrin of US policy makers, who expect to swap $100 bills which cost 15c for actual goods worth $100 and to pocket the difference, China instead chooses to bring forward other economies to smooth out it's supply chain with the unfortunate side effect, from those policy makers point of view, of raising living standards in and around the places invested in.
https://globalsouth.co/2023/09/27/full-text-a-global-community-of-shared-future-chinas-proposals-and-actions/

China aggressively manipulates their internal markets to eliminate foreign competition. They rest of the world is competitive and can produces quality at competitive prices. Through dual currency and other more coercive internal policy China drives out foreign competition once they have usurped foreign tech. They did not buy the tech. Now they have the gall to whine that they have no use for foreign currency. Its called victim blaming. Yet another manipulative tactic in the bullying toolbox. If China wants something to spend their foreign currency on they have to stop manipulating the market with their dual currency policies. Western governments (well all governments) should enact the same manipulative policies against China that they use against us. 

[NeilT]

spends billions of dollars each year to enhance its image around the world, including by sponsoring online influencers and bolstering authoritarian governments

You could say this about many governments around the world.

[kassy]

This thread is for China in the context of AGW so fossil fuel use/economical developments. The more general subjects can go into Politics.

[interstitial]

https://cleantechnica.com/2023/10/11/chinas-oil-gas-giant-sinopec-says-peak-oil-demand-already-happened-in-china/
Peak oil demand already occurred in China that was expected sometime this year. Probably more significant than the headline is some of the arguments made toward the end of the article about coal. China has enough housing for double or even triple the population by some estimates. As a result demand for cement and steel are declining. One internal Chinese estimate suggests coal consumption peaks in 2024. By many economists expectations the massive year on year growth of the Chinese economy has stalled. While I expect many/most current coal projects to be built I wonder if the pipeline of new coal projects shuts down very soon. While China can be vary opaque at times it seems like growth will be vary limited moving forward. The longer corrections are delayed the harsher they are. By some accounts this correction has been building since before the 2008 economic crisis.

All this suggests Chinese emissions are near the peak.


They also point out that petroleum demand in the US and Europe has already peaked. Those three markets represent over half of global demand.

[Steven]

Good news from China, although it remains to be seen if these estimates will verify:

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-chinas-emissions-set-to-fall-in-2024-after-record-growth-in-clean-energy/

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions are set to fall in 2024 and could be facing structural decline, due to record growth in the installation of new low-carbon energy sources.

[gerontocrat]

After China finished it's ferocious lockdowns at the end of 2022, it was confidently expected that China's economy would bounce back extremely fast.

It has not. The Shanghai Shenzhen CSI 300 Index is the bellweather index for China's private sector, and has dropped by 15% in the last 12 months, and is now at early 2019 levels. It is mainly the State-owned sector that is keeping annual economic growth officially up at 5%, financed by what many people believe is unsustainable lending to projects that may not produce the revenues to repay these loans.

The great unknowns are for how long bad lending can continue, and how much damage the collapsed private sector property sector will cause.

If Government keeps the impetus going on renewable energy, and economic growth slows, one could see a corresponding and significant drop in demand for coal for electricity, steel and cement starting in 2024.

On the other hand, Xi Jing may feel it is dangerous for him to allow the 5% growth target to fail, and decide to hurl yet more cash at these structural problems. Perhaps the Taiwanese should hope that things go well economically in China, as foreign adventures are a favourite tool of Dictators who feel their power slipping away.

[gerontocrat]

But at the moment still looks like it's go, go, go on renewables

https://www.energyconnects.com/news/renewables/2024/january/china-breaks-ground-on-7-7-billion-renewables-mega-project/

China Breaks Ground on $7.7 Billion Renewables Mega-Project

Jan 08, 2024

(Bloomberg) -- A Chinese energy firm has broken ground on a massive new 55 billion yuan ($7.7 billion) project in Shanxi province combining wind turbines, solar panels and battery storage in an old coal mining area.

State-owned Jinneng Holding Group Co. started construction on the project Friday, according to a report from Shanxi Daily. The facility in a derelict coal area in the mining hub of Datong will have 6 gigawatts of wind and solar capacity and 3.4 gigawatt-hours of energy storage. It will be connected to the grid by the end of 2025, feeding power to Beijing and its surrounding areas via the Datong-Tianjin ultra-high voltage power line, according to the report.Jinneng didn’t immediately respond to an emailed request for comment.

Construction on the project is starting after a record-breaking year for renewable installations. While full-year figures aren’t yet available, by the end of November China’s new solar panels were nearly double those installed over the whole of 2022. ©2024 Bloomberg L.P.

[interstitial]

I am far from an expert on China but slowed infrastructure growth, reduced demand for steel and a slower growth overall are good for reducing CO2 growth.

[gerontocrat]

Population decrease has increased in 2023. Mind you, the data in this article has deaths at 11.1 million, births at 9.02 million, which gives a population decrease of 2.08 million. But the article has a population decrease of 2.75 million. Chinese arithmetic?

The birthrate of 6.39 is well below that required to maintain the population (at least 10?).

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/17/china-population-decline-accelerates-as-birthrate-hits-record-low

China population decline accelerates as birthrate hits record low

Population data shows drop of almost three million in 2023

China’s population decline has accelerated, with a second year of record-low birthrates.

The total number of people in China dropped by 2.75 million – or 0.2% – to 1.409 billion in 2023, the National Bureau of Statistics said on Tuesday. The drop surpassed that recorded in 2022, of about 850,000 – the first time the recorded population had declined since the mass deaths of the Mao-era famines.

In 2023, total deaths rose 6.6% to 11.1 million, with the death rate reaching the highest level since 1974 during the cultural revolution. At the same time, new births fell 5.7% to 9.02 million. The birthrate was the lowest ever recorded at 6.39 births per 1,000 people, down from a rate of 6.77 births in 2022.

China has for years been battling trends that have led to an ageing population, which were driven by past policies of population control –including the one-child policy – and a growing reluctance among young adults to have children. In 2023 it was overtaken by India as the world’s most populous nation, according to UN estimates.


Chinese officials fear the impact that this “demographic timebomb” could have on the economy, with the rising costs of aged care and financial support in danger of not being met by a shrinking population of working taxpayers. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences has predicted the pension system in its current form will run out of money by 2035. By then the number of people in China above 60 years old – the national retirement age – will have increased from about 280 million to 400 million.


A raft of policies have failed to encourage people to have more children, or have not been properly implemented by local governments, which are suffering budget shortfalls after years of running the resource-intensive zero-Covid system.

People frequently cite the high costs of living in China – particularly in larger cities – as well as poor support for women in jobs, as reasons for not having children. Traditional gender roles and familial expectations have also contributed.

“Though cities have released a slew of … policies to support child-bearing women to give birth, the public’s expectation is still not being met,” He Dan, director of China Population and Development Research Center, told state media outlet the Global Times.

On Tuesday, demographers proposed further reforms of fertility support policies, the Global Times reported. Some also drew hope from suggestions that there may be more babies born in 2024 in a post-pandemic baby boom, or because people wished to have children born in the Chinese zodiac year of the dragon, which starts in February.

Online, some Chinese Weibo users said they had anecdotally noticed many more pregnancies around them which they linked to the zodiac year.

Others were more sceptical, saying a single year baby boom would make life difficult for those children who would later sit for China’s highly competitive college entrance exam.

Several discussions suggested new policies or auspicious years would do little to change their minds. “It’s because I love myself more, and I know that if I was born in a family that is not capable of raising and educating a child, I would suffer more, and I would not be able to experience the joy of life, so let’s cut off the suffering from my generation,” said one commentator.

[kassy]

The difference is probably emigration.

[vox_mundi]

36 years of One-Child Policy and skewed sex-ratio (1.19 in favor of men) have come home to roost.



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-child_policy

[SeanAU]

China Gains More Strength Every Year

China is the manufacturing power house of the world and is focused on dominating the leading technology sectors the way that the US dominated them previously; this technology leadership is one of the remaining tenets of US power. In early 2023, the Australian Strategic Policy Institute placed China in the lead in 37 of the 44 critical technology areas that it tracks. The US was the leader in the remaining 7, with a large gap between China and the US and any other nations; Europe is nowhere.

In late 2023 the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation (ITIF) confirmed this, seeing China leading in 7 out of 10 of the industries within its Hamilton Index; computers and electronics; chemicals; machinery and equipment; motor vehicles; basic metals; fabricated metals; and electrical equipment. The US lead in only IT and information services, other transportation and pharmaceuticals. The share of Chinese production in these 10 industries nearly doubled from 2008 to 2020, from 12.9% to 23.9%, while the US improved a bit from 19.3% to 21.5%; with US gains predominantly due to the IT and information services area. Chinese industry is 70% more focused than the US in advanced industries.

The ITIF report notes that:

    For the United States, losing this race, either because policymakers are indifferent to the country’s industrial structure or because they choose to focus on other economic or societal goals, would be catastrophic, as it would turn the United States into a deindustrialized, United Kingdom-like economy. Time is short. The 2020s are likely to be the decisive decade in which to turn around U.S. advanced industry fortunes, because once China gains sufficient global market share, allied and U.S. production risks being permanently weakened.

in full https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/the-view-from-china

(Roger is a pro-global warming action author)

[Sciguy]

It was once considered inevitable that China’s economy would become larger than the US economy.  Given China’s current problems and the US’s strength, that no longer appears to be the case.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/29/investing/premarket-stocks-trading/index.html

The US is pulling ahead in the economic race with China
Analysis by Nicole Goodkind, CNN
January 29, 2024

The US economy is growing faster than Wall Street expected, markets are soaring and inflation is approaching the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. It appears that a soft landing, where price rises are tamed and the economy manages to avoid recession, is possible.

Meanwhile, China’s economy appears to be in distress. Markets are mired in a protracted slump, consumer confidence is weakening, growth is easing and the population is shrinking. A court has just ordered the winding up of Evergrande, with unpredictable consequences for China’s real estate crisis.

Before the Bell spoke with Eswar Prasad, a professor of trade policy at Cornell University and former head of the International Monetary Fund’s China division.

The interview was conducted over email. It has been edited for clarity.

Before the Bell: Is it fair to say that the US is outpacing China in the race for economic supremacy?

Eswar Prasad: The US has solidified its position as the main driver of global growth, which is all the more striking as the rest of the world is struggling to maintain decent growth.

Just last year people might have said the opposite — that the US was heading towards recession and the Chinese economy was thriving. What changed?

It is remarkable to see the US economy blazing ahead while the Chinese economy sputters and slips into deflation. This difference is mainly due to the innate resilience of the US economy while China continues to be held back by a number of short-term and long-term problems. These problems include a declining labor force, a property market that is unraveling, and a loss of household and business confidence in the government’s policies.

The strong performance of the US economy and falling growth in China together make it less obvious that China’s economy will someday overtake that of the US in terms of annual GDP, a proposition that was once considered a near certainty.

[Sigmetnow]

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

"China is not backing away from centralizing its economy.  The bottom line is that the business environment is terrible and that they don't want to do the pro-market reforms."

3/28/24, https://x.com/squawkcnbc/status/1773321981972136190
 
➡️ pic.twitter.com/tRLSD5IFIv  1:30 CNBC clip
 
Entire segment here: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2024/03/28/pres-xi-made-clear-china-isnt-backing-away-from-centralizing-its-economy-michelle-caruso-cabrera.html

Michelle Caruso-Cabrera

Just got off the phone with one of the American CEOs who went to the China Development Forum (CDF) this week and met with Xi Jinping on Wednesday in China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, he said "Business is still terrible," and confidence in the economy is very low.
1/9
After spending nearly a week there speaking with the leadership and members of the business community, this CEO said there was no indication the country is is backing away from centralizing the economy.
2/9
He said wealthy Chinese are fearful and selling items that are seen as ostentatious, such as private jets, "because its dangerous to be rich in China." He added that they are trying to get their money out of the country.
3/9
As for the CDF, there was very little reference to climate change, renewables, or decarbonization. This CEO said there were passing references to the private sector, but the focus always returned to support of the large, state-owned enterprises which dominate the economy.
4/9
The CEO told me the meeting with Xi lasted 1.5 hours; that Xi was asked tough questions by the CEOs and that Xi gave tough answers.

 He says in that meeting, Xi stressed the following:

-that China's economy hasn't peaked
5/9
-every economy has difficulties and they have the capacity to address theirs

-said repeatedly they know how to fix their economy, that everyone has an idea about how to fix their problems but that they know how to fix their problems 

6/9
-they know they have to provide at least 10 million new jobs every year to new graduates

-on semiconductors, that its not right for the US to try and constrain China's economy

-that China is not a threat to the United States 

7/9
-that the US should not try to hinder China's growth

-Taiwan is a red line and that China doesn't interfere with other countries' borders, so other countries shouldn't try to interfere with theirs

-that nuclear war would destroy humanity and we should never go there 

8/9
-Thucydides trap is not inevitable and has to be avoided at all costs

-the governing system of China is not going to change

-They respect other forms of government, they ask respect for theirs.

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1773158913627529397.html
 
https://x.com/mcaruso_cabrera/status/1773158913627529397

Thucydides trap: an apparent tendency towards war when an emerging power threatens to displace an existing great power as a regional or international hegemon.

[Freegrass]

Excellent must see video on the Chinese energy transition from Just have a think.

[Sciguy]

China’s carbon emissions may have peaked in 2023.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/analysis-monthly-drop-hints-that-chinas-co2-emissions-may-have-peaked-in-2023/

  28 May 2024
Analysis: Monthly drop hints that China’s CO2 emissions may have peaked in 2023

China’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions fell by 3% in March 2024, ending a 14-month surge that began when the economy reopened after the nation’s “zero-Covid” controls were lifted in December 2022.

The new analysis for Carbon Brief, based on official figures and commercial data, reinforces the view that China’s emissions could have peaked in 2023.

The drivers of the CO2 drop in March 2024 were expanding solar and wind generation, which covered 90% of the growth in electricity demand, as well as declining construction activity.

Oil demand growth also ground to a halt, indicating that the post-Covid rebound may have run its course.

January and February of this year still saw large increases from the low base of 2023, when the economy was still subdued by the recent ending of zero-Covid restrictions.

As a result, CO2 emissions during the quarter increased by 3.8% year-on-year, with coal consumption growing 3%, oil 4% and gas 11% compared with the same period in 2023.

The turnaround happened in March, when CO2 emissions fell by 3%, due to a 1% fall in coal use, flat oil demand and a 22% drop in cement production. The reduction in CO2 emissions came despite a 14% rise in gas consumption, as the fuel is a minor part of China’s mix.

Steel production fell by 8% and, as a result, there was also a fall in production of the main fuel used by steel mills – coking coal. Cement production fell dramatically, by 22% year-on-year.

These trends seem set to continue, as real-estate investment continued to contract – for the third year – as a result of a government clampdown on excess leverage and financial risk in the sector, and sizable supply resulting from booming construction in the past.

The rise in the share of electric vehicles (EVs) is making a meaningful dent in oil demand, with the share of electric vehicles out of all vehicles on the road increasing to 10.5%, from 7.0% a year ago, as estimated on the basis of cumulative sales over the past 10 years. This indicates that EV adoption lowered petrol demand growth by 3.5 percentage points.

[gerontocrat]

China's big meeting "the 3rd Plenum" is over wikth so far no big surprises.
Looks like 5% or a bit less annual economic growth, with continuing emphasis on “high-quality development”.

https://theedgemalaysia.com/node/719533

Xi’s big economic meeting shows party bracing for slower growth
By Bloomberg

Chinese officials are facing calls to rebalance their economy, as consumer spending slows while exports surge and policy focuses on new green sectors such as electric cars and solar panels.
(July 18): President Xi Jinping vowed to make “high-quality development” the guiding force of the world’s number two economy, showing few initial signs that the top leadership is preparing to unleash major steps to boost demand or arrest the property slump.

The ruling Communist Party signalled China will stay on course with Xi’s plan to use advanced manufacturing to generate growth, in a vaguely worded statement Thursday marking the close of a twice-decade conclave that’s often heralded major policy shifts. The focus on the factory engine could increase trade tensions, with a surge in Chinese exports already prompting fresh tariffs from the US and the European Union.

“High-quality development is the top mission of building a modern socialist country,” the official Xinhua News Agency said after the four-day meeting in Beijing. That vague slogan is typically interpreted to emphasise the quality of economic growth over its absolute pace. It centers on Xi’s ambitions to move up the value chain through tech innovation and become more resilient against US trade curbs.

“There remains a strong emphasis on high-quality growth. This means the tolerance for a period of modestly slower growth remains in place,” said Becky Liu, head of China macro strategy at Standard Chartered. “And the bar for strong short-term economic stimulus remains very high.”

The ruling party normally issues a more detailed report several days after concluding the Third Plenum. Specific policies taking cues from the confab are more likely to come from a sit-down of China’s 24-man Politburo later this month, which typically focuses on economic issues for the year.

Chinese officials are facing calls to rebalance their economy, as consumer spending slows while exports surge and policy focuses on new green sectors such as electric cars and solar panels. Second-quarter data undershot expectations this week, after retail sales in June rose at the slowest pace since 2022 piling pressure on Beijing to do more to stimulate the consumer.

Officials put “actively expanding domestic demand” on their to-do list but only as a short-term task in the communique. Despite that, authorities reaffirmed their determination to hitting this year’s social and economic goals, which include an annual growth target of about 5%.

Xi has said the pace of gross domestic product should no longer be “the sole yardstick of success for development.”

Other priorities include creating an improved system for setting macroeconomic policies — potentially a reference to avoiding abrupt crackdowns such as those that rocked the education and tech sectors years ago and dented investor confidence.

This meeting — delayed from last year — comes as Chinese policymakers struggle to arrest a crisis in the property market, where the citizens store much of their wealth. Falling house prices and a weak job market have sent China into its longest deflationary streak since 1999.

That’s causing a growing sense of malaise, with some citizens branding the post-pandemic era “history’s garbage time” — a phrase referring to final moments of a sports game when a losing team has no chance of making a comeback.

Officials vowed to strengthen the guidance of public opinion and “effectively maintain social stability,” without elaborating. “We must enhance cultural confidence, develop advanced socialist culture,” the party pledged, “and build a more effective international communication system.”

The real estate sector, which at one point accounted for a quarter of China’s gross domestic product, was mentioned just once in the nearly 4,000-word announcement. It was stated only in the context of managing risk, a potential signal no dramatic stimulus measures are forthcoming.

Beijing introduced a broad real estate policy package in May, which centered on relaxing mortgage rules and encouraging local governments to buy unsold homes. It has, so far, had a modest impact.

The government appeared to skip a once-popular phrase that the market should play a “decisive role,” which was used as recently as the last leadership reshuffle in 2022. The ruling party instead said officials should be able to both “let it go” and “control it.” Authorities have signaled a new willingness to control markets in recent months, with the central bank readying a multi-billion yuan pool of bonds to cool a record-breaking rally.

“Measures look to be more focused on the supply side rather than the demand side,” said Bruce Pang, chief economist for Greater China at Jones Lang LaSalle Inc. “That said, the mentioning of urban-rural integration, people’s well-being and fiscal and taxation reform should help improving domestic demand.”

The scope of the communique — spanning everything from economic to political and social issues — reflected the complex challenges facing China, said Alfredo Montufar-Helu, head of the China Center at The Conference Board.

“But in trying to tackle each and every one of these challenges, it unfortunately reads as lacking the focus the market expected,” he added, citing “structural issues that are dragging down consumer confidence and impeding China’s transition to a more sustainable development model.”

Military modernisation was named a key priority in the document, as the party vowed to improve its social governance operations, as well as national and foreign-related security mechanisms.

The plenum document announced the removal of former Foreign Minister Qin Gang from the party’s Central Committee after he was abruptly fired in July last year, seven months into the job. It also confirmed its decision to oust former defense minister Li Shangfu, who faces corruption charges, and the Rocket Force’s Li Yuchao and Sun Jinming from the party.

Overall, the confab did little to resolve big concerns such as whether the malaise in China’s economy can be resolved, according to Australia & New Zealand Banking Group’s Xing Zhaopeng.

“The question mark on whether there will be a growth turnaround going forward remains in place,” he said.

[Freegrass]

China pledges to set a yearly CO2 emissions target

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-briefing-8-august-record-extreme-weather-first-quarterly-co2-fall-since-covid-dual-control-of-carbon-emissions/

This Carbon Brief is too long to post. So follow the link. I got that headline from this tweet.

https://x.com/_AN_Patel/status/1821561086950232271

[gerontocrat]

China has a need to boost domestic consumption as the property market remains depressed, tariffs on exports By the US, EU and UK) may depress exports, and the domestic consumer is mostly not in a big-ticket buying mood.

Also energy efficiency and electrification of all sectors of the economy is part of the high priority given to energy security.

It seems that their wide-ranging trade-in plan is a major tool in making this happen, and not just as a short-term sugar rush.

What with the take-up of EVs in the auto market, major increases in renewable energy capacity and major upgrades of the electricity grid, we may see China switching from Bad Boy to Poster Child in CO2 emission reduction by 2030, (climate extremes, wars, the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune permitting).

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2024-04-22/china-is-betting-trade-ins-for-evs-fridges-can-help-save-its-economy

China Wants Everyone to Trade In Their Old Cars, Fridges to Help Save Its Economy
Car sales set to get biggest boost in Beijing’s trade-in plan
Overhaul also covers appliances, machinery upgrades for firms

China’s world-beating electric vehicle industry, at the heart of growing trade tensions with the US and Europe, is set to receive a big boost from the government’s latest effort to accelerate growth.

That’s one takeaway from what Beijing has revealed about its plan for incentives that will encourage Chinese businesses and households to adopt cleaner technologies. It’s widely expected to be one of this year’s main stimulus programs, though question-marks remain — including how much the government will spend.

Four months after President Xi Jinping flagged a proposal to help households and businesses upgrade old machinery, details are still trickling out. At a briefing earlier this month officials from multiple departments announced the fullest version so far, and promised more to come.

Trade-ins have the potential to speed up growth, currently forecast to fall a bit short of China’s target of about 5%. They can also make it less lopsided, by encouraging purchases at home to balance an export drive. That could ease some of the global concern about overcapacity in China’s factories.

Local governments will be in charge of many practicalities. The city of Suzhou, in China’s wealthy Jiangsu province, already began — announcing subsidies worth 100 million yuan for cars (up to 6,000 yuan per buyer) and 20 million for appliances (a maximum 1,500 yuan for each machine) starting April 20.

Here is what Beijing has announced and what investors are waiting to find out:

1. What is China’s trade-in plan?
The sweeping program aims to upgrade China’s stock of industrial and household equipment – taking older machines that use more energy or emit more pollution out of service, and giving a lift to consumer spending and business investment along the way.

It covers everything from heavy industries like petrochemicals and steel, to installing new elevators in apartment buildings, to incentives for consumers to scrap their old washing machines and buy new ones that use less water.

China’s top economic planning agency says investment on equipment upgrades in key industries was 4.9 trillion yuan ($680 billion) last year, and the goal is a 25% increase by 2027.

2. How much will China’s latest stimulus plan cost?
Beijing hasn’t specified how much cash it’s ready to provide, though officials have described some of the financing tools.

On the household side, auto trade-ins look set to be the focus of fiscal support from the central government. Subsidies will be offered to consumers who buy new EVs or other energy-conserving cars. Local authorities will share some of the costs.

For appliance upgrades regional governments — at least, the ones that aren’t too deep in debt trouble — are expected to shoulder all the burden, signaling it’s a lower priority for Beijing.

For industry there’ll be a mix of subsidies, government investment in new equipment, tax breaks for cleaner producers and discounted loans to help firms upgrade.

There are sticks as well as carrots. New environmental standards for machinery “will force companies to get rid of some old equipment,” says Ding Shuang, chief economist for Greater China and North Asia at Standard Chartered Plc, calling that “the most distinctive feature” of the plan.

3. How will the program help speed up China’s growth?
Much of the spending may fall within existing budget proposals, and its impact is likely built into the official growth target, says Ding. “I don’t think it will lead to additional fiscal stimulus,” he adds, though it “will provide the government with more channels to fully spend” money already set aside.

As for the extra consumer and business spending it will trigger, that’s hard to specify without the financing details, says Duncan Wrigley at Pantheon Economics. For now he’s estimating a total around 0.7 percentage point of China’s gross domestic product.

Economists at Citigroup Inc. said in a note that trade-ins under the plan could boost retail sales by about 0.5% this year, while equipment upgrades could increase China’s widest measure of investment by 0.4 percentage points through 2027. Last month, Goldman Sachs economists estimated a 0.6 percentage-point lift to GDP in 2024, with more than two-thirds coming from extra household spending, mostly on cars. That figure came before the State Council, China’s cabinet, released details.

The immediate GDP boost isn’t the only objective, Wrigley says, contrasting the current program with the emergency stimulus China rolled out after the Global Financial Crisis. “The program sets targets for 2027, implying medium-term growth support for domestic demand to offset the drag from the slowly adjusting property market,” he says.

4. Will it help rebalance the economy?
Xi has called for a focus on advanced industries, and China’s EV success is a symbol of that government-guided effort. But China is accused by the US and Europe of flooding global markets with cheap goods and not doing enough to encourage local demand. The trade-in plan, by helping Chinese buyers, could go some way toward addressing that criticism.

For carmakers, who face likely countermeasures in the European Union this year, it offers a hedge against a potential slowdown in exports. More broadly, the way support is allocated between households and industry — which isn’t entirely clear yet — will reveal whether the program can help offset an over-reliance on investment versus consumption to drive economic growth.

Another charge against Beijing, reiterated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz during a visit last week, is that international firms suffer discrimination in Chinese markets. At the April 11 briefing, a Ministry of Commerce official emphasized foreign and domestic companies will get equal treatment under the trade-in plan.

5. What will happen to the old stuff?
By requiring higher standards for the recyclability of products like lithium batteries, the plan will help Chinese businesses expand in overseas markets, especially “regions that have high environment standards,” Ding says.

The program includes investment in recycling networks, with 2,000 stations to be added across China this year, and logistical systems. E-commerce firms and appliance producers, for example, will be encouraged to collect old machines at the doorstep.

As of last year, China had 336 million cars and more than 3 billion fridges, washing machines and air-conditioners, according to Beijing. Recycling even a small share would be a challenge.

“China has repeatedly fallen short of its own car and appliance recycling targets,” says Wrigley at Pantheon. “Many supposedly recycled cars end up back on the road, despite being a safety hazard and highly polluting.”

[gerontocrat]

China pledges to set a yearly CO2 emissions target

Welcome to Carbon Brief’s China Briefing.

https://www.carbonbrief.org/china-briefing-8-august-record-extreme-weather-first-quarterly-co2-fall-since-covid-dual-control-of-carbon-emissions/

This Carbon Brief is too long to post. So follow the link. I got that headline from this tweet.

https://x.com/_AN_Patel/status/1821561086950232271

Some bulletpoints... just to show how China is galloping ahead of the rest of the world when it comes to renewable energy.

NEW RENEWABLE TARGETS: Regulators published provincial targets for 2024-25 under China’s renewable portfolio standards (RPS) on 2 August, reported China Power. The targets, for the renewable share of electricity supply, increased by more than 3 percentage points year-on-year in most provinces, according to analysis published by financial outlet Yicai, “compared with a 1 to 2 points jump in previous years”.

UPGRADING THE SYSTEM: BJX News reported that China has issued a plan to upgrade its power system to “promote the construction of a new type of power system” between now and 2027. The outlet said the new system should be “safe, stable, cost-effective, flexible” and support the addition of more “clean and low-carbon” resources. A “key effect” of the plan, according to the National Energy Administration, is to improve the transmission of renewable energy from the remote desert bases to cities “at a large scale”, added the outlet.

SOLAR SURGE: Elsewhere, BJX News reported that China added 134 gigawatts (GW) of new renewable capacity in the first six months of 2024, according to the National Energy Administration (NEA) – an increase of 24% year-on-year. It added that solar made up 102GW of the total. (Total US solar capacity stood at 139GW at the end of 2023.)

‘UPHEAVAL’: China’s domestic solar industry is in “upheaval” with wholesale prices falling by another 25% so far this year, after falling by almost half in 2023, the New York Times reported. It quoted Frank Haugwitz, a solar industry consultant, saying efforts by the Chinese government to rein in the industry’s expansion have been “too small to reduce China’s overcapacity”. Bloomberg said that an increasing number of Chinese solar manufacturers “are falling into restructuring or bankruptcy”, adding that “while bigger players like Longi have so far survived billions of yuan in losses by imposing production halts and layoffs, smaller companies have fewer ways to plug financial gaps”.

‘SEVERE OVERCAPACITY’: In a meeting of China’s Politburo at the end of July, state-run newspaper China Daily said, president Xi Jinping called for “strengthening industry self-regulation and preventing ‘involutional’ vicious competition”, adding that China should “strengthen the market mechanisms” to help with “inefficient production capacity”. The outlet did not report that any particular sectors were named during the meeting. Several days earlier, Bloomberg stated that Wang Bohua, head of the China Photovoltaic Industry Association, had called for “struggling solar manufacturers [to be pushed] to exit the market as soon as possible to reduce severe overcapacity”.

The share of sales of “new energy vehicles” (NEVs) – which includes both battery electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids – in China in July, according to the China Passenger Car Association. The trade body added that NEV performance beat manufacturers’ expectations, which it attributed to a trade-in policy encouraging consumers to replace old cars.

“The timeline here indicates policymakers still only aim to peak emissions by 2030, despite the clear likelihood that emissions will…peak much sooner,” Yao Zhe, global policy analyst for Greenpeace East Asia, said in a statement, adding that this shows China is still “underpromising”.

[morganism]

Shanghai's automotive metamorphosis

(snip)
2023

Returning to Shanghai in late 2023 for an extended family trip, I witnessed a cityscape that had once again reinvented itself. The transformation was no longer just economic; it was a comprehensive technological leap permeating every aspect of life.

The roads, once dominated by bicycles, then by a mix of domestic and foreign brands, had undergone yet another shift. Electric vehicles now reigned supreme, their green license plates making up half of the cars at every busy intersection.

What caught my eye, however, was not just their silent operation, but their distinctive aesthetic. Their smooth silhouettes were adorned in a unique palette of soft pastels – blues, greens, and pinks.

The once-ubiquitous Volkswagen Santana taxis were gone. In their stead was a fleet of Roewe i5 electric wagons, capable of swapping batteries quicker than one could refuel one of their predecessors.

China’s domestic brands, mere fledglings in 2005 and adolescents in 2017, had now come of age. Mid-range EVs from Geely and BYD had supplanted the gas-powered Hyundais and Toyotas of before.

In the luxury segment, homegrown EV marques like Nio and Li Auto were challenging the long-standing hegemony of Audi, BMW, and Mercedes. Furthermore, Nio’s vehicles didn’t just look futuristic, all are capable of battery swaps at the thousands of battery swap stations across the country.
(more)

https://arun.is/blog/shanghai-cars/

[gerontocrat]

If everything in the garden was lovely, the two most important share price indices would look better than they are.

Private sector business must be suffering somewhere

[gerontocrat]

China, deflation, sagging demand....

You might think that Bloomberg News might be happy about a China slowdown and threat of recession. But Bloomberg is all about business, and problems in China won't stay in China.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/china-deflationary-spiral-now-entering-103006274.html

China’s deflationary spiral is now entering dangerous new stage
(Bloomberg) — Deflation stalking China since last year is now showing signs of spiraling, threatening to worsen the outlook for the world’s second-largest economy and raising calls for immediate policy action.

Data released Monday confirmed that apart from food costs, consumer price growth barely registered in large swathes of the economy at a time when incomes are sagging.

A broader measure of economy-wide prices known as the gross domestic product deflator will likely extend its current five-quarter drop into 2025, according to Bloomberg Economics and analysts at banks including BNP Paribas SA. That would amount to China’s longest streak of deflation since data began in 1993.

“We are definitely in deflation and probably going through the second stage of deflation,” said Robin Xing, chief China economist at Morgan Stanley, citing evidence from wage decreases. “Experience from Japan suggests that the longer deflation drags on, the more stimulus China will eventually need to break the debt-deflation challenge.”

The danger for China is deflation could snowball by encouraging households reeling from falling paychecks to cut back on spending, or delay purchases because they expect prices to fall further. Corporate revenues will suffer, stifling investment and leading to further salary cuts and layoffs, bankrupting families and firms.

Private surveys show that’s already starting to happen. In sectors of the economy favored by the government — such as electric vehicle-manufacturing and renewables — entry-level salaries declined by almost 10% in August from a peak in 2022, according to findings by Caixin Insight Group and Business Big Data Co.

A survey of 300 company executives by the Cheung Kong Graduate School of Business showed growth in labor costs last month was the weakest since April 2020, when China’s initial Covid lockdowns began to ease.

Separate data from Zhaopin Ltd. shows average hiring salaries in 38 major cities barely changed in the second quarter, in contrast to the 5% growth seen in the two years before the pandemic.

It’s a cycle the world has seen before in Japan starting in the 1990s during a period that came to be known as its “lost decades” — when a grinding stagnation followed a burst bubble in real estate and financial markets.

While Chinese officials have sought to stifle discussion about deflation, warning analysts to avoid using the term, it’s beginning to enter public dialogue. Former central bank Governor Yi Gang last week said rooting out deflation has to take priority for policymakers, a rare admission by a prominent figure in China that falling prices are threatening the outlook.

Yi called for “proactive fiscal policy and accommodative monetary policy” and said officials “should focus on fighting deflationary pressure,” at a panel discussion at the Bund Summit in Shanghai on Friday. China’s immediate goal should be to turn its GDP deflator positive in the coming quarters, he said.

So far, officials have given no sign of any significant shift from their cure-all of encouraging production rather than addressing weak demand with steps such as greater government spending on public services and consumer subsidies.

In a sign price pressures are becoming even more subdued, China’s core inflation — which strips out volatile items such as food and energy — cooled in August to the weakest in more than three years. Expectations for deflation are spilling into markets, stoking a bond rally that’s sent yields to record lows and stoked official concerns that banks have become too exposed to interest-rate risks.

The weak price pressures are evident in the growth pace of China’s nominal GDP, which expanded just 4% in the second quarter — well under the nation’s real economic growth goal of around 5% this year.

At times of weak price gains, nominal expansion is a more useful indicator because it better reflects changes in wages, profits and government revenue, Luo Zhiheng, chief economist at Yuekai Securities Co., wrote in a note earlier this month.

For Jack Liu, a 37-year-old sales engineer of aluminum products in southern China, the impact hit home after realizing he no longer ordered extra eggs at breakfasts.

Plummeting market demand forced his company to cut prices and sell at a loss last year. That slashed his income to less than a 10th of what once exceeded 1 million yuan ($141,000), making mortgage payments a struggle.

“The country doesn’t admit there’s deflation,” said Liu, who lives in Foshan in Guangdong province. He has a modest following of 1,100 people on the Instagram-like Xiaohongshu, where he warns regularly about the danger of deflation.

The speed of the deterioration in China’s price outlook has taken the market by surprise.

Inflation was weaker than forecast in three of the past four months, growing just 0.6% in August — an increase due largely to a 2.8% pickup in food prices. Core inflation last month rose just 0.3% to remain below 1% for an 18th month.

Underscoring the drag on inflation, producer prices have been falling since late 2022. Manufacturers’ raw material and selling prices both contracted for the second month in August, official data shows, while charges by services and construction companies shrank at the fastest pace since April 2020.

The dilemma is that even monetary expansion in China could be deflationary by being mainly directed at the supply side of the economy, Michael Pettis, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, wrote in an article last month.

Meanwhile, the deflationary mindset is starting to take hold. Consumer confidence is hovering at a record low, and households report a growing willingness to save instead of spending or buying homes.

For Liu, the aluminum industry worker, as the pain deepens, the solution lies with policymakers in Beijing. “The government needs to at least take some concrete measures,” he said, “to lift consumption and improve people’s expectations.”

[IceFloe]

China needs a lot of energy to heat itself this coming winter.

https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/china-accelerates-coal-mining-ensure-winter-power-supply-kemp-2024-08-28/

LONDON, Aug 28 (Reuters) - China has boosted domestic coal production and imports to record highs, even as surging power from hydro dams and solar farms has trimmed thermal generation during the summer heatwave.
Coal-fired generation remains critical to ensuring the reliability of electricity supplies - especially in the winter, when hydro and solar output is much lower and the system depends far more heavily on fossil energy.

Despite a record deployment of wind and solar resources, coal still provides the largest share of generation at all times of year, rising to more than 75% in the winter months.
Sufficient stocks are therefore critical to ensure thermal generators have enough fuel on hand to run flat out in the coldest part of winter.
Generators are accumulating inventories to lay in adequate fuel and avoid a repeat of power shortages that plagued the country in the autumn and winter of 2021.

COAL SUPPLIES
China's mines boosted production to a seasonal record 390 million tonnes in July 2024, up from 378 million in the same month a year earlier and 373 million in 2022.
Domestic miners have ramped up output over the summer to make up for relatively slow production in the first five months of the year.
Cumulative production in the year to July was just 15 million tonnes behind the same period a year earlier but the deficit had fallen from 54 million tonnes in the year to May.

So far in 2024, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Xinjiang, three of the four top provincial-level producers, have all reported record seasonal output.
Only Shanxi, where production is broadly flat compared with a year earlier, failed to set a seasonal record in the first seven months.
Shanxi has "voluntarily" adjusted output after seven years of rapid growth to optimise capacity and increase the proportion of advanced mines, according to the government-run news agency Xinhua.
Chartbook: China electricity generation, opens new tab
The four top producers account for more than 80% of the country’s output and are the critical suppliers to generators in all regions, except in the far south.
At the same time, imports surged to a seasonal record of 296 million tonnes in the first seven months from 261 million tonnes in 2023 and 139 million in 2022.
Imports have been used as a substitute for the lower output from Shanxi, creating breathing space to restructure the sector.
But they are also crucial in Guangdong and other southern areas, since it is cheaper to bring coal in by sea than on long rail journeys from the far north.

[Sigmetnow]

China, deflation, sagging demand....

Chinese EV giant BYD ramps up hiring as Beijing prioritises employment
September 13, 2024

BEIJING, Sept 13 (Reuters) - BYD has significantly ramped up hiring, increasing its workforce to more than 900,000 people as of Friday, a senior manager said, making the Chinese electric vehicle giant one of the largest employers in the country.
The move comes as the Chinese government has been prioritising a push to create more jobs, for college graduates in particular as its economy falters.
…
With nearly 110,000 technology and R&D staff, BYD is the world's largest carmaker as measured by R&D personnel, Li said, adding that the company has hired nearly 50,000 fresh graduates over the past two years. …

A record number of college graduates this year are hunting for jobs in a labour market depressed by COVID-19-induced disruptions as well as regulatory crackdowns on the country's finance, tech and education sectors.
The jobless rate for the roughly 100 million Chinese youth aged 16-24 spiked to a 2024 high of 17.1% in July, according to the National Bureau of Statistics.
…
Other automaking peers especially for foreign brands have been laying off staff in China as sales plummet. SAIC and its joint venture partners Volkswagen and General Motors planned to slash jobs by double-digit percentages this year, Reuters reported in March, while Honda has been scaling down its workforce with its two joint ventures in China this year.

BYD said in its latest earnings report that it had about 750,000 employees as of June 30 with the total staff costs accounting for 17.54% of its revenue in the first six months.
That equals to an average cost of 11,700 yuan ($1,649.28) per person per month during the period, according to a Reuters calculation.
…
BYD reported improved net profit in the second quarter, even though it led a protracted price war with aggressive discounts on its best-selling models. …

https://www.reuters.com/business/autos-transportation/chinese-ev-giant-byd-ramps-up-hiring-beijing-prioritises-employment-2024-09-13/