Beijing wanted to cool its housing market, but created a bigger problem, as the fallout from debt-laden developers and sinking sales spreads to the broader economy.
A model Chinese property developer in a sector replete with risk takers is teetering on the edge of default. Short of cash, one of China’s biggest asset managers has missed payments to investors. And billions of dollars have flowed out of the country’s stock markets.
In China, August has been a dizzying ride.
What started three years ago as a crackdown on risky business behavior by home builders, and then an ensuing housing slowdown, has spiraled rapidly this month. The broader economy has been threatened, and the confidence of consumers, businesses and investors undermined. So far, China’s typically hands-on policymakers have done little to ease anxieties and seem determined to reduce the country’s economic reliance on real estate.
Whew, that was a whole lot at once. And like, I get the gist of this but not the impact. Once a certain (very low) bar has been reached, countries are remarkably stable things. Worse disasters have befallen other nations that ended up surviving intact. You have to be super unhappy to want to rock the boat that much. China’s one of the biggest, richest countries in the world. It’ll get bounced around by headwinds but I doubt we’re going to see some crazy democratic revolution - that’s kind of a Western dream, if I could be so bold as to say so.
At the absolute most, I can see Xi and Xi supporters being tossed out via party mechanisms and a new guy taking over. Make a few minor corrections, maybe one big, but a natural equilibrium will return pretty quickly.