China’s Economic Growth Hits 27-Year Low as Trade War Stings

For the past 30 years, reporters and analysts have consistently said that China's numbers can't be trusted. Every couple of years, there's a different "big problem" in China (e.g., SOE reform and lay-offs, too much debt, industrial over-capacity, trade war, etc.) that makes the headlines, and there's a collective cry of "China's growth is over!" We all know there are flaws and corruption in China's reporting system. However, in hindsight, we see that China's numbers were actually not terribly inflated; in fact, in many years, China's growth was under-reported. I have a feeling China will work its way through the current problems as well.

Before 1550 most of the world’s economic activity was in East Asia. Then the Europeans burst out of their home to conquer the world with superior military science. Unless checked, China’s rise is an historical process that will see East Asia pre-eminent again. The trade war with the United States will not injure them too much, because only twenty percent of their exports go there. China’s strategy at the moment is to supply the developing world with much needed infrastructure in exchange for raw materials streams, which will eventually free them from the US dollar. The developing world with the necessary infrastructure will be more prosperous and provide more markets for Chinese manufactures, so they cannot lose really. As the sun set on American supremacy it will dawn on its citizens that it was a strategic mistake to export its industry to China. Where goes industry, so goes strategic power.

I saw something hilarious today. I was in a Sunoco Mart today. And they had on display of Trump MAGA hats and Trump 2020 hats. So I looked inside at the label . And there in black and white.MADE IN CHINA. The same China Humpty Trumpty has levied all those tarriffs on. I wonder if he gets a cut on every hat sold? Probably. You can't make this stuff up. I also find it ironic that when you walk in Walmart they have all these signs saying Investing in American jobs. Meanwhile,they are supporting China's economy with all the goods Walmart buys from them to sell in their stores. Food for thought.

China apparently wants to 'adapt' to reality better than fighting against windmills (Trump 'impositions'). However China has resources it didn't have 50 years ago: a highly educated population coming from Science and Technology Institutes. Furthermore, China has now a rich population at least the size of the entire U.S. population, becoming a coveted market that of course will be solicited by internal production and the best of foreign equipments from cars to garments and other paraphernalia. In fact, China has the most developed card payments in the world operating through internet. And, let's not forget that China has a quinquennial (5 years) Planing Policy... longterm views and targets...

Some odd economic nationalists will view this as an American "victory". But vandalism to other economies HURTS our economy as well. With negative effects on global growth and R&D, this type of stupidity retards progress and knowledge creation, hurting our children even more than ourselves. And worst of all, as we try to push each country to stand alone it is not just economic nationalism that rises around the world. We make the future more dangerous and less free.

China is playing this very badly. It is incredibly to stupid to start arresting regular businessmen. Who in their right mind would go to China to risk that?

"Go Back" where you can do some good. Please. You liberals are horrible, mindless fools. Americans 20 years ago would have made you leave unless you were truly American and loved this country. Now you are a hateful, anti american, bitter, group of people that actually have a party name. Democrats. Wasn't a bad word then either. Now I wouldn't use it just as I wouldn't use cuss words in front of people. You are an embarrassing group of people that Soros would love. Please dig in and look objectively at things today, you will find you are being played. Settle down and look into the connections, the stories, very very obvious. smh

China will try to Assert their navy power on small nations that china knows it can take advantage of. Its critically important for Asia to stand up to Communists China. The nations must enforce china to stop stealing their resorces and Canada, the United States of America must protect their huge portion of the Artic ice along with Greenland a common wealth of United States of America obviously since world War I.

350 billion in export deficits and the export of millions of American jobs that is the disaster that the president is addressing successfully The current policy is already a success by having numerous worldwide businesses relocate to the United States or other countries besides China. Another huge win for the president's policies and America's Working Families.

Why is Trump's tweet mentioned here without analysis? He develops real estate, which is hardly a career that leads to a deep understanding of international trade. He makes a factual claim -- "Thousands of companies are leaving" -- that the reporter leaves unchallenged (but seems to be contradicted many paragraphs later without any reference back to Trump's tweet). Coming from a man who repeatedly lies that China, rather than American companies and consumers, is paying the tariffs, why does Trump's tweet receive unquestioned credence? This article would have been complete without including Trump's personal view about the impact of his tariffs. If the reporter chose to include Trump's self-congratulations, then he should also have included a sentence or two validating, or debunking, Trump's tweet with information from a reliable, knowledgeable, independent source.

Yes, more tariffs please. I will gladly pay top dollar to buy American designed and made.

For most of the past 2200 years China has been a socioeconomic, political, educational. cultural, diplomatic, military, scientific and technological superpower. Ruling with the Mandate of Heaven from the Central/Middle Kingdom China has absorbed and changed or repelled ethnic foreign invaders and occupiers from the Mongols to the Manchus to the British to the Japanese Deng Xiaoping made modern China by rejecting the Mao Zedong cult of personality and rejecting Marxist dogma communist inhumane ignorant socioeconomic nonsense. Deng Xiaoping implemented socialism with Chinese characteristics aka capitalism. Along with a collective leadership term limited governing political team. China brought a billion people out of poverty and catapulted 300 million into the middle class. But China is an aging and shrinking nation with a below replacement level birthrate and a massive male gender imbalance. While China has the nominal #2 GDP economy on a per capita basis it ranks #80 near Bulgaria and the Dominican Republic. And America spends 3x China on it's military and is a party to many alliances and has lots of allies. About 20% of the human race is ethnic Han Chinese. There are more Chinese living outside of China than there are Americans. Chinese labor makes many American goods cheap. But Xi Jinping has ended the collective leadership model. Along with being deemed a core leader whose thoughts should be studied Xi is seeking the imperial Mandate of Heaven.

Our economic system is global. If China suffers a financial/economic crunch, we will all feel the pain. Then, toss global climate collapse into the mix. Because it's coming if not already here.

Excellent! The Chinese have taken advantage of the industrial counties in the EU and the USA for decades. Now, it is pay back time!

This has next to nothing do with the Trade War 1. China's annual growth rate has declined steadily long before the Trade War. Since 2013 it has been falling linearly (Data National Bureau of Statistics of China) 2. A left out driver for the decline is demographic The 15-64 year population is rapidly declining - China one child policy is presenting its bill 3. Consequently, the labour participation rate hit its peak in 2009 (73.8%) and has been falling ever since 4. As China's wages have risen, supply chains have moved to countries with lower labour costs See the 2018 Reuters article (before the tariffs ) below https://www.reuters.com/article/us-foxconn-iphone-vietnam/apple-assembler-foxconn-considering-iphone-factory-in-vietnam-state-media-idUSKBN1O3128 5. China's own industry is outsourcing, reducing employment, such as Chinese garment manufacturers moving to Ethiopia , where wages are 1/20 of China's see https://www.francetvinfo.fr/economie/industrie/ethiopie-la-nouvelle-usine-de-la-chine_2764803.html (Ethiopia, the new Factory of China) --

6.2% vs 6.4% represents a 'significant' slow down. Color me underwhelmed.

Looks like China continues to do what it has been doing for the past 30 years/ working relentlessly to improve the lives of its (Han) citizens. Despite their sinister and corrupt side, the Chinese government has an industrial policy and a broader plan, and its elites are not bent on keeping a larger and larger percentage of the national wealth instead of investing in infrastructure. What the perennially anti-China NYT derides as questionable investment in far-flung infrastructure to poorer areas is actually China’s effort to spread prosperity to other regions. If we did the same here, we might not have Trump in power. Instead, we give tax cuts to rich people. We could learn a lot from China. Instead, we denigrate their advances to justify our own incompetence and greed.

There are two things that strike me about the letters in this section. One is the misconception that China is the new true economic powerhouse and has an outsized affect on the world economy. China is an exporting nation that has very little internal consumption and the tariffs have proved that China is totally dependent on the United States buying their goods. In fact if the United States doesn’t continue to buy everybody’s goods then Japan to Europe and China are facing tough times. I don’t know how people can’t see that. The second is how people are actually rooting for China over the US. Either this is through some misguided loyalty to the leftist ideology or the result of our terrible education system which doesn’t teach much history, economics, or world affairs. There is nothing mandated about the rise of China economically. We can still challenge China and continue with our own economic prominence. China is like the cheating parents in the college admissions scandal. They want to boast about their outcomes but how they got there they don’t want to discuss. China is a thief, a cheat and manipulate their currency and economic numbers. Why else are they so secretive? what are they trying to hide?

The countermeasure taken by Chinese Govern in order to slow down the imminent crisis is an old remedy that didn't seem successfully when applied by other nations. To fight against the liberal marketing is like to try to contend enormous tsunamis over and over. Mr. Hayek will show to be right again.

You are looking at the beginnings of the next worldwide recession. As the world's manufacturer China will be the first country to feel decrease worldwide demand.

Meanwhile, the US position in the world has completely collapsed. Former allies are turning against America across the globe. The word of the American government is considered to be completely worthless in diplomatic circles, as are any agreements that we sign as a nation. Multiple countries are in the process of building nuclear weapons aimed directly at the American heartland. The rest of the world is building a new trade network which completely cuts out the US as the bad player. American citizens have lower faith in their government today than any point since the Civil War. And China suffers... a 1 percent drop in annual growth? Um yeah, China is winning this contest so decisively that it seems psychologically impossible for American media to see or report the truth.

Without almost constant stealing of Western technologies and huge greed among a large section of Western investors, China's growth story is still not much sustainable. China still can not do just any original research and invent any novel technology or product with its closed and increasingly more authoritative society. Mere skill set development at universities or sending few privileged and well connected (to the Communist party) Chinese to Western Universities would not replace the basic need to have a more open society where asking questions, logical thinking, swimming against the tide are accepted. (India is not much different in this respect) China actually piggy backed on greed of western investors and big corporations with deep political lobbies. Those people helped Chinese Communist dictators- only to boost their own profit margin. That also did not much help vast majority of people and democracies in the western world either. Chinese cheaper products became increasingly important as western population became poorer as more and more wealth were concentrating into the hands of fewer and fewer people. Now it's needed to be stopped- even for geopolitical reasons- that many of these big companies are equally worried about as Chinese companies are spreading thier new found monetary and political power in the world.

do not, please, accept at face value the economic reports from the glorious party luminary Ki Keqiang and his patriotic statisticians. for the rest, the fascinating trend over the past century has been the development within capitalist states of policies to weaponize wealth, especially as an adversarial tool against state controlled and autocratic economies. it's often said that china's economy is "special" or "developing" or whatever, but it is likely to behave as a third world economy when it comes to wealth warfare. we may finally get an end to chinese theft of western intellectual property, and curb their ambitions to technological social control; or maybe not. either way, china stands to lose this confrontation.

Without almost constant stealing of Western technology and huge greed among a large section of Western investors, China's growth story is still not much sustainable. China still can not do just any original research and invest any novel technology or product with its closed and increasingly more authoritative society. Mere skill set development at universities or sending few privileged (and well connected to the Communist party) Chinese to Western Universities would not replace the basic need to have a more open society where asking questions, logical thinking, swimming against the tide are accepted. China actually piggy backed on the greed of western investors and big corporations who helped Chinese Communist dictators only to boost their own profit margin. That also did not help vast majority of people and democracy in the western world either. Now it's needed to be stopped- even for geopolitical reasons that many of these big companies are equally worried about.

Spending money to improve infrastructure is exactly what a government facing an economic slow down should do. It puts people to work and improves efficiency as well as quality of life for the citizens and business.

Keep this in perspective. Trump hails our three percent growth as incredibly strong. China has slowed to 6.2%. The terrible history of tariffs will not be dented by Trump’s trade wars.

I really wish our current POTUS would at least read the part about public infrastructure investments keeping the Chinese economy growing at over six percent! We sure could use a large infrastructure program stateside. Plenty of roads to repair and rebuild, bridges that need repair or replacement, airports that are solidly stuck in the 80s, and yes, even though Trump never travels by train, railways to overhaul and tunnels to build and fix, like the ones under the Hudson. So, Mr. Trump, if you want to juice the economy just in time for the election, a huge infrastructure initiative would do it. And I mean actually doing it, not just talking or tweeting about it!

I wonder if and how much of the strong growth earlier in the year is linked to the slowdown now? I recall that many companies here in the US placed large orders in late 2017 and early 2018 to get the goods in before the tariffs hit, and how that led to their suppliers in China scrambling to fill the orders before the deadline. Now the shelves are well-stocked, and, with the tariffs now in effect, fewer orders are placed, and thus production slows or even shrinks. Maybe one of the crack economists you interviewed could comment how much influence this had -Thanks!

For those that take comfort in the waning of the Chinese economy, think again. China has been a stabilizing factor in keeping inflation down in America, & increasing the American economy, as Americans continued to purchase lower priced Chinese products. Tariffs will bring back some American Factories that due to tariffs can compete with China.American products that can now compete with China will increase the price of their products, who pay far more for American Labor which is put into the cost of American Products. The cost of American products, and the tariffs on Chinese products, will prevent the consumer from spending more money,which will cause a slow down of our economy & higher unemployment, and eventually inflation.

The immediate effect of the tariff war was to increase our trade deficit with China, not to decrease it. Although US imports from China fell by 8.1%, US exports to China fell by 29.9%, thereby increasing the trade deficit by about $6B. If you believe that trade deficits with China are bad, then the tariff war made things worse. In the US, the effect has been an immediate jolt to farming, retailing, and manufacturing, with the US people eventually paying the tariff taxes. It is difficult to see a happy ending to tariff war.

China's fast growth was fuelled by debt. As the deleveraging occurs, growth will slow. This report confirms the phenomenon pointing out the slow down in housing and car sales, both impacted by debt. Debt overhang coupled with global slowdown affecting exports will keep China's economy in low trajectory. However, sharp falls in its imports will further slow down global economy. Engine of global growth is sputtering.

You cannot believe any financial numbers self reported from China. They are directional at best. "Growth fell", are you kidding with that statement. Simply take a look at their historical reported numbers. No economy I know of has had such stable self reported growth over so many years. For China to say that "growth fell" means that financially the economy is very bad in China right now.

The saying used to be: “When the American economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.” Will that be changed to “When the Chinese economy sneezes, the rest of the world catches a cold.”?