﻿ Is China’s economic bubble about to burst and take us all down? - Taipei Times
Wed, Dec 21, 2011 - Page 9　News List


By Paul Krugman  /  NY Times News Service, NEW YORK

Consider the following picture: Recent growth has relied on a huge construction boom fueled by surging real estate prices and exhibiting all the classic signs of a bubble. There was rapid growth in credit — with much of that growth taking place not through traditional banking, but rather through unregulated “shadow banking” neither subject to government supervision nor backed by government guarantees. Now the bubble is bursting — and there are real reasons to fear financial and economic crisis.

Am I describing Japan at the end of the 1980s or am I describing the US in 2007? I could be, but right now I’m talking about China, which is emerging as another danger spot in a world economy that really does not need this right now.

I have been reluctant to weigh in on the Chinese situation, in part because it is so hard to know what is really happening. All economic statistics are best seen as a peculiarly boring form of science fiction, but China’s numbers are more fictional than most. I would turn to real China experts for guidance, but no two experts seem to be telling the same story.


The most striking thing about the Chinese economy during the past decade was the way household consumption, although rising, lagged behind overall growth. At this point consumer spending is only about 35 percent of GDP, about half the level in the US.

So who is buying the goods and services China produces? Part of the answer is, well, the US: As the consumer share of the economy declined, China increasingly relied on trade surpluses to keep manufacturing afloat. However, the bigger story from China’s point of view is investment spending, which has soared to almost half of GDP.


Do we actually know that real estate was a bubble? It exhibited all the signs: Not just rising prices, but also the kind of speculative fever all too familiar from our own experiences just a few years back — think coastal Florida.

And there was another parallel with US experience: As credit boomed, much of it came not from banks, but from an unsupervised, unprotected shadow banking system. There were huge differences in detail: Shadow banking US style tended to involve prestigious Wall Street firms and complex financial instruments, while the Chinese version tends to run through underground banks and even pawnshops. Yet the consequences were similar: In China as in the US a few years ago, the financial system might be much more vulnerable than data on conventional banking reveal.


Some commentators say not to worry, that China has strong, smart leaders who will do whatever is necessary to cope with a downturn. Implied though not often stated is the thought that China can do what it takes because it does not have to worry about democratic niceties.

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