Tag - chinese-economy

 
 

CHINESE ECONOMY

Declining birth rates in China are driven by a myriad of causes, such as a shrinking childbearing-age population, lifestyle changes, the one-child policy’s lasting effects, an oversupply of men and high youth unemployment.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 30, 2025
Why China’s marriage crisis matters
According to China’s 2020 census, 61% of babies are born to women aged 20 to 30. But the number of women in this cohort dropped from 111 million in 2012 to 73 million in 2024.
Behind Mixue’s growth is an army of franchisees. The company barely manages any stores itself. Rather, almost all of its revenue came from selling store supplies.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 19, 2025
How to make billions selling $1 lemonade
Behind Mixue’s growth is an army of franchisees. The company barely manages any stores itself. Rather, almost all of its revenue came from selling store supplies.
Amid a slowing economy, Beijing has avoided large-scale fiscal stimulus to prevent further debt buildup, focusing instead on modest measures to alleviate regional financial stress without adding new borrowing.
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 21, 2024
No, China doesn’t really have a debt crisis
Beijing is gun-shy about fiscal stimulus due to concerns more debt will build up. This thinking is muddled.
The U.S. Federal Reserve's cutting of the federal funds rate from 5.3% to a range of 4.75-5%, its first monetary-easing cycle in over four years, has provided China with greater flexibility to stimulate its struggling economy.
COMMENTARY / World
Oct 10, 2024
What U.S. interest-rate cuts mean for China
The Fed's easing cycle means lower debt burdens and higher liquidity, allowing countries to cut rates without fearing excessive capital outflows.
The lapse of the historic U.S.-China Science and Technology Agreement, coupled with escalating tariffs and trade restrictions, has exacerbated economic tensions between the two countries and impacted global stability.
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 12, 2024
Resetting U.S.-China economic relations
To address global challenges, active cooperation between the two economic powers is indispensable.
Joe Biden’s tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles and other imports are more than symbolic — they are a signal that the U.S. won’t accept a surge of imports that could undermine crucial parts of his administration’s agenda.
COMMENTARY / World
May 21, 2024
The U.S. is preparing for a second 'China shock'
The immediate impact of these tariffs will be small, because the United States currently imports very few of the affected goods from China.
The Hong Kong market's recent rally has been fueled by a reassessment of investment strategies, with previously favored markets such as Japan and Taiwan losing appeal. Bloomberg
COMMENTARY / World
May 7, 2024
What is behind the Hong Kong market’s fast and mysterious rally?
The reallocating of investments toward Chinese assets is likely to continue, despite the historical volatility associated with the Chinese market.
Despite vast coal reserves, China has always been geopolitically vulnerable on the energy front.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 24, 2024
China navigates myriad of energy-driven challenges
Rising fuel prices are a thorn in the China's side amid deflation concerns.
China’s greenhouse footprint can be boiled down to three factors: its economic growth, the energy intensity of that growth and the carbon intensity of that energy.
COMMENTARY / World
Mar 7, 2024
China’s growth ambitions will erase the world’s climate gains
Global greenhouse pollution hit a record and increased 1.1% last year, the International Energy Agency reported. That was almost entirely a China story.
As a small open economy, Hong Kong is vulnerable to financial contagion and capital flights to and from China.
COMMENTARY / World
Jan 24, 2024
Hong Kong is facing a repeat of 1998 Asia financial crisis
As the Hang Seng Index selloff deepens, bankers and traders are preparing for the worst.
Chinese President Xi Jinping attends the China-Africa leaders’ roundtable on the closing day of the BRICS summit in Johannesburg on Aug. 24
COMMENTARY / World
Sep 7, 2023
China and doubling of BRICS size challenges the U.S.-led global order
Although China is the world’s second largest economy, it still claims to be a developing country and depicts itself as the champion of the Global South.
China and India both began liberalizing their economies around the same time in the 1980s. But China invested more in human-capital and is now benefiting from that decision.
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 1, 2023
Unlike China, India cannot be an economic superpower
In the 1980s, the belief among observers was that an authoritarian Chinese regime would mismanage its economy while a democratic India would thrive.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / Japan
Nov 16, 2022
Markets’ magical thinking on China has extended to the BOJ
After tying themselves in knots over Xi Jinping's 'COVID zero' policy, it looks like investors are doing the same with Japan's central bank.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Nov 9, 2022
China girds for tough times
Historically, China has carried out its most important reforms in times of crisis.
Japan Times
BUSINESS / FOCUS
Aug 27, 2022
China’s bad debt funds are no white knights in property crisis
Aggressive lending to embattled developers has beset the $730 billion funds with heavy credit losses, forcing Beijing to weigh a preliminary plan to restructure the sector.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 23, 2022
Don’t believe the grim forecast — China is just fine
Beijing's poor headline numbers aren't the only story — and that means investors need to use a new lens to assess the economy.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Aug 12, 2022
Why might China avoid strong inflation?
The Chinese government knows an overly strong stimulus would entail excessive monetary expansion and a surge in inflation.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 28, 2022
Property crisis traps China into a market paradox
The effort to halt the spread of mortgage boycotts risks fueling the behavior officials are trying to prevent.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jul 22, 2022
China's economic engine is about to start shrinking
The nation's working-age population could decline by two-thirds or more by the end of the century, according to new U.N. projections.
Japan Times
COMMENTARY / World
Jun 29, 2022
The steep costs of disengagement for China
In this new era of strategic competition between China and the West, disengagement is the order of the day.

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Professional cleaner Hirofumi Sakurai takes a moment to appreciate some photographs in a Gotanda apartment whose occupant died alone.
The last cleanup: Life and death in a lonely Japan