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Economics

A ladainha pró-crescimento da China

Jan 24, 2023 Minxin Pei

CLAREMONT (CALIFÓRNIA) – O governo chinês parece ter retomado o romance com o crescimento econômico. À medida que se desenrola a saída caótica de sua política de covid zero – que levou a dezenas de milhares de mortes (no mínimo) -, lideranças do país têm se mostrado dispostas a professar sua eterna devoção à retomada econômica robusta. Contudo, só papo não vai levar a China a lugar algum.

A Conferência Central de Trabalho Econômico do mês passado – o encontro anual em que as maiores lideranças do Partido Comunista Chinês estabelecem a agenda de políticas econômicas para o ano seguinte – definiu crescimento como a principal prioridade econômica do governo em 2023. Nas semanas seguintes, o público testemunhou um espetáculo que não se via há anos, à medida que governadores de províncias se desdobraram para ecoar o compromisso do PCC com o crescimento e para tranquilizar investidores privados e empreendedores inquietos.

A motivação política para essa mudança é óbvia: o PCC espera restaurar o apoio do público, após a frustração popular com as restrições draconianas de covid zero darem lugar à insatisfação com a saída atabalhoada dessa política. Mas isso terá pouco significado se o governo não traduzir sua retórica pró-crescimento em ação.

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Edward H.C Graydon Jan 30, 2023

To try and argue or contemplate brain storming possible weaknesses in China or more specifically the current leader remember that no amount of wishful thinking will ever bring back manufacturing to North America. China because it has been designated the worlds manufacturing headquarters based on conditions that simulate slave labour it has caused huge environmental conditions that seem almost apocalyptic as when you cannot drink the water and the soot and dust from manufacturing fill the air while North Americans fight to try and save wet lands ,forests ,wildlife and water while belittling China behind its back for the position and environment it is in ,I personally don’t believe China is going backwards and that economic growth within China moving forward is an absolute as they have cornered the market and are accepting of the negative environmental side effects of capitalism.
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j. von Hettlingen Jan 29, 2023

Xi Jinping's obsession with total control has weakened the economic foundations on which China’s strength relied to become a global power. Since securing an unprecedented third term last October he put security before economic growth, surrounding himself with loyalists.

As growth for 2022 will not hit the target of around 5.5%, Xi is eager to focus on the economy again. The truth is that China’s decades-long impressive growth is over. It had over the past 10-15 years relied too heavily on construction and investment to reach its ambitious annual targets. Billions were spent on building the world's largest network of high-speed railways, most of the world's 10 longest bridges, the world's busiest ports and airports, and high-rises for tens of million people that become empty. As a result of eye-watering debt levels, resources are drying up and a slowdown is inevitable.

For long Xi was convinced that his zero-Covid approach was the right policy. Instead it had turned a health crisis into an economic one: Growth at historic lows, record-high youth unemployment, a property crisis and sky-rocketing debts etc. He is still hellbent on overtaking the US as the world’s largest economy. In order to sustain high growth, a “credible reform” agenda is necessary. The question is whether he will rethink the economic model that had worked for decades.

In 1978 Deng Xiaoping, China forged economic reforms, allowing more private enterprise and ownership, opening the economy to foreign trade and investment and encouraging savings, after decades of state ownership and central planning under Mao Zedong that left China poor and undeveloped, with only basic manufacturing and dire infrastructure.

The author says Xi has in recent years embraced “orthodox communist ideology and sought to increase the Party’s dominance over society and the economy.” While asserting “tighter social control,” the Communist Party makes inroads into private firms and demands a role to play. The crackdown on tech and other industries has killed the entrepreneurial drive that made China a tech power, destroying jobs that used to attract its bright and innovative people.

On the global stage, geopolitical tensions as a result of Xi’s ambition to invade Taiwan and provocations against China’s most important trading partners have damaged business confidence. Rising interest rates and raw material costs have an impact on Chinese exports at a moment when Beijing is losing its place as the world’s centre of supply chains, since foreign companies look for manufacturing hubs elsewhere.
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