If you search China collapse in youtube you will find a ton of videos predicting the coming collapse of China and other such videos. These videos are just using "Chyna Bad, Collapse etc" as a way to farm views and ad revenue from people who acutally wish China is collapsing. Some in the west and other places can't bare to see China growing stronger every year so cope by consuming content like this. One such example is the video linked above this post by China insights. Look at their Channel and all their videos, its just a bunch of outright fake/exaggerated content designed to push an obvious narrative and people lap it up as that is want they want to hear.
Some common topics that gets brought up at lot:
Ghost Cities - Urban planning what is it? Go tell the people living there that they dont exist and their city is empty lol.
Empty High Speed Rail - seriously? just take a ride yourself.
Covid Deaths exceed 50 million - Lol
Companies moving production abroad - Not a bad thing, its mostly Chinese companies doing this as they move up the value Chain.
Fake GDP numbers - plain cope
People are being oppressed and about to rebel - Highest government support according to Harvard Study or is harvard a ccp shill too?
Chinese are brainwashed - could say the same about people unironically believing the China collapse theories
China is the biggest geopolitical rival of the west so many people in the west especially those who want China to do badly latch onto any slightly negative news in China, blow it way out of proportion then take it as a sign of China's impending collapse or some massive social upheaval. People like Gordan Chang, Peter Zeihan and many others have repeatedly predicted the collapse of China by XX date. Of course, they end up being wrong yet people somehow still end up being suprised one second, then go back believing the next bs china collapse story that gets cooked up. Its pretty comedic at this point.
Its not just random blogs or shitty youtube channels but also mainstream media too. Someone collected a list of China collapse headlines throughout the years which I pasted here:
1990. The Economist. China's economy has come to a halt.
1996. The Economist. China's economy will face a hard landing
1998. The Economist: China's economy entering a dangerous period of sluggish growth.
1999. Bank of Canada: Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy.
2000. Chicago Tribune: China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin.
2001. Wilbanks, Smith & Thomas: A hard landing in China.
2002. Westchester University: China Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing
2003. New York Times: Banking crisis imperils China
2004. The Economist: The great fall of China?
2005. Nouriel Roubini: The Risk of a Hard Landing in China
2006. International Economy: Can China Achieve a Soft Landing?
2007. TIME: Is China's Economy Overheating? Can China avoid a hard landing?
2008. Forbes: Hard Landing In China?
2009. Fortune: China's hard landing. China must find a way to recover.
2010: Nouriel Roubini: Hard landing coming in China.
2011: Business Insider: A Chinese Hard Landing May Be Closer Than You Think
2012: American Interest: Dismal Economic News from China: A Hard Landing
2013: Zero Hedge: A Hard Landing In China
2014. CNBC: A hard landing in China.
2015. Forbes: Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing.
2016. The Economist: Hard landing looms for China
2017. National Interest: Is China's Economy Going To Crash?
In fact theres a whole industry behind it in Japan called where publishers contact Japanese researchers to get them to publish China collapse stories/predictions as these books sold well to the Japanese public. Look up 中国崩壊論 (China Collapse theory) if interested. These books are just fiction masquerading as "research" as they sell a fantasy to the reader. Theres only going to be more of these type of cope content in the future as China grows and becomes more of a threat to the US. Doesn't help that there is massive language barrier so most people in the west will only ever consume content about China in English with its obvious bias.
As someone who works in finance, do I see economic problems in China? Yes (Like real-estate) but so does every other country. All things considered at the moment, the economy in general is not doing too bad compared to the world esp looking Europe and the US but could be better of course. The global economy is not in a good shape at the moment.
As to how all this relates to punting, the shitty japanese economy has brought an influx of desperate JP girls to HK and other places so yay if you're into that.
[ Last edited by dragon926 at 21-8-2023 05:10 ] | |
