George Magnus is a research associate at Oxford University's China Centre and at SOAS and author of Red Flags: Why Xi's China is in Jeopardy
China’s leaders and economic policymakers – who have been optimistic and confident about the economy for years – are clearly spooked. Just two weeks ago, Chinese state media was happily insisting that the country was experiencing ‘stable economic growth’. China requires a major rethink when it comes to the economy, something which may be politically impossible for
Ahead of the Chinese new year holiday, Beijing has been intervening to prop up the country’s stock markets. Regulators have tightened market trading conditions, and this week the head of the China Securities Regulatory Commission, Yi Huiman, was fired abruptly, presumably as the fall-guy for the relentless decline in the markets, which have lost about $6 trillion in
Once, not that long ago, few people outside China had heard of the property developer Evergrande. Now it is synonymous with failure, debt and loss – and seen as the tipping point in China’s real estate market three years ago. Now meet Country Garden, another large property developer, hailed even a year ago as a
Going by the number of state and Communist party plans to ‘boost consumption’ over the summer, it appears that Beijing is rattled about the Chinese economy. It is right to be worried. Deep-seated and systemic issues that predate Covid are tearing away at China’s fabled dynamism. These include excessive debt, low productivity, a flawed real
With the announcement this week confirming the UK’s accession to the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), the British government has concluded its most important trade agreement since leaving the EU. It is joining a modern free trade area (FTA) comprising 11 Pacific Rim countries located in the most dynamic part of the
