When you look out across markets and across the increasingly fraught geopolitical landscape, there are plenty of black swans waiting in the wings (no pun intended). And quite a few of them are Chinese.
China has, among other problems: a massive debt overhang that, all told, amounts to more than 250% of GDP; a decelerating economy that Beijing swears will be able to pull off a miracle and move away from the smokestack and away from export-led growth without slipping into recession; a currency crisis; a new property bubble in Tier-1 cities; and a burgeoning NPL problem in the banking sector.
All of those issues are of course inextricably bound up with one another. They are set like dominoes and once the first one tips, the rest will too as sure as night follows day.
And while twin crises (financial and economic) in China would wreak havoc on markets in both EM and DM – between which China exists in a sort of limbo – the real question is this: what would the consequences be for societal stability in China? That is, if it all falls down, will social upheaval ensue leading to a revolt against the Politburo?
That’s not some attempt to use hyperbole on the way to positing some anarchic future for the world’s engine of global growth and trade. In fact, the possibility for widespread unrest is so real that Chinese officials have begun to address it frequently in discussions of how they plan to deal with the mass layoffs that are bound to result from Beijing’s efforts to restructure the country’s collection of elephantine SOEs and stamp out excess capacity.
This post was published at Zero Hedge on 03/20/2016 –.
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