Topic: China enters deflation as recovery flops and demand falling (Read 268 times)

It's the result of a lot of factors that at first glance seemed like of no major long term concern, so let me make a quick list of it
- the hukou system, great in theory, bad in practice over a long period of time showing its effect, making it impossible of a lot of internal migrant workforce to actually get involved in sectors where it's needed desperately now
- the single child policy, no need for an explanation here
- different mentality though generations, unlike Western elders in a lot of eastern countries are not inclined to spend, when this population starts becoming dominant you're in a lot of trouble, see the deflation Japan is experiencing.
- the lockdowns, which basically showed every single company that it's not a great idea to import iron from Australia, ball bearings from Germany, chips from Taiwan, and rubber from Malaysia to a factory in China to make the product that will be shipped for assembly in Mexico before entering the US market for a 3-5% in cost reduction so, way better to make it all closer to home.
https://www.axios.com/2023/07/12/us-top-trading-partner-mexico-china
- the Russian war, again has shown companies it's not a great idea to have a ton of business in countries where the next day you get everything seized by a madman
https://asia.nikkei.com/Economy/Foreign-investment-in-China-falls-to-lowest-level-on-record
- the final factor is that China, well, as one economist said, became old before becoming rich, being heavily dependent on cheap labor for its economic expansion it hasn't managed to replace that other than a real estate bubble, so now it doesn't have cheap manufacturing, it doesn't have the consumer spending, no investors and little tourism compared to its size, all is powered by state spending, which can't go indefinitely

Of course, it doesn't mean China will collapse or anything else, neither the Great Depression nor the 2008 crisis has proven fatal to any country, but if it enters a solid recession we're all going to feel it, and it's not going to be pretty. Worse for them of course than for us but still!

In the phase of deflation in an economies companies turn to layoff as a way to mitigate losses because they wouldn't want thete expenditure to extremely exceed their profit as demands for good and services are no more in the rate it were. But bethinking this, I don't think this deflation would last for a meaningful time for it to affect other countries around the world, more so, china's socio-cultural economies has a lot of dissimilarities with many countries of the world even with those that shares proximity in border.

China's problem, quite massive, and the sad thing is no one knows how to solve it. It has a huge domestic debt, and it is tied to the currency. Huge, and growing external, also incidentally in currency, falling supplies to Western markets, and the loss of technological investments.... While the government of the Celestial Empire is trying to "export" inflation and problems through the megaproject "replacing the dollar with the yuan, for those who do not have a working brain" - these are the BRICS countries, and some other "dollar-haters", which China is using in full force.  The question is - will this project solve the problems ?!! Partially yes - idiots will take the surplus yuan and then use it to buy billions of dollars worth of junk. But then what?! Will China be able to become a transit, beneficial to China's economy, a zone of dollar separation, from transactions amongst unfortunate "BRICS" type alliances and the outside world via China ? Not a fact...
The problem is that China's economy is export-oriented and dependent on the Western consumption market, as well as on technology and investment. And the nuance is that in today's world, China has decided to play MegaCountry. But it forgot that it is totally dependent on what I have listed. And it cannot replace it on its own, given the fact that Western companies, technologies and markets - China is LOSING ! And this is against the background of INTERNAL economically powerful negative processes !

I don't understand what is happening right now in China.
Most of the info I get about the Chinese economy is just pure propaganda about how the economy is growing on a massive scale and China becomes wealthier day after day. I guess that the end of the lockdowns didn't bring a fast economic recovery. Maybe China is still suffering from the side effects of the pandemic and the lockdowns.
Yes, I know that both inflation and deflation are bad for the economy and finance. The only way to stop them is to stop the money printing machines(which is impossible). That's the only way for the the business cycle will get back to normal.
There's point bitching and complaining about how deflationary Bitcoin is and that nobody uses BTC to buy goods and services. Just choose an altcoin, which has less scarcity. Bitcoin is "digital gold", period.

China has a falling working population, so its not totally out of the blue for this to be a possibility.  Its also going to reflect badly on the world where it exports alot of its goods, poor demand would seem to suggest wider problems beyond China borders.   China drastically reduced its population growth some decades back by the harshest possible methods, they have altered that policy now but are unable alter demographics positively just as easily as they reduced population previously.   

You are correct that there is a difference between deflation of useful items and the detrimental effects of decreased earnings or salaries. Depending on the situation, inflation and deflation can have different outcomes. Consumers may profit when prices decline as a result of better productivity or higher supply. But deflation can cause economic problems if it's fueled by weaker consumer demand and lower salaries. Beyond only pricing changes, the broader economic ramifications must be taken into account.

Things would've been different for China had they not shot themselves in the foot. They literally forced their working class to commit suicide especially during the heights of the COVID pandemic. They failed to perform rapid and righteous response as well during that same timeframe and scenario. Ultimately they made it so that the country couldn't trust them anymore, the elite class which basically holds the Chinese economy on their shoulders are slowly taking their riches away and are putting it into other banks cause China's economy's about to go into the shitbox anyway. And with them slowly pulling out the problem of deflation becomes even more apparent. Oh well, whatever! It's not like you could topple a superpower like China overnight by undermining their economy!

Yeah, sorry, missed your last post in this thread. Still, it didn't become more clear to me after I read your explanation but in fact I got even more confused. 

In your initial post you mentioned "many people are going to sell their Bitcoin because the price will definitely drop". Frankly, I don't see how fiat deflation can affect Bitcoin price. I'm not an expert, but from my experience of over a decade long hodling, neither inflation nor deflation doesn't affect Bitcoin much.

Read my last quote   .
 you can explain to me if you know better, I mean no offense, perhaps we all learn new things every day.

Weird, why do you think Bitcoin price will drop because of deflation? Could you elaborate on that? Also not clear to me why Bitcoin investors should all of a sudden sell their holdings at a loss? 

It was pretty much inevitable to see China end up like this, what goes up must come down. The Chinese communist party did a great job when they were opening up and using the (relatively) free market model which brought many millions of people out of poverty and gave them jobs. However it seems like they have switched into reverse gear now under Xi Jinpig, instead of focusing on economic growth the dictator is deciding that he wants to squeeze ultimate control again and is probably lining up to invade Taiwan at some point in the future, but as your graphs show - this is leading into disastrous territory. The way their government is lurching from targeting one sector to the next and the fact that the rules can change overnight, shows that they are a completely unstable business environment which scares off long term investment.

I'm not sold on the idea that Bitcoin's performance was backed by inflation. Maybe it was the narrative, but the narrative and true cause of market movement might not be the same. Maybe Bitcoin was growing simply because new money was buying more, while hodlers refused to sold.

So I can totally see Bitcoin growing even if global economy enters deflation. Maybe deflation will actually slow down this growth, but the upward-driving forces would still be stronger.

Not everything can be reduced in price. Buyers will get used to low prices and will not accept an increase (if necessary). It is better to offer various bonuses to motivate buyers to choose one company or another. Deflation is not good either, and neither is inflation.

The logic of "if nobody buys from you, is that good" could fail when you drop the prices. You may think, "but everything is so expensive, if I drop the prices then how could I afford anything?" but instead of selling 100 of something with 1 dollar profit, you are going to sell 2000 of the same thing with 20 cent profit and you are going to make more profit that way. This is the way it should be, at least its a good way to stop deflation hurting you. There is at least a formula and an idea that makes you profit somehow with deflation, there isn't any for inflation, you just increase the price because resource prices go up, otherwise you make a loss if you drop your price as well, at deflation there isn't any of that, resource sellers for your product would be glad to have a buyer, even make a discount maybe.

Definitely, if china is having deflation or any other economic/financial situation there are many countries this would affect negatively, China has created strong ties/relationship with several countries, has giving out loans to several other countries in huge amounts I am from one of those countries they have sent loan to.

China has also invested in other countries so certainly if they have any deflation or financial issue it would definitely affect other countries.

So does it mean that every country has their own economic sphere where they can control or at least change the course of its inflation even if the worlds leading countries are still under heavy influence of the inflation? I mean why China? Why not America or some other nation is able to do the same and bring down the inflation once and for all? What china has done that others are not able to do it?

I am also shocked that China like country where labor, bulk production, heavy supply chains everything is so much that they would be the last to recover from the current inflation. But today I am seeing exactly opposite effect on everything.

The deed is already done during the 2020 over printing of money which various economies are now feeling the snow ball effect on their economy and I agree with you that there is no way price of goods and services would return to normal as the government will still continue their money printing but rather this deflation will be a brief relief of pressure on the economy.

Maybe I misunderstood the whole deflation stuff, and I bet I need a bit clarification @franky1. I thought if the deflation takes place and spreads across the other countries, then the value of the country's fiat currency will increase and they can buy more goods and services with the money, and since investors know that their fiat currency will increase in value, I thought 🤔 💭 they're (investors) going to have to sell their Bitcoin holdings and perhaps stack some fiat instead. So that If the fiat value shoots up, then they can buy more Bitcoin with it. I don't get it; I just need the clarification.

I was just reading how Portugal's basic basket has entered deflation yoy, it's -0.3% cheaper than August 2022
https://www.deco.proteste.pt/familia-consumo/orcamento-familiar/noticias/precos-estao-aumentar-alimentos
What makes you think it's impossible to reach 2021 and 2020 levels?
Lumber prices jumped to 1500, now they are barely 6% higher than in August 2018.
If people stop spending, you can print quadrillions, it doesn't generate inflation,  see the whole recent history of Japan.


Contagion can spread through the price of goods and the price of real estate easily!

If China has no way out of this with manufacturing going down they will need to start selling at dumping prices not making a profit or even losing a bit per product but to keep the whole sector afloat, Chinese real estate developers are heavily exposed on the western market, they've invested billions there and if they collapse in China they will need to sell assets in Europe and North America to finance the deficit back home or face a firing squadron, that again will trigger a domino effect over the inflated price we're currently having here.
Eastern Europe had zero similarities with the US back in 2008, with nothing in common other than also having banks and standing on two feet yet we got struck even worse than them at some point.

Thanks for this piece. As I tell people, deflation is worse than inflation, only that people don't often witness this and believe they will spend less and still have a good standard of living only. As these are true, it's also bad for the economy as it would not grow as you've rightly explained. It means the inflation gauge is negative and continuously decreasing or stable below 0 with an inverse order in demand and supply where more supply lingers. It could lead to unemployment since less labour is required, and it encourages too much savings since you pay less for goods and services and might keep more in anticipation of more devalued products and services. This will naturally cause an increase in interest rates which the government will begin to fight through rate cuts and other measures to reverse the trend.

Strangely, this often happens as a result of too good policies and economic prosperity without a proper check by the government, good things at times backfire.

Pumping money has to be clarified under an economy as to what area the money goes to and in what form. I don't see how the pumping of money into the economy in general context would help when a country is witnessing an iota of deflation, it would rather worsen/aggravate it except you actually meant pumping in terms of "printing of money."

First, to buttress your point on the shop owners' narration, what if they've stocked for what would last for months at a higher price and deflation forced them to sell out at a lower price? Also, I understand your plight here, but you seem to overestimate deflation, it doesn't translate to no patronage as you make it look, but less patronage than normal.


This can't be a contagion in my view as China doesn't have economic similarities with the countries they share borders with. And those which have administrative authorities like Hong Kong and Macao don't have the same economic similarity. Even if they do, the effect can't reach further countries.

As for Bitcoin, I've personally said that it depends on how people view it. As someone that is more economically and analytically inclined, I view it differently. Contrary to the general belief that Bitcoin is a good hedge against inflation, I don't believe such, the studies and conclusions on Bitcoin are still premature, it needs more time for the world to be certain of what it really is as it at times behaves like risk-on and risk-off asset alike but more risk-on in nature. Why did it fall when inflation has increased in recent years? Bitcoin is an asset, we should view it as one, and we should invest in it in the view of good returns only like other investments. Who knows if that would help our finances? This is what people mistake for an inflation peg. Can't we invest and earn through another asset? Do they then automatically peg inflation? So, whether it's inflation or deflation season, when the bull run of Bitcoin is active, you make money. And when the bearish season of Bitcoin comes, you will lose money, period!