Chinese Ghost Cities By James Reed

A recent article at the globalist journal, Foreign Affairs.com: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/chinas-economic-collision-course, has detailed the existing economic woes of communist China. A few years ago China's growth was thought by China worshippers to be unstoppable, with the annual GDP growth averaging 7.7 percent. But in the past two years, China's economy, has not grown and will struggle to reach an annual GDP of 3 or 4 percent, good by the standards of many Western countries, but too low for being the supposed main economic engine of the planet. Totalitarian Covid policies led to a decline in private-sector investment. Property construction has also tanked, as mentioned in a short but sharp article at Macrobusiness.com.au, creating "ghost cities."

In fact, the situation is worse than the Economist.com details, as property values are down 90 percent, and there are hundreds of thousands of towns which have an occupancy rate below 10 percent. This of course contrasts with the Australian situation, of a housing shortage; maybe China should be taking the migrants that are flooding into Australia, or stop sending a colonising force?

This economic condition does not fare well with China's geopolitical ambitions, as Xi has said that it is a matter of national honour to take back Taiwan, come what may. Authoritarian leaders, who have economies in trouble will use military adventures to divert the population's anger from the leader, to external nations. Thus, the invasion of Taiwan will likely to be sooner than later, and Australians do not seem to be ready for what is set to come.

https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2024/04/chinas-economy-haunted-by-endless-fraid-of-ghost-cities/

"Some of the statistics in this tour de force of Chinese ghost cities is are mindblowing:

property values down 90%;

enough vacant realty to house double the population;

hundreds and thousands of towns with occupancy rates below 10%;

mysterious hulks of half-completed developments designed on hallucinogens.

All of it was built with Aussie commodities and then p***ed away by mining trillions."

Excuse the French, but he has a point.