How strong is China's economy, really?

Switzer01-21

China’s economy met the government’s official growth target in 2025, with official figures showing real gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 5%. Exports played an outsized role in delivering this...

Source Link

Disclaimer: Investing carries risk. This is not financial advice. The above content should not be regarded as an offer, recommendation, or solicitation on acquiring or disposing of any financial products, any associated discussions, comments, or posts by author or other users should not be considered as such either. It is solely for general information purpose only, which does not consider your own investment objectives, financial situations or needs. TTM assumes no responsibility or warranty for the accuracy and completeness of the information, investors should do their own research and may seek professional advice before investing.

Comments

We need your insight to fill this gap

Leave a comment

{"i18n":{"language":"en_US"},"isChannel":false,"data":{"share":"https://ttm.financial/m/news/2605140371?lang=en_US&edition=fundamental","thumbnail":"https://switzer.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Australia-China-flag.jpg","is_english":true,"pubTime":"2026-01-21 06:49","share_image_url":"https://static.laohu8.com/e9f99090a1c2ed51c021029395664489","id":"2605140371","market":"us","top_or_hot":-1,"title":"How strong is China's economy, really?","media":"Switzer","content":"<div>\n<p>China’s economy met the government’s official growth target in 2025, with official figures showing real gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 5%. \nExports played an outsized role in delivering this...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/yixiao-zhou/how-strong-is-chinas-economy-really/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n","source":"switzer_stock","html":"<!DOCTYPE html>\n<html>\n<head>\n<meta http-equiv=\"Content-Type\" content=\"text/html; charset=utf-8\" />\n<meta name=\"viewport\" content=\"width=device-width,initial-scale=1.0,minimum-scale=1.0,maximum-scale=1.0,user-scalable=no\"/>\n<meta name=\"format-detection\" content=\"telephone=no,email=no,address=no\" />\n<title>How strong is China's economy, really?</title>\n<style type=\"text/css\">\na,abbr,acronym,address,applet,article,aside,audio,b,big,blockquote,body,canvas,caption,center,cite,code,dd,del,details,dfn,div,dl,dt,\nem,embed,fieldset,figcaption,figure,footer,form,h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6,header,hgroup,html,i,iframe,img,ins,kbd,label,legend,li,mark,menu,nav,\nobject,ol,output,p,pre,q,ruby,s,samp,section,small,span,strike,strong,sub,summary,sup,table,tbody,td,tfoot,th,thead,time,tr,tt,u,ul,var,video{ font:inherit;margin:0;padding:0;vertical-align:baseline;border:0 }\nbody{ font-size:16px; line-height:1.5; color:#999; background:transparent; }\n.wrapper{ overflow:hidden;word-break:break-all;padding:10px; }\nh1,h2{ font-weight:normal; line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:.6em; }\nh3,h4,h5,h6{ line-height:1.35; margin-bottom:1em; }\nh1{ font-size:24px; }\nh2{ font-size:20px; }\nh3{ font-size:18px; }\nh4{ font-size:16px; }\nh5{ font-size:14px; }\nh6{ font-size:12px; }\np,ul,ol,blockquote,dl,table{ margin:1.2em 0; }\nul,ol{ margin-left:2em; }\nul{ list-style:disc; }\nol{ list-style:decimal; }\nli,li p{ margin:10px 0;}\nimg{ max-width:100%;display:block;margin:0 auto 1em; }\nblockquote{ color:#B5B2B1; border-left:3px solid #aaa; padding:1em; }\nstrong,b{font-weight:bold;}\nem,i{font-style:italic;}\ntable{ width:100%;border-collapse:collapse;border-spacing:1px;margin:1em 0;font-size:.9em; }\nth,td{ padding:5px;text-align:left;border:1px solid #aaa; }\nth{ font-weight:bold;background:#5d5d5d; }\n.symbol-link{font-weight:bold;}\n/* header{ border-bottom:1px solid #494756; } */\n.title{ margin:0 0 8px;line-height:1.3;color:#ddd; }\n.meta {color:#5e5c6d;font-size:13px;margin:0 0 .5em; }\na{text-decoration:none; color:#2a4b87;}\n.meta .head { display: inline-block; overflow: hidden}\n.head .h-thumb { width: 30px; height: 30px; margin: 0; padding: 0; border-radius: 50%; float: left;}\n.head .h-content { margin: 0; padding: 0 0 0 9px; float: left;}\n.head .h-name {font-size: 13px; color: #eee; margin: 0;}\n.head .h-time {font-size: 11px; color: #7E829C; margin: 0;line-height: 11px;}\n.small {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.9); -webkit-transform: scale(0.9); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.smaller {font-size: 12.5px; display: inline-block; transform: scale(0.8); -webkit-transform: scale(0.8); transform-origin: left; -webkit-transform-origin: left;}\n.bt-text {font-size: 12px;margin: 1.5em 0 0 0}\n.bt-text p {margin: 0}\n</style>\n</head>\n<body>\n<div class=\"wrapper\">\n<header>\n<h2 class=\"title\">\nHow strong is China's economy, really?\n</h2>\n\n<h4 class=\"meta\">\n\n\n2026-01-21 06:49 GMT+8&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;<a href=https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/yixiao-zhou/how-strong-is-chinas-economy-really/><strong>Switzer</strong></a>\n\n\n</h4>\n\n</header>\n<article>\n<div>\n<p>China’s economy met the government’s official growth target in 2025, with official figures showing real gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 5%. \nExports played an outsized role in delivering this...</p>\n\n<a href=\"https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/yixiao-zhou/how-strong-is-chinas-economy-really/\">Source Link</a>\n\n</div>\n\n\n</article>\n</div>\n</body>\n</html>\n","isBrief":false,"type":0,"news_type":1,"symbol":"GDP","symbol_name":"古德里奇","start_time":0,"source_url":"https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/yixiao-zhou/how-strong-is-chinas-economy-really/","article_id":"2605140371","we_media_id":null,"thumbnails":["https://switzer.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Australia-China-flag.jpg"],"rights":{"source":"switzer_stock","url":"https://switzer.com.au/the-experts/yixiao-zhou/how-strong-is-chinas-economy-really/","rn_cache_url":null,"directOrigin":true},"url":"https://stock-news.laohu8.com/highlight/detail?id=2605140371","pubTimestamp":1768949388,"columns":[],"sourceInfo":{"source_id":"switzer_stock","name":"Switzer"},"weMediaInfo":null,"summary":"Australia's markets are often tied to the fate of China's economy. Despite growing its GDP, China faces some significant headwinds in the near-future.","collect":0,"end_time":0,"defaultTopTitle":"switzer.com.au","property":[],"viewcount":null,"language":"en","relate_stocks":{"GDP":"古德里奇","BK4213":"石油与天然气的勘探与生产"},"translate_title":"中国经济到底有多强？","themeId":null,"isJumpTheme":false,"ttsUrl":null,"symbols_score_info":{"GDP":1},"content_text":"China’s economy met the government’s official growth target in 2025, with official figures showing real gross domestic product (GDP) expanded by 5%. \nExports played an outsized role in delivering this headline growth. Despite a simmering trade war with the United States, China finished up the year with a record-breaking trade surplus of US$1.2 trillion as it lifted exports to new markets in the rest of the world.\nYet behind these headline figures, China’s economy continues to face some stubborn headwinds. Consumer spending remains subdued. Exports – while strong – face mounting global uncertainty. And government expenditure is constrained by public sector debt pressures. \nAdding to this, China’s population continued to shrink for the fourth straight year in 2025 as the birth rate reached a record low, reinforcing concerns an ageing population will hold back the economy in coming years. \nA shrinking population isn’t necessarily incompatible with rising living standards. What matters is whether productivity growth can compensate for a smaller workforce.\nFor China, that means domestic investment, rather than consumption or expansionary government spending, is likely to be the key mechanism for sustaining growth.\nProblems at home\nRecent data suggest China’s weak household consumption is not merely a temporary, post-pandemic phenomenon but instead reflects deeper structural factors.\nWhile China’s GDP growth reached its annual target in 2025, retail sales grew by only 0.9% year-on-year in December, the slowest pace since late 2022. \nThis highlights the fragility of consumer demand, despite policy measures aimed at supporting spending.\nAlthough the services sector continues to expand and accounts for more than half of GDP, household consumption as a share of the economy remains low by international standards. \nHigh savings rates, lingering uncertainty linked to the property downturn, and concerns about job and income security continue to weigh on spending decisions.\nThis is consistent with long-running trends identified in academic research. Policies to stimulate consumption can boost spending in the short term, but they have not fundamentally altered households’ preferences to save rather than spend.\nStrong exports\nManufacturing output remained resilient, and net exports contributed significantly to overall expansion. This helped offset weak domestic demand.\nChina’s exports to the US did fall in 2025. But a shift to new markets in Southeast Asia, South America, Europe and Africa more than offset this decline. \nHowever, China’s reliance on net exports as a source of growth is vulnerable. While exports contributed unusually heavily to growth in 2025, this pattern may be difficult to repeat amid protectionist pressures and potential tariff escalations.\nConstraints on government spending\nIn theory, government spending could step in to stabilise demand. Right now, that’s difficult in practice. \nLocal governments face high debt burdens, falling revenues from land sales and rising pressures related to social programs and maintaining infrastructure.\nThis limits their capacity for large-scale government spending without making financial risks worse. \nDespite this, China continues to generate very high national savings. In 2024, China’s national savings reached 43.4% of GDP. Meanwhile, consumption as a share of GDP – the reverse side of the savings rate – remained around 20 percentage points below the global average.\nTurning savings into investment\nIf a country’s savings are not absorbed domestically through productive investment, they end up fuelling a current account surplus. This can expose an economy to tensions with trading partners.\nIn 2025, investment in fixed assets (long-term investments such as buildings and equipment) fell 3.8%, with property investment plunging by about 17%. \nThis signals both the scale of the investment decline in the real estate sector and the need to pivot investment toward higher-returning sectors, such as manufacturing, services and technology.\nIn the long run, channelling China’s high national savings into efficient domestic investment could have greater impact than government stimulus measures. That’s as long as capital is allocated to productive firms and sectors rather than bridges to nowhere.\nA shrinking population\nChina’s shrinking population adds a further important dimension to this challenge. Population contraction is not necessarily incompatible with rising living standards. \nBut it creates a need to boost productivity, through technological progress, innovation and upskilling the labour force. \nOfficial statistics already show technology-intensive services and high-value manufacturing segments are expanding faster than the rest of the economy. \nChina’s 2025 growth outcome masks a set of enduring structural realities. Consumer spending is likely to remain subdued, exports face increasing global uncertainty, and fiscal policy is constrained by debt burdens. \nThe key policy challenge, therefore, is not to reverse demographic trends at any cost. It is to accelerate the transition toward a more productive, capital- and knowledge-intensive growth model.\nYixiao Zhou, Associate Professor in Economics and Director of China Economy Program, Australian National University\nThis article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.","kind":"highlight","is_publish_news":true,"is_publish_highlight":false,"is_publish_live":false,"is_publish_wemedia":null,"editions":null,"column":"","sentiment":"0","news_tag":"","news_rank":0,"symbols":[],"gpt_button":0,"need_auth":false,"code":"91000000","status":"200"},"commentList":[],"isCommentEnd":true,"newsSizeData":{"likeSize":0,"commentSize":0,"repostSize":0,"favoriteSize":0,"likeStatus":false,"favoriteStatus":false},"APP":{"userAgent":"Mozilla/5.0 AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko; compatible; ClaudeBot/1.0; +claudebot@anthropic.com)","isDev":false,"isTTM":true,"tenantId":"TBGLOBAL","deviceId":"web-server-community-laohu8-v3","version":"4.36.0","shortVersion":"4.36.0","platform":"web","vendor":"web","appName":"ttm","isIOS":false,"isAndroid":false,"isTiger":false,"isTHS":false,"isWeiXin":false,"isWeiXinMini":false,"isWeiBo":false,"isQQ":false,"isBaiduSwan":false,"isBaiduBox":false,"isDingTalk":false,"isToutiao":false,"isOnePlus":false,"isHuaWei":false,"isXiaomi":false,"isXiaomiWebView":false,"isOppo":false,"isVivo":false,"isSamsung":false,"isMobile":false},"href":"/m/news/2605140371","isCrawlerRequest":true}