China next for an economic crisis?

I was in Beijing, Shanghai and Hangzhou on business a few weeks ago. The growth is staggering.

Money is kept in the Country which is further fuel on the property fire. It will go pop, if it hasnt already started to do so.
 
China is different (well it is; it's aggressive, diverse, a police state and it has a huge army. But I'm sure it will all turn out just fine, I mean it's not as if china has experienced cycles of growth followed by political and economic collapse before... Oh, wait a minute...
 
I reckon they'll have a soft landing. The fundamentals are sound. :rolleyes:

Hahahahahahaha, that made me laugh!!!


My opinion is that based on numbers China will have something of a soft landing, and agree with Marc Faber that if China's growth goes down below 5% it will be a technical recession and property is definitely in a bubble in China. But I'm also with Jim Rogers when it comes to China, i.e. that in the long run a soft, firm or hard landing in China will look like a blip.

I haven't been adding to my Asian investments (bar Japan) in the last 18 months, but I'm also not going to sell; I'm not clever enough to trade markets.
 
Hahahahahahaha, that made me laugh!!!


My opinion is that based on numbers China will have something of a soft landing, and agree with Marc Faber that if China's growth goes down below 5% it will be a technical recession and property is definitely in a bubble in China. But I'm also with Jim Rogers when it comes to China, i.e. that in the long run a soft, firm or hard landing in China will look like a blip.

I haven't been adding to my Asian investments (bar Japan) in the last 18 months, but I'm also not going to sell; I'm not clever enough to trade markets.

As Faber say's, the USA went through depressions, wars, civil strife, stock/property crashes, to become the world's largest and most dominant economy.

It wont be any different for China although I think their economy will hit number 1 spot long before their politcal power does.

As for Japan, I think this will be the number 1 investment market for the next decade.

Amazing fundamentals. Totally ignored. As cheap as it was expensive during the 1990 bubble.

Massive regression to the mean to occur.
 
Some interesting points raised by Anatole Keletsky published in The Times (UK) last Wednesday.

China's single party political structure has been a huge advantage to the county's development in terms of facilitating quick decision making and promoting creativity.
He then goes on to highlight the difficulties that will emerge with an unchallenged communist regime, particularly in relation to China's one child policy which remains in existence today. He estimates that China's working population will peak this year and then will go into rapid decline. Today there are five workers aged 20-59 supporting every citizen over the age of 60. By 2032 that ratio will fall to just 2 - the same as it is today in Italy and Germany.
He states that one of the questions one constantly hears in China is: will we get old before we get rich or the other way round?
 
An interesting take in this week's Moneyweek from James Ferguson, looking into the future of China:

'...what had it achieved by the end of its surge in infrastructure investment? Had it acheived any brand recognition? Any corporate governance? Had it established any quality control? Were people actually buying its products because they were cheap but starting to appreciate the fact that they were high quality as well? The answer to all these things is 'no'. China has done none of this. I think history may well look back on China and say "what a waste".

Who know's how they will end up. Personally from an equity invetment point of view their neighbour Japan looks way better IMO.
 
An interesting take in this week's Moneyweek from James Ferguson, looking into the future of China:

'...what had it achieved by the end of its surge in infrastructure investment? Had it acheived any brand recognition? Any corporate governance? Had it established any quality control? Were people actually buying its products because they were cheap but starting to appreciate the fact that they were high quality as well? The answer to all these things is 'no'. China has done none of this. I think history may well look back on China and say "what a waste".

Who know's how they will end up. Personally from an equity invetment point of view their neighbour Japan looks way better IMO.

I'd replace "Japan" with "Korea".
We buy Korean machine tools ahead of Japanese ones; just as good but 30% of the price.
 
I'd replace "Japan" with "Korea".
We buy Korean machine tools ahead of Japanese ones; just as good but 30% of the price.

Yes but Japan has seen a 30%-40% rise in the yen every decade for the last 40 years and still remains up there as one of the major exporter. Should the yen weaken then no doubt Japan will take its share back.

They still make the world's best quality products. Testement to the world's best quality and technology that they remain a top manufacturer despite such crippling currency moves for their exporters.

There is a very good book on the rise of each Asian country from backwater to first world titled 'The miracle, the epic story of Asia's quest for wealth'. Very interesting account of the reasons for first Japan's rise then HK, Sing, SK, etc.

The thing with South Korea is that the equity market there always has the cloud of reunification over it.
 
They still make the world's best quality products. Testement to the world's best quality and technology that they remain a top manufacturer despite such crippling currency moves for their exporters.

Hi ringledman,

What do you mean by "crippling currency moves" and if exporting was so important to Japan why would they implement such moves? Asking out of interest as no real understanding of this side of things.

Thanks,
Firefly.
 
Hi ringledman,

What do you mean by "crippling currency moves" and if exporting was so important to Japan why would they implement such moves? Asking out of interest as no real understanding of this side of things.

Thanks,
Firefly.

Japan has remained one of the world's largest exporters despite it's currency rising year after year.

The Yen was at 360 to the dollar in the 70s and now stands at 82. I think various reasons have led to its rise. Japan's exporting machine and huge current account surpluses over the years. The Japanese government have for decades tried to pull it down but like most governments are useless at manipulating markets.

Should the yen finally weaken and as the Japanese market is priced so low on a price/book level and heading towards being cheap on a price/earnings basis, then there could be a large upside to the market there as exporters finally make the profit margins. They have had to run a very lean ship to cope with the pressure from the yen.

Japanese property is back to 70s levels. Japanese equities back to 80s level. This graphs tells an interesting story -

http://greenbackd.files.wordpress.com/2010/02/grice-japan-net-net-1.png

All asset markets finally revert to the mean from either overvaluation (ie 2000 tech bubble) or undervaluation (ie japan now).
 
And if China goes pop then it has huge implications for Austrailia.... and the Irish over there.
 
One reason that Japan, and many other countries, significantly benefit from a strong currency is twofold. Firstly, Japan has no oil or gas resources, and also lacks most other raw commodities; a strong currency makes it a lot cheaper to import these and this reduces production costs while increasing competitiveness. Secondly, a strong currency attracts capital investment which increases investment in production. Germany after WWII was advised by everyone to weaken the currency; Ludwig Erhardt did the opposite and thus set one of the main foundation blocks of the so called economic miracle. Strong currencies are a good thing and should be strived towards.
 
i think japan is the natural leader in asia, look at germany it was in the doldrums for twenty years and now it is head and shoulders above the rest of europe, japan technically is way ahead of the rest of asia and is much more mature, china has yet to be proved in innovation
 
China’s export and infrastructure led growth boom is coming to an end, i.e. getting to more sustainable levels, so they now have to create growth by developing their domestic consumer market. Not an easy task for a police state.
 
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