It's kind of crazy how people have been talking about this and the real estate and shadow banking and zombie companies for almost an entire decade, but the Chinese economy remains resilient.

I wonder: were people talking about the subprime mortgage crisis that long? Do we just hear about stuff sooner because of the Internet being more mainstream? Is China possibly immune to a downturn just given its sheer size in population, the fact that it's basically a dictatorship, and that it's not affected much by outside money?

I've been bearish on the Chinese economy since 2012. Luckily I didn't bet on it.

I watched the documentary today and it is not about the Chinese economy.

The documentary points out an interesting contrast. Most of these companies were filing correct figures in China. But they were filing fudged figures in US. Because it was difficult to get information out of China, no one bothered to verify. It sounds ridiculous.

But then I read stories about people being encouraged to admit fake data to get more subsidies:

https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics-Economy/Economy/Chinese-loc...

And I understand. The whole place is so opaque that getting actual information requires people on the ground or some whistle blower.

I'm not sure there is any way to know how the Chinese economy is doing. They could be in a serious recession for all we know. The only numbers available are basically state propaganda and can't be trusted.

If China had normal capital flows, their economy would’ve corrected Japanese-style a while ago.

However, they don’t. And like Japan, they have a huge amount of reserves. But it is supressing future growth, probably.

Has Japan ever gotten "correct?" To your point, economies can be weird for a long time.