Considering china is still very rural that doesn’t seem surprising. But China is still in their 1980s Japan phase where real estate in Shanghai is worth more than all of California.

China just builds out entire cities years before they're necessary.

It's not a deliberate policy. There's precious little else to put your money in so the Chinese end up using property as a savings account.

Developers will often skimp on construction quality as a result, since they know that nobody will actually be living in them.

You seem to have read the western propaganda that has misrepresented the situation: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Under-occupied_developments_in...

In what way is it a misrepresentation?

Thats just a link to a page on ghost cities.

Yes, and often those cities will be torn down before they are actually used. It’s all good: turns out demolition also counts as positive GDP in their statistics.