Is China's economy about to crash hard?

You may have heard about the coming hard crash in the Chinese economy. Here’s a headline from The Economist editors in September 2024:

The real problem with China’s economy The country risks making some of the mistakes the Soviet Union did

The crash in China’s economy has been a long time coming. Shenzou points oput what western magazines have been saying about China since 1990:

1990. The Economist: China's economy has come to a halt.
1996. The Economist: China's economy will face a hard landing.
1998. The Economist: China's economy entering a dangerous period of sluggish growth.
1999. Bank of Canada: Likelihood of a hard landing for the Chinese economy.
2000. Chicago Tribune: China currency move nails hard landing risk coffin.
2001. Wilbanks, Smith &amp; Thomas: A hard landing in China.
2002. Westchester University: China Anxiously Seeks a Soft Economic Landing.
2003. New York Times: Banking crisis imperils China.
2004. The Economist: The great fall of China?
2005. Nouriel Roubini: The Risk of a Hard Landing in China.
2006. International Economy: Can China Achieve a Soft Landing?
2007. TIME: Is China's Economy Overheating? Can China avoid a hard landing?
2008. Forbes: Hard Landing In China?
2009. Fortune: China's hard landing. China must find a way to recover.
2010: Nouriel Roubini: Hard landing coming in China.
2011: Business Insider: A Chinese Hard Landing May Be Closer Than You Think.
2012: American Interest: Dismal Economic News from China: A Hard Landing.
2013: Zero Hedge: A Hard Landing In China.
2014. CNBC: A hard landing in China.
2015. Forbes: Congratulations, You Got Yourself A Chinese Hard Landing.
2016. The Economist: Hard landing looms for China.
2017. National Interest: Is China's Economy Going To Crash.
2018. The Daily Reckoning: China's Coming Financial Meltdown.
2019. BBC: China's Economic Slowdown: How worried should we be?
2020. New York Times: Coronavirus Could End China's Decades-Long Economic Growth Streak.
2021. Bloomberg: Chinese economy risks deeper slowdown than markets realize.
2022. Bloomberg: China Surprise Data Could Spell RECESSION.
2023. Bloomberg: No word should be off-limits to describe China's faltering economy.

… Yet it’s already 2024 and China’s economy is still going strong.

The first couple of minutes of this video¹ features economist Dr. Keyu Jin, a professor at the London School of Economics, who makes the point China is a hero not a villain in most of the world:

Ninety percent of the people in today’s world still live in developing countries, and they have a very different view and perspective on China compared to the more hawkish military perspective that we often hear in the West. Chinese technologies are eminently practical, cheaper, and either of the same quality or higher quality. They are intended to address the issues faced by developing countries.

A commenter on the video from Sudan reinforces Jin’s point:

Ask me and every Sudanese citizen you can find and they will tell you the same thing. The US crippled us with economic sanctions to make us comply to thier whims, while China assisted us in every possible way and respected our right to govern ourselves the way we want.

It’s high time we in the West started to cooperate with lower income countries and stopped trying to rob them to support our extravagant, spoiled and unproductive lifestyle.²

The rest of the video belabours the point and doesn’t offer much deep insight. It’s not Janssen’s best work. To Janssen’s credit, he’s lived and worked in China and speaks fluent Chinese. ↩
If you work in the financial industry FIRE (finance, insurance and real estate), you may be generating income but you are not creating any products or consumable services. Most of us do, or at least in industries supporting FIRE. Historically about half of my own work time has been working to support FIRE industries. ↩

Is China’s economy about to crash hard?