China’s private sector is perfectly capable of world class innovation if only Xi gets out of the way.
How about Iron Man for food delivery?
Random video of Guangzhou, one of the China’s largest cities.
Before Covid?
Must be. Nobody wears masks in the video.
I was there in 1989. It has changed a bit. I have pictures of their famous wet market. Don’t remember any bats. Still there
https://www.travelchinaguide.com/attraction/guangdong/guangzhou/qingping-market.htm
What is going on in China? It seems a lot of tech companies are laying off engineers. There’s zero news about this in mainstream media, and the economic reports are good. I found out while discussing our hiring in China which has increased due to layoffs making it easier to attract talent.
I’m not sure why bigger media outlets aren’t covering this.
News of tech layoffs have been widely covered on Chinese social media. Not sure why Western media outlets didn’t cover it more. The TechNode article has a good summary of the number of people affected. But it doesn’t convey the cruelty of these layoffs. For example, JD called the laid off people “graduates” and congratulated them in their official communication.
China’s GDP is a measure of the input to the economy. They can juice it to whatever level they want by raising debt and building unnecessary infrastructure. What’s the economic value of yet another 1,000 miles of high speed rail? Probably not that much. But the construction will create lots of jobs and lots of demand for downstream companies. These are economic activities and they get counted in GDP.
I am surprised even the Wall St bank economists don’t understand this point. We still see these people question whether China can achieve its official GDP target because of the recent Covid lockdowns. Of course China can achieve it. They just have to raise even more debt.
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By the way Xi’s nickname on Chinese social media is the “Chief Accelerator”. Many think Xi is driving backward and is accelerating China’s decline.
Compare Xi with Deng:
Many tech companies in China are laying off massive amount of people. China’s private sector is in big trouble. Right on time they are taking on HUGE debt and releasing a new round of stimulus. And it’s BIG. Most of this money will go to building useless infrastructure projects.
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China is in very bad shape right now:
Although I still agree with Pettis, that an explosion is not likely. More likely is Chinese economy in a comatose state a la Japan in the 90s:
China is also pumping less stimulus money into the economy than I had expected a few months ago. Maybe the end of the debt runway is closer than I expected and saner people within the power circle are pushing hard against another debt binge. I have always expected China’s debt-fueled economic model can’t go on for long. But I thought it can go on for another 3 to 5 years. Maybe Xi going nuts on Covid has hastened its end.
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China is close to a major financial crisis. The strong dollar and debt crisis will cause a major collapse as in 1998. Russia Argentina Mexico Brazil Vietnam? …let’s start a poll
Vietnam is doing very well. Many factories that can’t stand the capriciousness of Chinese government have chosen to move there. It’s shaping up to be China 2.0.
Mexico too benefits from the exodus from China. Besides if it gets into serious trouble the US will bail them out. We can’t afford to have a big neighbor in turmoil.
Brazil has its own mini Trump. Argentina is a perennial basket case. Both will just continue to suck wind.
Russia and China are both busy self destructing. Russia will hit bottom first I think, and so may have a chance of rebirth if they get rid of Putin. China is much stronger than Russia and its way down will also be much longer.
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Prejudices lead to a distorted worldview.
Guess is a good idea to read articles and news that reinforce your prejudices 
Nearly one out of five young jobseekers were unemployed last month as China’s youth unemployment rate hit an all-time high of 19.3 per cent in June, official figures show. It was a sharp rise from 18.4 per cent in May, and marked a year-on-year increase of 25 per cent.
The intensifying struggle among those aged 16-24 to carve out their own piece of China’s economic pie came in the midst of the nation’s economy growing by a mere 0.4 per cent in the second quarter of 2022, year on year.
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