On China’s economy

 Gulzar Natarajan summarises the problems which relate the slowdown of Chinese economy to its COVID policies: China update - The Bad Emperor problem hastens even as economic prospects dim

Michael Pettit sees more familiar structural problems The Only Five Paths China’s Economy Can Follow

“ Once it is recognized that China’s surging debt burden is a function of nonproductive investment, and that this investment must eventually be curtailed, it turns out that there are a limited number of ways the economy can continue growing. Any economy broadly speaking has only three sources of demand that can drive growth: consumption, investment, and trade surpluses. For that reason, there are basically five paths that China’s economy could take going forward.

1. China can stay on its current path and keep letting large amounts of nonproductive investment continue driving the country’s debt burden up indefinitely
2. China can reduce the large amount of nonproductive investment on which it relies to drive growth and replace it with productive investment in forms like new technology
3. China can reduce the large amount of nonproductive investment on which it relies to drive growth and replace it with rising consumption
4. China can reduce the large amount of nonproductive investment on which it relies to drive growth and replace it with a growing trade surplus
5. China can reduce the large amount of nonproductive investment on which it relies to drive growth and replace it with nothing, in which case growth would necessarily slow sharply