Is China's bubble finally about to pop? A conversation with Bloomberg Chief Economist Tom Orlik

This week on the Sinica Podcast, Kaiser and Jeremy welcome back Tom Orlik, Bloomberg's chief economist and author of the book China: The Bubble that Never Pops. Ahead of the release of the new, updated edition of his book, we ask him about all that has changed in the two-and-a-half years since the publication of the first edition — and whether the real estate crisis, the Common Prosperity agenda, China's fraying foreign relations, or the COVID lockdowns are finally going to bring about the crash long predicted by the "China bears."

4:40 – Tom offers a succinct summary of the chief arguments in the first edition of China: The Bubble that Never Pops

8:05 – Is China looking quite as clever as it was four months ago?

11:08 – The Chinese economy’s great COVID shutdown stress test

13:53 – China’s stimulus response

20:22 – The future of the Common Prosperity agenda

25:49 – China’s push for tech self-sufficiency

33:00 – China’s present real estate crisis

38:15 – Xi Jinping’s priorities: triage for the ailing Chinese economy

44:00 – How bad will the damage be from China’s 2022 lockdowns?

A complete transcript of this podcast is available at TheChinaProject.com.

Recommendations:

Jeremy: The Parker series,: crime fiction by Richard Stark, pen name of Donald E. Westlake

Tom: Surveillance State by Josh Chin and Liza Lin; and Coalitions of the Weak by Victor Shih

Kaiser: The TV drama from Hulu, The Bear

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