China’s Outlook Seems Darkest From a Distance

When it comes to analyzing China, distance seems to make investors’ views of the world’s second-largest economy grow, shall we say, less fond. Whether it’s George Soros (who’s likened China to the U.S. before the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis) or Kyle Bass (who’s said the Chinese economy is built on sand) or Jim Chanos (who’s said, memorably, that China is on a “treadmill to hell”), there’s no shortage of gloomy outlooks. Over-investment, too much debt, bubbly markets, faked data, Ponzi-like financial structures—the litany of looming pitfalls seems inescapable to many investors, especially hedge funds, based in financial hubs from Connecticut to Canary Wharf.

That negativity is a sharp contrast to the majority opinion held closer to Beijing or Shanghai. There, booming consumption, a pickup in global trade, and an increasingly innovative private sector are fueling bets that China’s generation-long economic miracle still has plenty of room to run, albeit at a slower rate than the average gross domestic product growth of almost 10 percent a year since the early 1980s. “I find it scary how many self-proclaimed US based China experts w real influence have barely lived in China, barely speak Chinese and barely have a clue …” tweeted Shaun Rein, Shanghai-based founder and managing director of China Market Research Group and author of The War for China’s Wallet, on Dec. 26. Later he was on Twitter again, wagering that the “same tired group of China’s watchers will predict China’s collapse for the 40th year in a row… and they’ll be wrong for the 40th time but western media will keep quoting them breathlessly as experts.”