While 2011 was a busy year for Europe-watchers, I suspect that 2012 is going to be a big year for China-watchers, at least when it comes to developments that will have the potential to dramatically affect the world’s financial system and economy. And as has been the case with the eurozone debt crisis, the most significant developments will probably be purely internal. (Note that I don’t mean to suggest that we’re done with the euro crisis, by any stretch of the imagination.)
After years of seemingly unstoppable growth, China’s economy has shown some sign of cooling off in recent months. But as always, the sharpest dangers to China’s and the world’s economy are fundamentally financial. China’s property boom seems to be coming to a sputtering halt, and the big question is whether this will turn into a full-blown bubble-burst. But in China such things have an additional layer of significance, because in addition to potentially causing financial disruptions, falling property values could create political disruptions as well. From Marketwatch:
China faces social unrest from housing woes
HONG KONG (MarketWatch) — Irate Chinese homeowners are among the top policy concerns for Beijing this year, according to analysts who say weakening house prices are stoking serious tensions.
…City University’s Cheng says tensions over the housing market are emerging, even as authorities are proving more adept at defusing conflict in other areas. He points to December’s protest in the southern costal community of Wukan as one example.
Frustrations in Wukan over corrupt land deals by the village elite — and the death of a protester there — boiled over when 13,000 Chinese citizens took to the streets, sending the local Communist Party officials fleeing and beating back attempts by police to retake the town.
Not exactly the reaction we would expect in the US or Europe to events in local property markets. So while the Chinese government has substantial resources (both financial and adminstrative) that it can throw at this issue if it becomes a serious problem, this is something that we’ll have to keep an eye on.
Note that one important way that events in China impact the rest of the world is through its exchange rate, which is substantially controlled by China’s central bank. With that in mind, Caixin Online recently published an interesting interview with the governor of China’s central bank (the People’s Bank of China), Zhou Xiaochuan. I admittedly know relatively little about him, but based on what I do know about him Zhou strikes me as a relatively thoughtful policy-maker who has softly but consistently pushed for market-oriented reforms. I encourage you to read the whole thing, but here are a couple of interesting tidbits:
Regarding prospects for China’s economy in 2012:
Caixin: China’s macro-economic policies were adapted to fit changing economic situations in 2011. How do you see the economic situation in 2012 and corresponding policy options?
Zhou Xiaochuan: The Central Economic Work Conference clearly articulated macro-economic policy, taking into account two considerations: Efforts to prevent an economic downturn, and efforts to restrain inflation.
First, we are encountering concurrent issues in the international arena, including an evolving European debt crisis, U.S. economic uncertainty, and slowing growth in emerging economies. More importantly, the international economy is changing rapidly, and its outlook remains uncertain. Thus, we must be prepared to respond to new situations.
On the other hand, looking at China’s domestic economy, local governments will have leadership reshuffles in 2012 and the capacity for growth in the Chinese economy is still great. At the same time, the consumer price situation has changed for the better, and the need to control inflation is not as pressing as it was in early 2011. Of course, there are still uncertain factors, such as the impact that the real estate market will have on the national economy.
And regarding continued yuan appreciation against the dollar:
Caixin: Is the current two-way volatility of the yuan a temporary phenomenon, or does it fundamentally indicate that the yuan exchange rate has already been overshot?
Zhou Xiaochuan: In the past, people said expectations for the yuan were one-way appreciation. Until close to the equilibrium level, it would experience two-way expectations and two-way volatility. This sort of natural, bi-directional floating state is the goal that reform has pursued. But to truly reach this state may take more time. The movement in the current foreign exchange market is still mainly related to the external environment.
That’s as close to an explicit statement as you could expect from the PBOC’s governor that the yuan has quite a bit further to go in its appreciation against the dollar. I’ll have more to come soon regarding recent developments in the yuan-dollar exchange rate.
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