Now China is starting to tell us ugly things about the rest of the world

Business Insider
By Linette Lopez 6 hours ago

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(Reuters) Young Tibetan monks during a prayer meeting for tourists at a temple in Huangnan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Qinghai Province.
This is going to be uncomfortable. China released its export data for September on Tuesday, and there's something funky in the data that suggests the country's slowdown may not be the only reason for a 1.1% decline from the same time last year.
A lack of demand from the rest of the world may also be a big factor.
It shows that the problem isn't just China, and that the rest of the world is also in trouble.

Easy to blame China

The Chinese economy has been experiencing a major slowdown for the last year or so. The government has been trying to transition its investment-based economy to one based more on domestic consumption. As such, this slowdown was expected as old drivers of the economy — exports and property investment — were gradually replaced with new ones, like retail spending and the services sector.
But the slowdown has come faster and harder than many expected, leaving the government without the wiggle room to enact crucial economic reforms. In July, exports cratered almost 9%, and contributed to the government's decision to devalue the yuan to make Chinese goods more competitive on the international market.

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(Reuters)
Since then, exports have continued to contract from the same time a year before, but not as badly as this summer.
The yuan depreciation was never meant to solve the entire problem, and as Bloomberg economist Tom Orlik points out, it probably never could.
"It's ... worth noting that China's exports continue to outpace growth in world imports," said Orlik. "That suggests it's weak demand, as well as the blow to competitiveness from a stronger yuan and rising wages, that is hitting overseas sales.
"To the extent that cautious consumers in the US and Europe are the root cause of export woes, a weaker yuan will do little to address the problem."
In other words, it's not just them. It's also us.
 
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Now China is starting to tell us ugly things about the rest of the world

This is going to be uncomfortable. China released its export data for September on Tuesday, and...
Business Insider