Massive Armada.
Eighty million unsold or vacant homes.
“The first email I read, every morning, is News Items.” — Rick Cordella, President, NBC Sports.
1. Most Americans believe the United States is declining in global power and influence, and nearly two-thirds say China’s power now equals or exceeds that of the United States, according to a nationally representative poll designed by Carnegie Endowment for International Peace scholars. A majority of the Americans surveyed thought the United States is one of several powerful countries rather than the most powerful nation. Nearly three-quarters expected China to overtake the United States in power and influence at some point. Almost half, 47 percent, said China has already surpassed the United States or will do so within the next five years. (Source: carnegieendowment.org)
2. China’s real estate slump is in its fifth year, with no end in sight. Key indicators—sales, prices, construction starts and completions—continue to slide, while an estimated eighty million unsold or vacant homes clog the market. Many of the country’s largest private developers have defaulted on debts, and one of the largest state-backed firms, China Vanke Co., has been struggling for months to stave off a similar fate. One Chinese economist estimates that as many as 80 percent of developers and construction firms could “exit the market” in the coming years as the industry permanently contracts. After leaning on regulatory changes and fiscal measures in a largely ineffective effort to put a bottom under the market, China’s leaders now appear to be shrugging their shoulders and moving on. Beijing has declared that the “traditional real estate model” of “high debt, high leverage, high turnover” has “reached its end” and instead is seeking to create a “new model of real estate development,” based on what one foreign bank has called “planned property supply.” In the future, China’s Minister of Housing, Ni Hong, recently wrote, the industry will be characterized by “affordable housing,” improved services, and “basically stable prices.” This marks the virtual abandonment of an industry that once accounted for about one-quarter of China’s gross domestic product and roughly 15 percent of the non-farm workforce. (Source: atlanticcouncil.org)
3. Growth in China’s green finance sector has accelerated over the past decade and balances now total about $6.8 trillion, according to a former adviser to the nation’s central bank. The value of outstanding green financing — covering green bonds, loans, and equities — has jumped from around $1 trillion in 2015, said Ma Jun, founder and president of the Beijing-based Institute of Finance and Sustainability and a former member of the monetary policy committee of the People’s Bank of China. (Sources: bloomberg.com, ifs.net.cn)
