The economy

Verge of disaster or business as usual?

I’m not an economist with a special interest in China, but I have been seeing stories about the Chinese economy faltering. This is of some concern to me because the students in my programme come from some very wealthy families and my job depends on these people, their capacious wallets, and their love of conspicuous consumption.

I’ve been wondering whether the two flats flanking my place are anything to go by. Neither of them has been occupied in a long, long time, and when people are there, they seem to be using the place as a matter of convenience. Someone turns up in the flat adjacent to this room to use the shower, but no one seems to live there. The other flat has occasional visitors, and seems, on occasion, to be lent out to people on a temporary basis. At the moment, I’m guessing it’s being used by Mr Shag-on-the-Side and Miss Concubine. Either that or these two like washing their underwear.

But neither flat has been permanently occupied for months now. The family which used to live on one side barely ever seemed to use the place and were often there only late at night. Possibly, the place was temporary because they were on the bridge side of the building, which must make that flat quite noisy, I guess. It’s also possible, I suppose, that some people are chasing the fashionable place to be or because of the likely oversupply of places, they can be fussy about where they live. The other flat next to mine is probably even colder than this place in winter, although it may be easier to heat.

Are the presence of these empty flats indicative of the housing market or also symptoms of an economy which is no longer charging into the future? At the moment, I’m a little more inclined to them being indicative of the housing market rather than of the economy; but I’ve been wondering what signs I might see around me which give me a hint of the state of the true state of the Chinese economy.

It is a little difficult because in the two years since I came to Wuxi, the city has started building a Metro system, huge swathes of old buildings have been demolished, and there are massive developments all over the city. Wuxi is also a rich place in Chinese terms with an average income of ¥81,000 pa, although that’s probably buoyed up by the people at the top with insanely large incomes. As I’ve said elsewhere, about half the city has been demolished and is being rebuilt, and the other half is waiting to be demolished. In other words, Wuxi seems not to feel the effects of economic problems elsewhere in the world, but there may be signs if I knew what I was looking for.