Thread by @davidfickling

If you've not been reading @bopinion you may have missed the tsunami of peerless commentary on China's slowing economy in recent weeks.

I'm so proud to be working with this team -- check out some of what we've published so far in 2019 (thread):

@bopinion First @BaldingsWorld kicked off the year with a prescient warning that China's economy is slowing faster than the government has admitted -- something confirmed in this week's trade data bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld He followed up a few days later noting the rapid buildup of China's U.S. dollar debt, and the risk of a funding crunch as a result: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld Indeed, we may be about to see something in 2019 not witnessed in decades, according to @shuli_ren: A Chinese current account deficit. "China is no longer a frugal notion", she wrote

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren The signs of a slowdown have been showing up across the consumer economy. Tighter consumer credit has hit iPhone sales, as @nishagopalanhk wrote ...

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk ...as well as hit rural buyers' appetite for buying new cars, regardless of Beijing stimulus, per @anjani_trivedi

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi The underlying issue, @Noahpinion wrote today, is that China's total factor productivity growth is grinding to a halt, while the benefits from adding labor and capital have already been banked

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion Government policy isn't helping. Indeed, Xi's tendency to favour the public and state-owned sector is setting China's controls for the heart of the middle-income trap:

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion Construction and machinery stocks are probably overestimating the prospects and benefits of government stimulus, wrote @anjani_trivedi

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion And meanwhile the Belt and Road projects that increasingly keep those state-owned builders in business are starting to look more like a chaotic franchising exercise than a thought-out strategy:

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion What's needed instead of more industrial stimulus is a policy to get China's consumers spending again and not saving 30% of their disposable incomes, as @andymukherjee70 explained this week:

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 Beijing should also give a bit more love to its private-sector businesses, who have many of the same gripes with their government as the Trump as the Trump administration does, @abrownepek wrote this week:

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek There's some glimmers of hope. The People's Bank of China and Federal Reserve are on the same page at last, @Moss_Eco wrote: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco Still, China's domestic investors don't seem convinced a recovery is in the offing, according to @johnauthers

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers One reason for that? They've been caught in one too many bull traps already, wrote @shuli_ren

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers Meanwhile the arrest of Huawei's CFO continues to reverberate, with the world's technology market at risk of splitting into a Cold War-style grouping of China-friendly and China-shunning countries, wrote @tculpan and @atbwebb

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers @tculpan @atbwebb Perhaps this darkening picture will scare negotiators into coming up with a proper China-U.S. trade deal in the coming months. But issues around enforcement mean the prospects for that may be overstated:

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers @tculpan @atbwebb As @doumenzi wrote (honourable mention for our last column of 2018), the Trump administration's scattershot prosecution of its China strategy is backfiring: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers @tculpan @atbwebb @doumenzi If liberal democracies are really serious about maintaining their importance in a time of Chinese ascendancy, that's going to mean learning the lessons of the Cold War, wrote @halbrands -- alliances are more important than bluster

bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers @tculpan @atbwebb @doumenzi @HalBrands Apologies if I've missed anything! But that's the highlights of just over two weeks of commentary.

I don't think you could find a better opinion page about what's happening now -- and I've not even mentioned the stellar work being down by colleagues on the news side.

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers @tculpan @atbwebb @doumenzi @HalBrands Make sure you follow @bopinion and my colleagues tagged here if you want to keep up to date as these events develop. (ends)

@bopinion @BaldingsWorld @shuli_ren @nishagopalanhk @anjani_trivedi @Noahpinion @andymukherjee70 @abrownepek @Moss_Eco @johnauthers @tculpan @atbwebb @doumenzi @HalBrands Small postscript -- in my haste I missed/messed a couple of links.

Here's @andymukherjee70 piece on China's need for a consumer wave: bloomberg.com/news/articles/…

And here's @Moss_Eco on the Fed and the PBOC: bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…