China ist anfällig und droht die Welt mitzureißen

Immer wieder habe ich vor der Abhängigkeit Chinas vom billigen Geld und der Abhängigkeit der Welt von China gewarnt. So zuletzt hier: → „Der Elefant im chinesischen Porzellanladen“

Nun weitere Warnungen. Zunächst erklärt Ambroise-Evans Prichtchard im Telegraph die Anfälligkeit des Landes, sodann Tyler Durden auf Zero Hedge wie groß die Abhängigkeit vom billigen Geld ist:

  • “The yuan has weakened by 9pc against the dollar since mid-April. This is the steepest fall for the micro-managed exchange rate for a quarter century. This week’s blow-off to ¥6.84 has been a move too far for Washington. The retort is a cannon shot across the bows. The Trump administration is now threatening to push up punitive tariffs on a further $200bn (£150bn) of Chinese goods (…) It smacks of an embargo.” – bto: Und die Amerikaner haben es auch getan.
  • “China’s leaders have breached their pledge to hold the country’s currency basket generally stable.  This is a policy decision. The People’s Bank (PBOC) commands $3.1 trillion of foreign exchange reserves. It has chosen not to use this firepower to stabilise the yuan.” – bto: Oder sie halten einfach noch das Pulver trocken.
  • “It is a strange mix of a trade war and currency war, and is on the verge of becoming a very unstable situation. It is the biggest topic for global markets right now (…) China has been hit by several shocks. They still have a few bullets left to fire but they face a tricky balance. They can’t stomach a strong currency. It needs to be even weaker (…).” – bto: weil das Land unter Fehlinvestitionen, Überkapazitäten und hohen Schulden leidet.
  • “The ferocious crackdown on shadow banking (80pc of GDP) by super-regulator Guo Shuqing had gone too far. It choked a fifth of all fresh financing to the real economy. (…) The financial deleveraging campaign since early 2017 has resulted in a severe negative shock to aggregate credit supply. The real economy has begun to feel the pain.” – bto: Und genau darein grätscht nun Donald Trump. Sicherlich kein Zufall.
  • “The state’s control over the banking system and its unlimited authority to rescue companies preclude a Western-style crisis. (…) The more likely risk scenario, to which we assign a 20pc probability, is an economic downturn that is deeper and more extended than expected (…).” – bto: Also besteht die Hoffnung darin, dass es gibt keine Krise gibt, sondern nur eine Abschwächung.
  • “China faces a variant of the Impossible Trinity. If it loosens monetary policy in these circumstances to shore up the economy, it risks capital flight and further slide in the currency. (…)  Capital controls are tighter than they were during the Chinese currency crisis of 2015-2016, when the country was losing $25bn a week, but they are still leaky. The danger for Beijing is that by letting the yuan fall so far, so fast, it will set off a fresh rush for the exits.” – bto: und mehr Sanktionen der USA.
  • “The suspicion is growing that Mr Trump does not really want a trade deal, but rather wants to provoke China into tit-for-tat retaliation in order to carry out a pre-emptive assault on the country’s technology-industrial complex before China is fully established as a rival superpower. Trade policy cannot be separated from the geostrategic clash. The US National Security Strategy Report this year names China for the first time as an adversary that seeks to challenge American power, influence and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.” – bto: und das nicht ganz so zu Unrecht.
  • The (…) “view is that the Communist Party has been engaged in systematic cyber-theft of Western technologyunprecedented larceny in the words of Secretary of State Pompeo – and that its Made in China 2025 blueprint is a hostile attempt to dominate ten strategic sectors from aerospace, to robotics, and G5 networks.” – bto: Und das kann man wohl wirklich so sehen. Wir Deutschen sind bei dem Thema wiedermal sehr blauäugig.
  • “It relies on  self-sufficiency quotas that breach global trade rules, and is backed by a nexus of subsidies and cheap state credit, with Communist party officials lodged on the boards of private companies. It is national mobilisation with a war-time structure.  This was bound to provoke trouble, and it has. We’re at economic war with China. One of us is going to be a hegemon in 25 or 30 years,(…).” – bto: Aus Sicht der USA ist das nicht so leicht von der Hand zu weisen.
  • “It’s hard to predict how this trade war will develop and to what extent. But one thing is sure: if the US imposes tariffs on Chinese imports following an order of $60bn, $200bn, or even $500bn, many Chinese companies will go bankrupt (…).” – bto: Und das ginge nicht spurlos an der Weltwirtschaft vorüber und würde nebenher unsere Probleme in Europa wieder richtig aufleben lassen.

Wie stark China am Schuldentropf hängt zeigt Zero Hedge:

  • “Vertical Group’s Gordon Johnson, (…) writes that China’s proactive fiscal policy pledge could fall short as servicing its existing credit stock absorbs an increasing share of GDP. (…) While China exited ’17 with an est. 266% of total credit to GDP, some economists put that ratio at >300% today. On trailing 12-mo. nominal GDP of ¥86.5tn, as of 2Q, this equates to >¥259.5tn in credit, which, assuming an avg. borrowing cost of 6%, means China’s annual debt service is ~¥14.3tn, or 18.0% of GDP – sensitizing interest & credit-to-GDP, to a respective range of 4-7% & 285-320%, puts China’s debt service at 14-22% of GDP.” – bto: was natürlich eine erhebliche Belastung bei der Suche nach der Anschlussfinanzierung darstellt:

Quelle: Vertical Group, Zero Hedge

  • “Johnson’s punchline: (…) an increasing amount of growth is required to feed existing debt.” – bto: So ist das. Wir brauchen immer mehr Nachverschuldung, nur um das System am Laufen zu halten.
  • “(…) China will have a far more difficult time not only stimulating its domestic economy this time compared to 2014, but in offshoring the favorable inflationary externalities from its latest expansion. In short: the world’s growth dynamo may be getting choked up with debt, which means that in the next global crisis, China will no longer be able to step in and kickstart global growth. And with central banks running out of securities to monetize, just who will arrest the next recession?” – bto: Aka, wer rettet diesmal die Eurozone?

Schulden sind nett in guten Zeiten, machen aber anfällig und instabil. China und wir werden die Konsequenzen demnächst spüren.

telegraph.co.uk: “China’s currency slide risks a horrible misunderstanding with Trump”, 1. August 2018

zerohedge.com: “A Record 18% Of China’s GDP Goes To Debt Service”, 31. Juli 2018