Goodbye Hong Kong. Nice knowing you....

[Ghostsof1915]

A dictatorship by any other name. Still smells as foul.

 

[NewbieCanuckFan]

On 7/16/2022 at 8:59 PM, Ghostsof1915 said:

A dictatorship by any other name. Still smells as foul.

 

In all honesty, for a county that was known as Yugoslavia, having Marshall Tito be "The Big Boss" kept all the religious factions in check who have been at war against each other for centuries & centuries.  Was no mere lackey boy of Stalin either.  

[Warhippy]

China is falling apart economically and they can't keep a lid on it.  Homeowners by the millions are walking away from mortgages, many more are defaulting on state backed loans.

 

$6.8 TRILLION (with a T) in outstanding mortgages alone!!!!  Reads like China's entire real estate and development sector is based on speculatory loans.  

 

https://fortune.com/2022/07/15/china-mortgage-boycott-homebuyers-real-estate-property-debt-crisis-evergrande-contagion/

 

Former UBS Group AG economist Jonathan Anderson once called it “the most important sector in the universe.”

 

More than a decade on, Chinese property is again grabbing the attention of global investors—this time for all the wrong reasons.

Mounting signs of stress this week in an industry that accounts for about a quarter of the world’s second-largest economy have roiled China’s credit markets, dragged down the nation’s bank stocks and pummeled commodities from iron ore to copper.

After a burst of optimism earlier this year that looser regulatory curbs might stem the industry’s debt crisis, investors are getting spooked by rolling COVID lockdowns and a rapidly escalating homebuyer boycott of mortgage payments on stalled projects. The bigger worry is that a widespread loss of confidence in real estate will put major strain on China’s economy and financial system, which is sitting on 46 trillion yuan ($6.8 trillion) of outstanding mortgages and still has 13 trillion yuan of loans to the country’s beleaguered developers.

“Property has been getting steadily worse the whole time; prices, sales, starts, all terrible,” said Craig Botham, chief China economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics in London. “The chronic deterioration has now taken another step. It was always going to hit the financial sector eventually, given the prevalence of collateral in loan books with large real estate portions.”

 

What started as trouble with China Evergrande Group is now snowballing into a crisis that risks engulfing the majority of the country’s developers, its biggest lenders and a middle class that has significant wealth tied to the property market. China’s home prices have tumbled 10 months straight, according to data released on Friday. 

“The whole pyramid is collapsing now,” said Anne Stevenson-Yang, co-founder of J Capital Research Ltd. “What’s different is that things are worse now because of the Evergrande crisis a year ago, which is spreading its tentacles throughout the Chinese economy.”

The turmoil this week has battered what was already one of the world’s most stressed industries. The average yield on Chinese junk dollar debt, which is dominated by developers, has surged to almost 26%. Selling has also spread to investment-grade builders, with a bond issued by China Vanke Co., the nation’s second-largest builder by sales, falling to a record-low of 81.6 cents on the dollar on Tuesday.

China’s COVID Zero policy is exacerbating the situation by damping demand for property and depressing economic activity. Lockdowns remain commonplace in China, which continues to stick to a policy of keeping out the virus with stringent curbs. A recent flareup in Shanghai has spurred concern the city could be heading for another lockdown. 

 

Concern that mortgage boycotts will lead to a rise in souring loans sent a gauge of Chinese bank shares to its lowest level since March 2020. 

Chinese authorities held emergency meetings with major banks this week to discuss the mortgage boycotts on concern that more buyers may follow suit, according to people familiar with the matter. Some lenders plan to tighten their mortgage lending requirements in high-risk cities, two of the people said.

The housing ministry in Xi’an became one of the first government agencies to address the issue publicly, saying it will penalize developers who cause social incidents due to failure of project delivery.

Homebuyers have stopped mortgage payments on at least 100 projects in more than 50 cities as of Wednesday, according to researcher China Real Estate Information Corp. That’s up from 58 projects on Tuesday and only 28 on Monday, according to Jefferies Financial Group Inc. analysts including Shujin Chen. 

“If more home buyers cease payment, the spreading trend will not only threaten the health of the financial system but also create social issues amid the current economic downturn,” Betty Wang, a senior economist at Australia & New Zealand Banking Group Ltd., wrote in a note Thursday.

 

Banks are rushing to reassure investors that risks from loans to homebuyers were controllable, with at least 10 firms issuing statements. State-owned Agricultural Bank of China Ltd. said it held 660 million yuan of overdue loans on unfinished homes, while smaller rival Industrial Bank Co. said 1.6 billion yuan of mortgages were impacted, of which 384 million yuan have become delinquent. 

Nomura Holdings Inc. said the refusal to pay mortgages stems from the widespread practice in China of selling homes before they’re built. Confidence that projects will be completed has weakened as developers’ cash woes intensified. 

Nomura economists led by Ting Lu estimate that Chinese developers have only delivered around 60% of homes they presold between 2013 and 2020, while in those years China’s mortgage loans rose by 26.3 trillion yuan. GF Securities Co. expects that as much as 2 trillion yuan of mortgages could be impacted by the boycott.

Housing in China has gone from being a sure bet over the past two decades to a growing risk. The government cracked down on leverage in the real estate industry, helping drive up debt refinancing costs for developers and triggering a record wave of defaults. Home sales tumbled 41.7% in May from a year earlier, with investment dropping 7.8%. 

The real estate industry has an oversized impact on the economy. When related sectors like construction and property services are included, real estate accounts for more than a quarter of Chinese economic output, by some estimates. About 70% of household wealth is stored in property, along with 30-40% of bank loan books, while land sales account for 30-40% of local government revenues, according to Pantheon Macroeconomics’ Botham.

 

The worsening crisis will test authorities’ ability to minimize the fallout. Earlier this year, China was setting up a stability fund to provide support to troubled financial firms as risks to the economy grow. Handling such issues will be also key for President Xi Jinping ahead of a leadership confab widely expected to cement his rule for life.

Data Friday will likely show the economy’s performance in the second quarter was the weakest since an historic contraction in the first three months of 2020 when the pandemic first hit. Economists predict GDP likely grew 1.2% in the second quarter from a year ago, down from 4.8% in the first three months of the year. 

The slowdown in construction is also hurting demand for building materials. Iron ore slumped more than 8% on Thursday, falling below $100 a ton for the first time since December. A year ago, iron ore was trading comfortably above $200 a ton, with China’s wave of Covid-era stimulus feeding a boom for property and the steel market. Futures for steel rebar in construction collapsed in Shanghai to their weakest since 2020. Copper dropped for a fifth day.

Edited July 19, 2022 by Warhippy

[ronthecivil]

On 8/27/2021 at 7:12 PM, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

Perhaps.  I still hang onto the hope that the democracies of the western world will ultimately stand up to authoritarianism.  They just need a catalyst, or an inflection point, something that triggers their sense of decency and how authoritarian regimes offend that sense of decency enough to fight against it - whether it be through social, political, economic, scientific, or military means.

 

Already, the ccp is showing their bullying ways.  It's only a matter of time that they bully one too many of the countries they've engaged with, resulting in a mass disengagement and shutting off of cordial relations.

 

And when that happens, it'll suck for me and others that look like me, because the western world won't know who of us to trust, but hopefully the end result will be the elimination of the ccp and eventual self-determination of peoples within the area without the authoritarianism.  Maybe.  And if that (the dissolution of the ccp) should come to pass, it might make all that unneeded (and unfair) ostracization of peoples that look like me worth it.  Maybe.

If something happens when the Chinese dictatorship eventually does something stupid enough to piss off the west (and it won't need to be trying to invade Taiwan) and you know they will (because dictators don't like playing by the rules, including the ones that guide international diplomacy) then it will just get the treatment that Russia is getting. Proxy war and economic shunning. 

 

And because the US owes so much money to China, and because the Chinese economy relies so much on the west, the economic warfare will be a lot more punishing to China than it is to Russia. 

 

As for the discrimination, other than the regular members of team stupid that will do that anyways, provided you don't attend any of the inevitable rallies in support of the Chinese "Communist" Party, you should be fine. I would be more worried about anyone that you might know that still there. They will suffer a LOT in this scenario, and very quick return to poverty is not so fun......

[Alflives]

Is Hong Kong Chinese people?  Maybe it should be part of China if the people are Chinese?  Maybe having Hong Kong part of China will be the spark that changes China to democracy?  

[ronthecivil]

15 hours ago, Alflives said:

Is Hong Kong Chinese people?  Maybe it should be part of China if the people are Chinese?  Maybe having Hong Kong part of China will be the spark that changes China to democracy?  

China until recently had something like 40 different languages that had one similar (old) Chinese characters as a similarity. Since then, the masters in Bejing have been trying to culturally assimilate the whole country, changed the writing system, and basically want everyone to toe their line.

 

You know, just like every other narcissistic dictator. 

 

That's my take at least.

[ronthecivil]

6 minutes ago, 6of1_halfdozenofother said:

By the way, in case anyone was paying attention, the situation in Zhengzhou in Henan with protestors seeking access to their money that the government-controlled bank would not let them withdraw has a lot of parallels with what happened three years ago in Yuen Long West Rail Station, right down to police doing &^@# all as white-shirted thugs attacked the protestors who were seeking justice.  Just like it came out of a playbook!  

 

From the Washington Post.

They should be more concerned about their money being worthless. That's the path the government is taking them on.....

[Playoff Beered]

China tells Bachelet not to publish Xinjiang report in ‘act of desperation’

https://genevasolutions.news/global-news/china-tells-bachelet-not-to-publish-xinjiang-report-in-act-of-desperation?utm_medium=partage-social&utm_source=copylink

[RU SERIOUS]

Reading all the evils of the CCP is certainly disheartening - BUT - the "GOOD NEWS" is that all dictatorships and autocratic governments come to an abrupt end and rest assured the CCP will be no different and will face the music one day when the people of China get fed-up of being pushed around and say enough is enough and demand treatment as "HUMAN BEINGS" and not cattle!    It will happen - you can take that to the bank! Just a matter of when................not if.

[Boudrias]

4 hours ago, RU SERIOUS said:

Reading all the evils of the CCP is certainly disheartening - BUT - the "GOOD NEWS" is that all dictatorships and autocratic governments come to an abrupt end and rest assured the CCP will be no different and will face the music one day when the people of China get fed-up of being pushed around and say enough is enough and demand treatment as "HUMAN BEINGS" and not cattle!    It will happen - you can take that to the bank! Just a matter of when................not if.

Talk to the Russians about that. They have been waiting for well over a 100 years. What is truly scary today is the use of AI and software to monitor citizens. That is truly a yoke that might not be easy to take off. 

[Jaimito]

On 7/20/2022 at 12:58 PM, ronthecivil said:

China until recently had something like 40 different languages that had one similar (old) Chinese characters as a similarity. Since then, the masters in Bejing have been trying to culturally assimilate the whole country, changed the writing system, and basically want everyone to toe their line.

 

You know, just like every other narcissistic dictator. 

 

That's my take at least.

The writing system is over 4000 yrs old. And about 2000 yrs ago a common writing system was used to unify the country by the Qin emperor,  the same guy who made the first great wall and the Terracotta warriors. He also unified the currency. All the ethnic groups have their dialect and their culture, that's not assimilation. If you visit Shanghai, they speak Shanghainese, you go to Canton they speak Cantonese etc. While you may not like how minority groups are treated, that is the way for centuries, and not unique to China (look at Canada indigenous pop, blacks in US, Ukrainians in USSR etc). Not every dynasty was ruled by the majority Han ethnic group.  Yuan dynasty was the Mongolians and Qing (the last dynasty) was ruled by Manchurians. Once a dynasty weakens, the country fragments and chaos ensues.  Rinse, and repeat.

 

The last dynasty was weak in the 19th century and all the foreign powers invaded China and carved it up. Hong Kong was a result of that.  Now China is back to power again and they consolidated their territory. The CCP actually did reasonably well during the Deng years and after. Moving millions out of poverty and into middle class, preventing mass famine, etc. Now world's second largest economy.  The current CCP is one man party though, and that's the problem. Xi is the new emperor and answers to no one. It's the Xi dynasty now. 

[Ilunga]

On 7/22/2022 at 12:20 AM, Boudrias said:

Talk to the Russians about that. They have been waiting for well over a 100 years. What is truly scary today is the use of AI and software to monitor citizens. That is truly a yoke that might not be easy to take off. 

The average Russian has never been free.

 

Before Stalin and the rest they lived under the Tsar's.

 

Same for the Chinese.

Emperor's followed by warlords, followed by a few dictators.

 

Then in 1978 China started to kind of liberalise, policies, checks and balances that were initiated under Deng Xiaoping, what was known as the " Boulan Fanzheng period.

 

In 1989 Deng retired after the Tiananmen square massacre 

 

Jiang Zemin took over and stripped away many of those checks and balances.

 

They became more western in the sense, consumerism rose, so did criminal activity and more threatening to the CCP were spiritual/ religious organisations like the Falun Gong. 

 

China did open up to the world during the 2000's however when Ping became General secretary of the CCP in 2012 he kept increasing his hold on power, President of The PROC in 2013, and has since made it clear he is a dictator through his actions rather than any political designation. 

 

As your comments on AI.

I was watching a Viceland doco on how surveillance technology is being used all around the world, not just by governments on their citizens, but also " security agencies" on their own governments. 

 

 

 

[Ilunga]

20 minutes ago, Jaimito said:

The writing system is over 4000 yrs old. And about 2000 yrs ago a common writing system was used to unify the country by the Qin emperor,  the same guy who made the first great wall and the Terracotta warriors. He also unified the currency. All the ethnic groups have their dialect and their culture, that's not assimilation. If you visit Shanghai, they speak Shanghainese, you go to Canton they speak Cantonese etc. While you may not like how minority groups are treated, that is the way for centuries, and not unique to China (look at Canada indigenous pop, blacks in US, Ukrainians in USSR etc). Not every dynasty was ruled by the majority Han ethnic group.  Yuan dynasty was the Mongolians and Qing (the last dynasty) was ruled by Manchurians. Once a dynasty weakens, the country fragments and chaos ensues.  Rinse, and repeat.

 

The last dynasty was weak in the 19th century and all the foreign powers invaded China and carved it up. Hong Kong was a result of that.  Now China is back to power again and they consolidated their territory. The CCP actually did reasonably well during the Deng years and after. Moving millions out of poverty and into middle class, preventing mass famine, etc. Now world's second largest economy.  The current CCP is one man party though, and that's the problem. Xi is the new emperor and answers to no one. It's the Xi dynasty now. 

Great post.

Just stated similar facts myself.

 

 

 

 

 

[kurtis]

On 6/10/2019 at 7:15 PM, Gurn said:

No, Japan had been stopped, they just wouldn't admit it.

Too bad an offshore island couldn't have been nuked instead. Then send a cable saying the next one goes on a city.

They only had 2 bombs ready. I guess they were concerned it would take 2 to make them surrender on highly populated cities. Messed up! 

[Playoff Beered]

On 12/12/2022 at 12:49 PM, kurtis said:

They only had 2 bombs ready. I guess they were concerned it would take 2 to make them surrender on highly populated cities. Messed up!