In ancient Greece, every tragic play was accompanied by a chorus — hence the use of the term “Greek chorus” — to express and comment on the issue raised by the dramatic action. It is often a song of doom. At the beginning of every year, many China analysts form a Greek Chorus and gravely predict the collapse of the Chinese economy.
In 2019, it was China’s unstainable debt that would lead to an almost instant collapse in the coming months. In 2020, it was the overheated property market. In 2021, it was Covid.
This year, there is no shortage of economic disasters forecast for China. Like police chief Captain Louis Renault in Casablanca, every time there is a problem, these analysts round up the usual suspects — property market collapse to be led in 2022 by Evergrande; unsustainable debt; Covid; an ageing population; and collapsing economic growth.
