Quote from razorack:
I was not implying that your manufacturing export lead economy would disappear and be totally replaced by internal demand. What has been recognised however by the chinese administration is the unsustainable nature of the chinese growth of the past purely from exports and investment. They are now realizing that at some stage that growth will stop ie in a world recession and they are very vulnerable in that case. That would not mean that the western world would stop consuming, just that their rate of increase in that consumption would stall. In that situation there would be a very large impact on the Chinese economy that could only be mitigated to an extent if the internal demand started to replace some of the external demand. I believe that this internal demand is so far behind the export led demand currently and for the foreseeable future that it would be inevitable that a world recession would have a very significant impact on chinese growth. But who was it that said that the longest journey starts with the first step? At some stage in the future china will be much less immune to external shocks to its economy than they currently are. They are a long way away from it at this moment.
Razor, Bingo, you nailed it.
If the future chinese internal spending is generated by white collars in the city, then it really depends on how the property bubbles get handled.
This is a complex situation. People in the mid 50s would have apartments purhcased cheaper when they were working in SOEs or Local government before the economic reform. People late 30s or early 40s people would have purchased from the retail markets maybe 10 years ago, when apartments were affordable (at least there were no bubbles like the last 3 years). Then you have people in the late 20s and early 30s, who have the most education, the most income (sort of), the biggest spending power, they would have purchased during the last few years, when the housing market develops it bubbles.
Then you have the blue collars who will move back into their hometown in their 40s. Dirt cheap housing back home, and they only rent dirty cheap apartments (300RMB per month etc, that's abut 55 USD?), and have no desire to ever purhcase in a city.
When the World Economy goes down hill or the china's property bubble busts, then the younger middle class will suffer the most, internal spending wouldn't be as helpful in the situation. Yes, the chinese governement is taking the right step, but the effectiveness will be pretty overrated currently. It will be a long for the Chinese Government to meet it goals.
"IF" we are indeed in a crisis, the world economy might go down and China will go down with it. This I have no doubt.
Happy Trading.