While the world sees China as a booming economic power, here is a most unsettling inside look at what’s really happening as the Chinese economy begins to run out of steam.
After reporting on China for more than a decade and hearing constantly from a wide range of its citizens, Dinny McMahon has come to a startling conclusion: the narrative of China as an ascendant superpower is fraught with misconceptions. Discovering brand-new factories that have been shut down, finding empty and relatively new abandoned cities, and looking under the cover of a shadow banking system, McMahon has methodically pieced together the alarming truth that China’s perceived economic growth is a myth built on a staggering mountain of debt. And when that debt bubble bursts, the whole world will suffer.
McMahon follows the stories of a diverse set of characters to show how the Communist Party is able to keep fueling China's economic growth by appropriating long-held land from poor citizens in order to build more useless factories; how Chinese entrepreneurs are looking to relocate their businesses overseas, including one who is trying to set up his textile company in South Carolina; and how the mayors of ghost cities that sit abandoned across the Chinese landscape are attempting to lure citizens to move there. Debt, corruption, a speculative frenzy, and an aging population are pushing China toward a major financial recession. The entire global economy is at risk.
