Does China have a big debt?
In addition, household debt - mostly mortgages - is 61 per cent of GDP. Altogether, China's gross national debt is over 300 percent of GDP. A high debt burden constrains the government's fiscal firepower, preventing it from unleashing bolder stimulus and weakening its effectiveness when implementing support measures.
China's debt is more than 250 percent of GDP, higher than the United States. It remains lower than Japan, the world's most indebted leading economy, but some experts say the concern is that China's debt has surged at the sort of pace that usually leads to a financial bust and economic slump.
China is in the midst of a profound economic crisis. Growth rates are flagging as an unsustainable mountain of debt piles up; China's debt-to-GDP ratio reached a record 288% in 2023.
If China called in all of its U.S. holdings, the U.S. dollar would depreciate, whereas the yuan would appreciate, making Chinese goods more expensive.
Why did China get into a debt problem? Figures show that China's over-borrowing of the public and corporate sector can basically be traced back to the huge stimulus package and lax monetary policy that Chinese economic authorities introduced during the global financial crisis in 2008-2009.
As recently as 2020, total debt in the United States relative to GDP exceeded China's. But as of mid-2022, China's relative debt burden stood 40 percent higher than America's.
Debt as a share of GDP has risen to about the same level as in the United States, while in dollar terms China's total debt ($47.5 trillion) is still markedly below that of the United States (close to $70 trillion). As for non-financial corporate debt, China's 28 percent share is the largest in the world.
Since China began to open up and reform its economy in 1978, GDP growth has averaged over 9 percent a year, and almost 800 million people have lifted themselves out of poverty. There have also been significant improvements in access to health, education, and other services over the same period.
Some analysts even argue that China's economy may never surpass that of the United States. When considering further the vast soft power and geopolitical advantages the United States holds over China, it appears unlikely that China will displace the United States as a leading global power in the foreseeable future.
Statistics | |
---|---|
GDP | $18.560 trillion (nominal; 2024 est.) $35.032 trillion (PPP; 2024 est.) |
GDP rank | 2nd (nominal; 2023) 1st (PPP; 2023) |
GDP growth | 5.2% (2023) 4.6% (2024f) |
GDP per capita | $13,155 (nominal; 2024) $24,839 (PPP; 2024) |
Does China owe the US money?
Foreign countries buy US Treasury securities since they are considered as one of the most secure assets. Among other countries, Japan and China have continued to be the top owners of US debt during the last two decades.
In total, other territories hold about $7.4 trillion in U.S. debt. Japan owns the most at $1.1 trillion, followed by China, with $859 billion, and the United Kingdom at $668 billion. In isolation, this $7.4 trillion amount is a lot, said Scott Morris, a senior fellow at the Center for Global Development.
China owns 384,000 acres of American agricultural land. That's a 30% increase just since 2019. And on top of that, they own land near an air force base in North Dakota.
Cities and provinces across the country have accumulated a massive amount of hidden debt following years of unchecked borrowing and spending. The International Monetary Fund and Wall Street banks estimate that the total outstanding off-balance-sheet government debt is around $7 trillion to $11 trillion.
Characteristic | National debt in relation to GDP |
---|---|
Macao SAR | 0% |
Brunei Darussalam | 2.06% |
Kuwait | 3.08% |
Hong Kong SAR | 4.27% |
- Japan. Japan has the highest percentage of national debt in the world at 259.43% of its annual GDP. ...
- United States. ...
- China. ...
- Russia.
China has little overseas debt, and a high national savings rate. In addition, most of the debt is state owned – state-controlled banks loaned funds to state-controlled firms – giving the government the ability to manage the situation.
Russia divested from all US bond instruments, the only debts the Federal government has, and still owes the US and other investors nearly 300 billion US Dollars. The national debt in Russia was forecast to increase between 2023 and 2028 by in total 16.1 billion U.S.
Rank | Country | Share of Total |
---|---|---|
1 | 🇯🇵 Japan | 14.7% |
2 | 🇨🇳 China | 11.9% |
3 | 🇬🇧 United Kingdom | 8.9% |
4 | 🇧🇪 Belgium | 4.8% |
- Brunei. 3.2%
- Afghanistan. 7.8%
- Kuwait. 11.5%
- Democratic Republic of Congo. 15.2%
- Eswatini. 15.5%
- Palestine. 16.4%
- Russia. 17.8%
How much is China worth?
26. China. China had the second-largest total wealth of $84.48 trillion in 2022. Being one of the largest economies in the world, China makes it to our list of the wealthiest countries by per capita net worth.
[2] A report by the credit rating agency S&P Global in 2022 estimated that 79 per cent of corporate debt in China was owed by SOEs (the IMF does not break down the proportion of debt owed by SOEs).
The United States is the undisputed heavyweight when it comes to the economies of the world. America's gross domestic product in 2022 was more than 40% greater than that of China, the world No. 2. Even more striking, U.S. GDP was over five times that of the next two largest economies, Japan and Germany.
Consistent with these observations, we show that the timing of China's overtaking will be determined by the pace of US and Chinese nominal GDP growth and moves in the bilateral exchange rate. For a range of plausible assumptions, we find that overtaking occurs during the 2030s, most likely in the middle of the decade.
China Jobless Rate Falls to 5.2%
China's surveyed unemployment rate edged down to 5.2% in March 2024, down from 5.3% in the previous month, in line with market expectations.