The Two Faces of China’s Economic Story

Part III of our mini-series on Kurt Campbell’s Washington is coming. But first…

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If you track China closely, you’re already familiar with Michael Pettis and Mary Gallagher. If you don’t, they’re two of the shrewder China watchers on my radar—folks from whom I’ve learned much over the years as I’ve assembled my theory of China.

As everyone knows, China’s economy is kind of going through it right now, and if you grasp political economy, you’ve probably been expecting a slow down for at least a decade—a trend that has large political and geopolitical consequences.

Over on the app whose owner can’t help but destroy its worth, Pettis had one of his famous long threads about China’s economic struggles, and Gallagher had her own duelling thread. Each raised some very useful points that together help us make sense of China’s situation.

Let me explain.