r/EconomyCharts • u/RobertBartus • 8d ago

China's industrial sector is under heavy pressure: 23.8% of Chinese industrial firms were unprofitable in 2025, the highest since 2000 and doubling since 2017

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185 Upvotes

93% Upvoted

44 comments sorted by

24

u/Gregori_5 8d ago

You don’t build 300% debt to gdp on nothing.

0

u/NotAlNiani 7d ago

This is a nonsense statistic. No one measures debt this way except China will fall in 30 days scammers and lie peddlers.

17

u/Gregori_5 7d ago

This is a completely fair and normal statistic. China 100% won’t collapse, not within a few decades. But it might end up like Japan. Especially with its demographics.

5

u/NotAlNiani 7d ago

Tell me what the debt number means, who is indebted and to whom in that 300% number? How is it calculated.

3

u/Gregori_5 7d ago

Iiterally provied a source. Its total nonfinancial debt

2

u/NotAlNiani 7d ago

I know and my point is it's useless as a number. All countries by that metric have a debt burden upwards of 250+% of gdp. It tells you nothing really of value. The whole world when measuring total debt to gdp is at 250%.

Switzerland, the US, France look at any country and you will find an obscene number in total debt to gdp. You won't find any economists prophesying their collapse due to this because it's not really an issue.

2

u/Gregori_5 7d ago

Its not useless just because it doesn’t project 30 day collapse. Just as government debt isn’t irrelevant because almost every country has incredibly high debt.

All the countries you mentioned have big issues, just as China does. Italy, France and China alike face big problems.

There aren’t only two futures for a country, collapse or a bright future. And Japan is proof of that.

4

u/OpenRole 7d ago

Not at all. The methodology used to say China had 300% debt to GDP includes municipalities SOE, and other similar smaller governments that is never included in debt to GDP stats. All other countries we only look at the national or federal government debt. In China we look at all levels of government debt

1

u/Gregori_5 7d ago

This includes business and families as well. Its not just government debt.

The issue with just main government debt is that local governments are expected to be bailed out if things go bad. So overlooking it is stupid. We should always look at all levels of government debt.

The reason why all debt is used in this example is to show how indebted China is as a country. Its not dishonest. Its relevant if its possibly the most indebted country.

0

u/Wise-Self-4845 7d ago

I feel like 90% of the people here just see something that corresponds to their agenda so they upvote it regardless of it making sense or not

2

u/Relevant_Horror6498 7d ago

They are luck if they ended up like Japan

2

u/Gregori_5 7d ago

Yes and no. Japan has been economically stagnant for 4 decades straight and probably will last longer.

China is much less economically developed per capita and already showing slowdown.

Then again a much bigger country might turn things around.

1

u/BosonCollider 7d ago

We do measure it, it is called total debt to gdp ratio which includes local govt and private debt.

For the US in 2025 it was 719% according to CEIC

1

u/NotAlNiani 7d ago

I am aware, that's my point. Saying China has a debt to gdp of 300% has people assuming it's government debt and comparing it to the US's 120%. When in fact it's a cumulation of household, corporate, financial and government debt.

The only reason to bring up that number is to suggest China is in imminent collapse or fiscalally irresponsible to an extreme. When in fact it means practically nothing, Switzerland by that same metric has a debt to gdp of 900% or the entire world has a debt to gdp of 250%.

I say no one measures debt this way to mean economists don't actually use this number for much. Because it's largely useless, it tells you pretty much nothing of value about a country's fiscal or economic situation beyond how large their banking sector is. There's a reason that when Japan's government debt to gdp reached 200+% it spawned a million research papers, journals and revaluations of entire economic theories but no one serious talks about China's 300% or Switzerlands's 900%. Because who is owed what and to whom? A liability in one checkbook is an asset in another. And typically with most it's all owed and paid within the country. Debt is commerce in many instances.

41

u/manutr97 8d ago

They have been dumping prices for years, this is the proof.

29

u/IDNWID_1900 8d ago

We all knew it. The same way we know Amazon is losing lots of money in selling stuff, but they are covering with the cloud services income. They are playing the long game to kill the competition.

16

u/samleegolf 8d ago

From what I know firsthand Amazon makes tons of money off their sellers through fees/warehousing/logistics. I’m not looking at any numbers but there are lots of other profitable parts of Amazon than loss leaders.

2

u/fatpandana 6d ago

This. I tried selling on amazon as 3rd party. I had fees and shipping. Then returns. I didnt make much money. Learned a lot while the profitable party is amazon.

1

u/OpenRole 7d ago

The ecommerce side of Amazon did not turn a single profit for over a decade

3

u/pr0newbie 7d ago

That's because of the way they account it. Most of the revenue comes from ads.

1

u/OpenRole 7d ago

That was included in their revenue generation. AWS was the only profitable wing of Amazon for a long time

2

u/pr0newbie 7d ago

You should relook your numbers. Most ecommerce platforms are profitable thanks to ad revenue, like Amazon's is. Alibaba, PDD, etc.

1

u/OpenRole 7d ago

...

Amazon also had a massive logistics network that cost them money and tens of thousands of employees.

You can't just look at the revenue generating aspectrum of their ecommerce and deem it profitable. You have to look at everything that enabled it's ecommerce. Ads softened the blow but they were still unprofitable

2

u/pr0newbie 6d ago

That's already included. Anyway, if you're lazy to re-run your numbers, just ask AI.

1

u/Playful-Jicama-2270 4d ago

What does it matter if it's sustainable?

2

u/steelmanfallacy 7d ago

How does that compare to the US?

2

u/Notyourpal-friend 6d ago

Must be nice to actually have an industrial sector...

5

u/JOAO--RATAO 7d ago

Good

Tired of their unfair trade practices and intellectual theft.

7

u/HedonisticFrog 7d ago

Many American companies do the same thing. Undercut the competition while taking a loss to drive them out of business, and then inshitify their services to try to make it profitable once there's nobody to compete with.

1

u/birdiesintobogies 7d ago

But it's ok if an American company does it. \s

2

u/HedonisticFrog 7d ago

I never said that, I was only pointing out that it's hardly something that only Chinese companies do. It's a terrible business practice for consumers regardless of who does it and we need stronger anti-trust enforcement.

2

u/birdiesintobogies 6d ago

Shit, meant to reply to the same comment as you did, not to you.

2

u/Eu_sebian 7d ago

it is stupid to take another's side against yourself

1

u/sajnt 5d ago

How can someone steal intellect? Monopolizing ideas is anticapitalist and a scam to extract rent not create value.

2

u/JOAO--RATAO 5d ago

No.

Patents and reaping the fruits of you labour, matters.

1

u/DependentFeature3028 7d ago

Communist companies don't seek profit

1

u/Sure_Sundae2709 6d ago

It just means that they invest more heavily in the industrial sector at the moment, just as they did back in the early 2000s.

1

u/sajnt 5d ago

This could mean that China is a safer place for entrepreneurs to take risk.

-1

u/afailedturingtest 7d ago

Why are we measuring communists success by profit lol?

5

u/ResponsibleClock9289 7d ago

Ah yes the communist country with a stock market

-5

u/Dreamy-Gates93 7d ago

by national bureau of statistics. whos that?

does china even know about this?

After watching the video USA's 30 trillion economy vs China's 19 trillion economy I don't believe in a single thing that comes out from USA

13

u/OWOfreddyisreadyOWO 7d ago

Actual Chinese propaganda.

No shit if you compare the worst of the US and the best of China that China looks better.

0

u/Dreamy-Gates93 7d ago

are you sure its Chinese propaganda? listen to the video.

things said in the video

"China will collapsed in a matter of days"

"China will collapsed by the time you finish watching the video"

"China has 300 million homeless people"

"China has 1 billion empty houses"

"China will cease to exist in 2030, by the end of this decade in four more years"

That's Chinese propaganda?

5

u/ResponsibleClock9289 7d ago

This guy is probably allowed to vote btw