China Is Flatlining

I've been seeing such headlines for the last decade.

What counts as "flatlining" when it's China would be above average for the USA.

> The jobless rate among workers aged 16 to 24 stood at 18 percent last month.

Headline figures for the USA and EU-27 look better (9.1% and 15.1%), but are not the same unit (urban youth vs. all).

> Although China’s economy has been growing a respectable 5 percent annually for the past three years, the research firm Rhodium Group estimates that China’s actual growth rate was probably near 2 percent in 2023 and closer to 3 percent over the past two years.

OK, so 2%, 3%, 3% ~= 8.2% from compounding, while the USA has been 2.9%, 2.8%, 2.1% ~= 8% from compounding, and EU 0.4%, 1.0% (or 1.1% depending on my source), 1.5% ~= 2.9% or 3.0% compounding.

Even if the Chinese government is publishing incorrect growth estimates (let's just go with the one estimate from a research group, I'm not qualified to argue either way), the numbers reported here are such that if they're a "flatline", so is the USA, while the EU is in the morgue.

> Any hope that China’s leaders will tackle these problems is almost certainly misplaced. Xi has stubbornly resisted the difficult and politically sensitive reforms necessary to fix the country’s economic model during his nearly 14 years in charge, and he is unlikely to change his approach anytime soon.

This sounds more like the USA than like China. The collapse of some Chinese housing investments was specifically because the Chinese government said ~"no this is silly stop this".

> He remains as myopically focused as ever on state-led programs to advance Chinese technology and industry, and particularly AI, and is apparently convinced that they will boost the entire economy. Perhaps this strategy will one day pay off, but the signs aren’t good.

Again, sounds like the USA to me.

> China’s debt has exploded on Xi’s watch—at three times the size of the economy, it surpasses even America’s debt burden. Growth in the second quarter of 2026 was the slowest since 2022, when China was still battling the coronavirus pandemic.

Getting to 300% requires combining government, household, and non-financial corporate debt. Do that to the USA and you get about 250% GDP. Might be true, might even be relevant, but the writing is clearly rhetorical given the US government-only debt has only just passed 120% GDP.

> Xi maintains social order through this never-ending malaise by controlling information and repressing alternative views. A sweeping new law took effect last month that mandates Mandarin as the primary language in education and orders parents to guide children to “love the Chinese Communist Party.” In prizing national unity over ethnic autonomy, this policy seems designed to force the country’s various ethnic minorities, including Uyghurs, Tibetans, and Mongolians, to assimilate into the majority Han Chinese culture. Even humor must follow the party line. Local authorities are reportedly investigating Guo Degang, a popular comedian who made the mistake of altering the lyrics of a patriotic song cherished by Communist cadres during a performance in the city of Wuhan last month.

This can all be true, but it doesn't support the claim, and makes this feel even more like it's really subtext for something else.

Even the specific examples here feel like how when Star Trek's script writers say "Klingon" they meant "Soviet": The USA declared an official language in 2025 (guess who); if ethnic autonomy in the USA was ever prized by the government it got buried under all the forced relocations and reservations and redlining etc.; and various examples come to mind of comedians in the USA getting punished by the Trump administration, first amendment be damned.

Again, this is not to deny the problems in China, it's just that this writing feels like the authors either want (1) to deflect and point at other people's problems to feel good about themselves, or (2) are trying to get their readers to go "hang on a minute, if this is what the bad guys are doing, and we're doing it…" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h242eDB84zY