Is China's economy in serious trouble?

China has 1.3 billion people but has only 110 million people paying income tax. This is the country running a trade surplus with the US, employing Americans, and somehow becoming a political bogeyman. They take America's money and use it to build their own infrastructure. China is now the world's largest economy and has been the world's second largest importer of American goods for decades. Despite this, only 2.3% of Americans speak Chinese. The Chinese largely isolate their economy and have the largest army in the world, larger than America's. They are also trying to make their own aircraft carrier. These sure seem like marks of a country that is actually very strong and not really in trouble. But...<br><br>Chinese debt has gone through the roof the last 10 years. This is not even including the non-reported shadow banking debt. China's zombie debt (which is debt that will never be paid back) is estimated at 25-30% of its GDP. The U.S. has huge zombie debt but it is largely because of government debt, and the US government is largely able to print its way out of trouble, or raise taxes, or just continue to get away with floating its debt longer. What's worse, China's households are even deeper in debt than Americans, with debt at 60% of GDP. This is unusual largely because China has a largely isolationist economy and only half its population participates in the banking system. China's central bank is very worried about a credit crisis and has been cutting rates and expanding QE to prevent this. The are also attempting to recapitalize their banks.<br><br>Their real estate market is in shambles largely due to the fact that they are building cities that no one lives in. Apparently these are largely being built as a stimulus to boost the economy but it is also largely causing wasted resources and even more wasted resources to maintain these cities.<br><br>Its manufacturing sector is facing an existential crisis. China has largely been the world's manufacturer, but Trump's trade war and Chinese efforts to transition to a service sector have largely failed and their manufacturing sector has been dying for the last decade. The loss of manufacturing will lead to millions of job losses, and since these workers already don't pay taxes, this is basically impossible to mitigate through tax and transfer policies. The trade war led to the Chinese stock market shedding 30% of its value. Economists are projecting a 25% drop in Chinese exports, and a 10% drop in imports. 50% of Chinese exports are electronics. The US is largely self-sufficient in electronics and should be able to weather this fine.<br><br>Its population is largely aging and Chinese millennials are no longer having kids. Population growth can no longer be relied upon to boost the economy. This means even more wasted resources have been put into housing for people who don't even exist.<br><br>China's Belt and Road project is largely failing. This was supposed to be China's effort to become the world's next global hegemon, but in practice they're putting down largely wasted resources building infrastructure that should boost trade, but it is not.<br><br>Naspers, a Chinese investment company that is the largest share holder in Tencent and has investments in other Chinese tech companies, has lost about 50% of its value. The company is now valued at largely half what it was 2 years ago.<br><br>Chinese billionaires are getting kidnapped by the government and having their assets liquidated to prop up the stock market.<br><br>China is literally mandating that people use less electricity. This is unheard of for a developing country where people are largely still trying to get access to basic utilities like electricity. This is because China has huge problems withдапgetting enough fossil fuels and coal to meet its power needs. This largely hurts industry, which is already dying. This has led to factories simply being shut down, and a huge shortage of goods.<br><br>2/3 of China's provinces are in recession.<br><br>The Chinese government has largely failed to address any of this when given the opportunity. China's Communist party largely relies on authoritarianism and surveillance to maintain social order, but it is largely failing at any of the underlying issues.