China’s Slowing Growth Underlines Stress Facing Its Economy in 2020 

According to the article posted by the Wall Street Journal on January 17, 2020, 

the authors James T. Areddy and Chao Deng try to prove China’s economy has lost 

business confidence because China’s GDP growth decreased from 6.6% in 2018 to 6. 

1% in 2019. Additionally, some private-sector economists warn that China’s economy 

could slip even further this year to GDP growth below 6%. It is the lowest level in nearly 

three decades. Even China’s government policy for this year includes finalizing a 

decade-long push to double income levels and the size of the economy from 2010, 

while lifting living standards for a remaining five million people still considered severely 

impoverished. 

The two authors try to analyze and predict the whole of China’s economy based 

on the situation of the Shenzhen market. Shenzhen’s electronics makers were hurt by 

tariffs on their goods in the US, but also by the more cautious business appetite in other 

countries. Because of the trade war between the US and China, many investors and 

companies are more careful to make investments in China. There are a number of non- 

trade factors, too, including mass protests that roiled next-door Hong Kong for more 

than half a year, which drew attention to the risk of social unrest. Shenzhen’s celebrated 

technology companies like telecommunications-equipment maker Huawei Technology 

Co. and drone maker SZ DJI Technology Co. are facing new security from the US and 

other countries. 

In order to keep the headline growth figures up, China’s government has 

invested more in construction, which carries the risk of undoing the effort to limit debt. 

In Shenzhen, policymakers are pushing construction of a new district called Qianhai, 

pitching it as an experimental financial hub in the shadow of China’s increasingly 

unreliable financial hub, Hong Kong. At the same time, Shenzhen’s exports and 

consumption weakened, dragging down the city’s growth from a pace of 6.6% by the 

third quarter compared with 7.4% in the first half of 2019. The authors cite someone’s 

opinion: “if Shenzhen’s economy can’t survive, then forget about China’s,” to guess the 

whole country’s economic problem just based on one city. 

The authors overemphasize the decrease in the growth rate of GDP in China. 

Even as the growth rate of China’s GDP decreases, it still grows. There are lots of 

internal and external factors for the decrease in the growth rate of GDP. If China has a 

good deal with other countries, such as signing a deal marking a pause in the trade war 

with the US., the trade will recover. As technology keeps developing, 5G technology 

might recover some growth rate of GDP in China. The authors are very biased to 

conclude that China’s economy is slowing, just based on the situation of Shenzhen, 

which is just a single city in China. Even in China, there remain five million people who 

are still considered severely impoverished. China has 1.435 billion of people. Five 

million is only 0.35% of the whole population. By comparison, in the US, the rate is 11.8 

percent. The authors still want to use this evidence to prove China’s economy is 

weakening. 

Do you think China’s slowing GDP growth rate in recent years will have significant 

effects on China’s economy in the future? 

https://www.wsj.com/articles/chinas-economic-growth-slows-to-6-1-as-trade-and- 

business-confidence-suffer-11579236022?mod=searchresults&page=1&pos=2 

https://www.statista.com/statistics/200463/us-poverty-rate-since-1990/