Forget Greece, it's China

Moisés Naím / El País

While the world's attention remains glued to the crisis in Greece (population 11 million), in China (population 1.34 billion) things are going on that we are mistakenly overlooking. Should the world's economic engine stall, the consequences would be much more serious than any Greek problem, even taking into account its impact on the wider European economy. Here are a few boring facts about what is happening in China: manufacturing has fallen for the third consecutive month; the construction boom is about to bust; property prices are falling, and companies in the sector are finding it hard to access financing. Local government debt is now equivalent to 27 percent of the economy, and experts say that 80 of that debt cannot be recovered. Share prices of Chinese companies on the New York Stock Exchange fell on the news that regulators found serious faults in their accounts.

The Financial Times' summary is a little less boring: "A sector that was until last year the darling of international investors is turning into a horror show [...] a development that would send shockwaves through financial markets worldwide."

Does this mean that China is headed for a crash? Not necessarily. But there is a strong possibility that China's economic growth is set to be derailed. The accident could be financial, environmental, social, or international. A collapse on the stock exchange that would wipe out people's savings, or some kind of infrastructure disaster that would prompt millions to take to the streets in protest, could be the spark that sets off a crisis that would eventually hit the economy. And that would then quickly spread around the world.

The social and political contract the Chinese Communist Party has with the people reads like this: we create millions of jobs and promise continued prosperity for you and you let us govern without you playing any part in the process. If job creation stutters so does the regime's legitimacy, and its ability to govern centrally as it has until now. There are other factors at play as well that could have dangerous political consequences: inflation, inequality, and corruption. Over the last decade, inflation has rarely risen above two percent a year. It is now at 6.2 percent, while food prices, the most politically explosive factor, have risen even higher.

Inequality before the boom was limited, and invisible to most people. It is now among the worst in the world. Urban workers earn three times more than peasants in rural areas, and the number of Chinese people among the wealthiest in the world breaks new records every year, while China's millionaires are, on average, around 15 years younger than those in other countries. Corruption has long been a problem, but it is now increasingly widespread, and far more visible, and affects almost all areas of life. The government has tried to stem the flow of graft. But highly publicized jail terms and even the death sentence for public officials are simply not working.

Economic crises tend to turn corruption from an irritation that can largely be put up with, even over long periods of time, into a powerful popular cause that rallies the population. We should remember that corruption was a determining factor in the downfall of the previous regimes in Tunisia and Egypt. The same applies as regards mounting environmental problems, which for many Chinese are not merely abstract issues. After a while, people get tired of turning on the tap to take a bath or make a cup of tea only to find that brown, foul-smelling water comes out. According to Sun Liping, a sociologist at Tsinghua University, there were 180,000 street protests against a multitude of issues in 2010. The Chinese are increasingly prepared to take to the streets to demand their rights. If this kind of activity starts to impact the economy, then what happens in China will affect us all, and much more than what is going on in Greece.