Comment (edited) Officially the GDP has doubled since 2014. From what I and my friends see:
- Productivity growth in MOST sectors is pretty low since 2014.
- Innovation in the service sector is limited to low productivity services like delivery services (yes they are backed by high productivity digital services but that a small GDP contribution).
- Xi Jinping cracked down or discauraged many innovative sectors because they didn'T fit his vision.
- Money was funneled into whatever he liked. A LOT of infra and housing - but also SELECT high tech sectors, which he pampered with ridiculous amounts of money.
- A lot of money went into foreign investment, which was mostly unprofitable. But this has been scaled down a lot already.
- In the "focus industries" (but also in general) the internal competition is so bad that nobody makes a profit, everybody is just betting to come out on top in the end.
- For workers, even the highly qualified ones, this competition is pure hell. Quality of life is miserable. not in material terms, but psychologically, school pressure, work pressure, "get married and make children" pressure ...
I see many many similarities to Japan in the 80s. Just on steroids. And we all know how this ended. BTW, I also speak Japanese and know the country well. Don't believe the conspiracies. The Japanese economy was a bubble in the 80s and everybody knew it.
