On April 14, Leland Miller, nonresident senior fellow at the Asia Security Initiative, joined Yahoo Finance to talk about China’s economic recovery from COVID-19 and the future of US-China trade relations. He commented on China’s seemingly economic recovery, clarifying that the recovery on the demand side is falling behind that on the supply side. He also expected to see a dramatic descent into a much more toxic US-China relationship this fall.
I think there is something to that, if we could believe the numbers coming out of China. Now, what I will say is the dynamic you’re seeing even in official numbers is the same dynamic that we’re seeing in China Beige Book numbers is you’re seeing a supply side recovery. You’re not seeing a recovery on the demand side.
Consumption is still very low. The Chinese government has the ability to ramp up production, output, inventory– they can really get things moving by ordering factories to do that. You’re not seeing the same effect on the demand side. And that doesn’t mean we’re not seeing a recovery. We are seeing things improve month to month, quarter to quarter– not year on year yet.