W
ill it recover or not? Everyone has been watching for the long-awaited rebound of China's economy, but it still has not arrived. Now, a new sense is settling in: The rebound may never come, or at least not anytime soon. The previous hypothesis – a delayed recovery after the pandemic years – has faded, replaced by a more chronic diagnosis.
China's economy is now running at a slow pace. In the third quarter, its gross domestic product did grow by 4.8%, driven notably by exports and the construction of bridges and railways. But the mood among ordinary citizens has been far more cautious. During the eight-day National Day holiday around October 1, average spending per person fell by 0.6% compared to 2024, and by 2.6% compared to 2019, which has become the reference point for a now-vanished pace of growth.
Despite the tightly controlled official narrative and increasingly strict censorship on economic matters, some intellectuals have dared to discuss the prolonged slowdown that everyone has observed.
This is the case with Yao Yang, a professor known for his outspokenness who led the National School of Development at Peking University for many years before joining Shanghai University. In a lecture at a business school in early September, he broke down contemporary Chinese history into four phases.
