Economic competition between the United States and China has been a defining issue of the twenty-first century. But after years of rapid growth, China's economy has faltered. How did its long-term economic outlook change so quickly? And can Beijing change course and preserve China's political ambition for global economic primacy?
In Broken China, Logan Wright offers an unflinching account of how China's economy hit the wall. Drawing on extensive experience analyzing the Chinese financial sector on the ground, he argues that China's economic slowdown is rooted in its financial system, and an unprecedented credit expansion finally coming to an end. Opposing the prevailing myth that its leaders think and plan many years ahead, this book posits that there was no long-term plan that included the credit boom and bust that now constrains Beijing's options. Rather than crisis or collapse, Wright argues, China is suffering from a decay of its economic policy tools. As its domestic and foreign sectors face increasing pressure, the last thing Beijing needs is global pushback against Chinese exports. With no clear path to recovery, China's economy is broken, the consequences of which will reverberate around the world.
About the Author
Logan Wright is a partner at Rhodium Group and leads the firm's work on the Chinese economy and its impact on the world. An experienced analyst of China's financial system, he is also a senior associate of the Trustee Chair in Chinese Business and Economics at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. The Promise of China's Economic Development
2. The Rise and Stall of China's Financial System
3. Policy Mistakes and Indecision
4. A Contested Story of China's Economic Future
5. What a Prolonged Economic Slowdown Means for China
6. A Broken Chinese Economy and the Rest of the World
Epilogue
Acknowledgments
Glossary
Notes
Index
Reviews
"A book for realists who want to grasp the challenges, yet are still eager to define the opportunities, in the second largest global economy."
Joerg Wuttke, Partner DGA group Albright Stonebridge and former President of the EU Chamber of Commerce in China
"This is one of the sharpest analyses yet of how China's growth model ran out of road, and why Beijing's options for recovery are far more constrained than many assume… essential reading for anyone trying to understand China's future – and the global consequences of its economic stagnation."
Michael Beckley, Tufts University
"Broken China provides an in-depth, data-enriched financial system explanation for China's economic growth challenges. This book covers an impressive range and weaves compelling macroeconomic analysis with fascinating anecdotes."
Zongyuan Zoe Liu, Maurice R. Greenberg Senior Fellow for China Studies, Council on Foreign Relations
"I have always considered Logan Wright to be among those who best understood China's monetary and financial system and who recognized early on the role of credit in supporting short-term Chinese growth even as it undermined its longer-term viability. In this book he explains very clearly the origins of China's financial system and the direction in which it is taking the economy."
Michael Pettis, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
"Logan Wright's Broken China provides an original, compelling, and provocative explanation of China's current economic malaise… one of the finest studies on the Chinese economy in recent years."
Minxin Pei, author of The Broken China Dream: How Reform Revived Totalitarianism
新一代中国崩溃论出炉？外国老哥怒斥新书《崩溃的中国：经济奇迹如何破灭》
小满有话说 2026年6月23日
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YWwer6sCHoY
Now, if you want to spend $51.95 on a book, here's a book you should not spend your hard-earned money on.
Fore written by an economist called Logan Wright, published by Polity Press and containing 272 pages of incorrect information and assumptions based on a few key historical points. lots of media reports and not a single quantitative or qualitative research method. This book is called Broken China: How the Economic Miracle Shattered and What It Means for the World. This is one to give a huge miss to. Although it will probably sell well because the author is a partner in the Rodeium Group and leads the firm's China market research work. It misses several main points and is entirely based on the author's opinions which he
1:151分钟15秒钟admits in the book may account for nothing because he like most others in Western world have no idea what Beijing,
1:241分钟24秒钟Xi Jinping or any of China's economists are really thinking or doing. And I'll be honest, I haven't read the book, nor
1:321分钟32秒钟will I. Based on previous predictions this author has made, it would be foolish to take anything mentioned with any degree of seriousness. But I have
1:401分钟40秒钟read and inwardly digested a very interesting article written by the periodical inside story about the book.
1:471分钟47秒钟The article which I've linked is a lengthy one and it precies the book's contents quite well. Let's start with the title broken China. I've lived in
1:561分钟56秒钟China more than two decades and I'll admit I'm not an economist and when it comes to discussions on debt leverages wealth management I'm probably not the
2:052分钟5秒钟best person to ask but when it comes to the society in which I live the massive improvements not just in infrastructure
2:122分钟12秒钟also in the products available the improvements in the services not just government services but all aspects of
2:192分钟19秒钟life and lifestyle wealth accumulation increases in lifestyles at every level society then it's absolutely clear one thing
2:282分钟28秒钟about China, it's not broken. I'll go one step further and suggest it's not even on the path to being broken. What
2:362分钟36秒钟might be broken and several examples of it are given in the book are speculative gains overseas leverages on China's
2:432分钟43秒钟ability to manage itself. The book talks about the massive losses sustained in the private teaching industry.
2:512分钟51秒钟Personally, I applaud China for what it did in the early 2000s by banning profit, sorry, the early 2020s for
2:582分钟58秒钟banning profit for education. One example I personally know of was a language school listed on the New York Stock Exchange which lost 90% of its
3:073分钟7秒钟value overnight. But let me tell you an example of how they worked. They would put 1,000 students into an online classroom and charge each of those
3:163分钟16秒钟students 60 to 100 R&B to be talked at by an expert in IELTS. Now, there are not many things I do claim expertise in,
3:243分钟24秒钟but the International English Language Testing System, IELTS, would be one of them. I was an IELTS examiner for 2
3:313分钟31秒钟years and a teacher for 13 years. I also studied the IELTS statistics and I wrote papers to help improve Chinese kids
3:393分钟39秒钟prospects. The average score in China when I was examining was 5.3. The highest score is nine. This school was a
3:463分钟46秒钟massive contributor to thousands of kids failing to meet the minimum requirement of 6.5 to enter an English language
3:543分钟54秒钟university. As it happens, the organization which manages in China doesn't care too much about this as every failure by a child to reach the
4:034分钟3秒钟grade means another test fee. My students average score was over seven.
4:084分钟8秒钟Now, who was benefiting from this absolute scam? Not the kids listening to fake experts and paying 60,000 R&B per
4:164分钟16秒钟hour to do so. Not the fake expert who was probably paid a couple of thousand R&B for the online lesson. Not the online hosting team who were getting base rates. The New York investors.
4:284分钟28秒钟Thank goodness China stopped this. Not only did they stop it, but they made sure it couldn't continue with ongoing
4:354分钟35秒钟policies which benefit parents, children, and actually once it stabilized benefited the local industry, but it failed to benefit international
4:444分钟44秒钟investors. Another example used in the book is this massive crackdown on speculative gains in the housing market.
4:514分钟51秒钟Once again, media rather than factual research is used to establish that Chinese people suffered. They did not.
4:584分钟58秒钟They do not. and they will not suffer.
5:015分钟1秒钟Media reported that many people lost their savings. No, they did not. Not at all. Bank savings in China are the world's highest on a per capita basis.
5:105分钟10秒钟They were before the housing crash and they still are today. Business Insider magazine I've linked reported in late
5:185分钟18秒钟2024, well after the housing market crashed, that household deposits rose to 147 trillion. That's 20 trillion US. And
5:275分钟27秒钟they continue to rise. Chinese people like to save. They like to buy property for sure. And if you ask any Chinese person in the street whether they're
5:345分钟34秒钟happy with the housing prices, they will all say yes. Why is it that every Chinese person I talk to tells me they're happy with this, but every
5:435分钟43秒钟international economist that I read tells me it's terrible? Because Chinese people are not like westerners who invest their savings in a property.
5:515分钟51秒钟Chinese people buy a place to live. They may buy an investment property, but they do so with cash. They have no debt on
5:585分钟58秒钟it. They rarely sell them. The secondhand market for homes in China has always been lower than the price of a new home, and it remains that way today.
6:076分钟7秒钟People buy homes for living and not for speculation. Most of the people who lost money on the property market crash were
6:156分钟15秒钟overseas invest investors. Country Garden went broke because it couldn't pay its international debt bonds.
6:226分钟22秒钟Everrand went broke because it built a 300 billion liability that it couldn't support. It raised that money on the New
6:306分钟30秒钟York Stock Exchange and it even filed for bankruptcy in the USA to protect whatever assets it had there. Again,
6:376分钟37秒钟there was some pain in China, but the vast majority of losses from Everrand's collapse were to overseas investors
6:456分钟45秒钟speculating on China's growth. The company was finally wound up in Hong Kong, not in New York. It's also worth noting that the founder, Shu Jayin,
6:546分钟54秒钟pleaded guilty in Shenzhen just a couple of months ago to massive fraud charges.
6:596分钟59秒钟I predict he will be sentenced to death, but that will be suspended for 2 years and he will spend most of the next 20
7:067分钟6秒钟years in prison. This was as good as a direct result of government policy. This is not a bad policy. China did this
7:147分钟14秒钟quite deliberately. It's still possible to buy a new home in China quite cheaply. prices will remain in line with
7:217分钟21秒钟inflation which is virtually zero and many economists in the west see this as a negative. I've never yet met a shopper
7:297分钟29秒钟in any country in the world who sees rising prices as a good thing. Have you?
7:357分钟35秒钟The author refers to a 2018 banking default in Hernand which was not in 2018. The Chinese regulatory body, the
7:447分钟44秒钟Shu Chang CBIRC, discovered irregularities in 2018, which resulted in assets being frozen. During the
7:527分钟52秒钟investigation, protests related to it occurred in 2022. They were indeed violent as a result of this. But the article doesn't finish the story. By
8:008分钟2024, every person who had been defrauded by an illegal act on the part of that bank was reimbursed. Every person involved in the illegal
8:098分钟9秒钟activities has been prosecuted. Even Wikipedia got this story mostly correct.
8:168分钟16秒钟The same author produced a report in January called China's new strategic industries will not produce 5% GDP growth. Let's look briefly at this.
8:268分钟26秒钟First of all, China never said it predicted 5% growth. In its last report, it predicted 4 1/2 to 5%. Although we're
8:338分钟33秒钟not yet at the halfyear point. All the indicators are it will achieve 5%. So far, it has in the first four or five
8:408分钟40秒钟months of the year been at or over 5% growth. Let's see at the end of the year whether this author is earning his
8:488分钟48秒钟stripes. So far, I'd say not. A Washington educated, Washington resident, Washington think tank leader,
8:558分钟55秒钟writing a book on how China is going, recycling incorrect media reports, and regurgitating tropes that Washington
9:029分钟2秒钟would like people to believe cannot be taken seriously. I've said it before and I'll say it again. If you want to know what's going on in China, come to China.
9:139分钟13秒钟Speak to the Chinese people on the street. They'll tell you. And if China is broking broken, it will be them telling us, not Washington think
9:219分钟21秒钟tankers. One thing is absolutely certain and well noted by many of the commentators who actually understand China is that it is not broken. Remember
9:309分钟30秒钟the name Logan Wright. In 2004, an upand cominging analyst wrote a book called The Coming Collapse of China. The author
9:389分钟38秒钟was Gordon Chang. He's now an old man regurgitating old ideas like a broken record. Very soon, we'll see him
9:459分钟45秒钟replaced on the entertainment talk shows posing as news media by a new face.
9:509分钟50秒钟Logan Wright is, I think, the new Gordon Chan.
9:589分钟58秒钟Fore!
10:0910分钟9秒钟Foreign! Foreign! forchech.
