ReviewWill China’s debt-fuelled economic bubble eventually pop?

China: The Bubble That Never Pops, by journalist and economist Tom Orlik, looks at China’s debt-fuelled state-led growth model

It was written before the world was disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, but its arguments about the pros and cons of China’s model remain relevant

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China: The Bubble that Never Pops, by Tom Orlik, was published last week by Oxford University Press. Photo: AP

Published: 8:00pm, 29 Jun 2020Updated: 11:29pm, 29 Jun 2020

China: The Bubble That Never Pops by Thomas Orlik, Oxford University Press

Will there be a reckoning day for China’s debt-fuelled state-led growth? That is a question that has been haunting journalists and analysts who have watched the country’s spectacular economic rise over the last decade.

The imagined reckoning day – in the form of a financial meltdown or a big economic crisis – has not materialised yet, even though the mountain of debt, economic slowdown and lack of new growth drivers all point towards a perfect storm in the making for the world’s second biggest economy, but why?

China: The Bubble that Never Pops by Tom Orlik, which was published last week by Oxford University Press, marks the latest attempt to search for an answer.

China: The Bubble that Never Pops, by Tom Orlik, was published last week by Oxford University Press. Photo: Handout

While the book was written before the world was disrupted by the coronavirus outbreak, its arguments about the pros and cons of the Chinese model remain relevant for anyone who wants a better view of the future of China’s economy.

Orlik, who spent 11 years in China as a journalist for The Wall Street Journal and an economist at Bloomberg, brings a journalist’s nose for observations and an economist’s eye for analysis to unwrap the mystery of China’s growth that has defied doomsayers and challenged conventional perceptions.