China’s ‘economic diversity’ may help shield it from economic slowdown, says Sinovation executive

Invoking a concept from a Hugo Award-winning sci-fi novelette about China’s widening social gap, a leading Chinese venture capitalist said the country’s economic “diversity” may help it weather the coming winter, a euphemism for slower economic growth.

The various facets of a “folding China” may enable the world’s second largest economy to withstand the slowdown, according to Wang Hua, managing partner of Sinovation Ventures, which manages funds worth US$2 billion.

In Folding Beijing, writer Hao Jinfang tells the dystopian story of the city’s widening social gap, where buildings fold up and retract to allow residents of different classes to share the same space in a 48 hour cycle.

“In some sense, China is not a single economy but an amalgamation of several that are unique in their stage of development and scale of volume,” Wang said at a year-end review and forecast briefing in Beijing on Monday.

“The development pattern ensures the unique Chinese economy has its own cycles and growth potential,” he said, adding that the country was like a “magic cube” with a diverse landscape in demographics, cities, industry development, and the varying degrees to which technology is adopted among sectors.

“Despite the fact that the internet is proliferating in China, the sectors being transformed account for only a small handful related to retail and services like entertainment and travel bookings,” Wang said.