By Neelam Rahim

China’s economy is cooling off. Radio Islam International discusses the domestic and global implications with Senusha Naidu, Senior Research Fellow at Institute for Global Dialogue.

According to Senusha, outside of Covid-19, after having gone through the strict lockdown measures during Covid and moving in and out of the restriction efforts due to the high infection rates. The economy is no longer sustaining some of the outputs that it should be providing.

She says this is seen in the global oil price. Because of China’s economic dynamics, we see that oil prices have slumped.

Also, in the Chinese economy, elements have not consistently positioned themselves in a way that they can play by the rules of economics.

This results in a push back by people in terms of property developers who have essentially started to build high-rise properties but have been unable to complete them even though people have paid for them.  

The Premier was out in the Southern provinces where many of the factories are located, trying to find a way to develop some economic intervention.

“The economy is not where it once was before Covid-19 due to a few banks in certain regions that had not managed to pay people their money. This caused a lot of pushback and uproar in communities.”

These ripple effects are not just on a domestic level nationally in China but are felt even in the region.

Meanwhile, Senusha said that is not a significant disruption to the global economy. It is just starting to loom as China, in terms of its economic dynamics, is going through these structural conditions and changes.

The EU is pushing for closer economic and security ties in the Pacific. Senusha said the political security issues that the EU wants to bring forward and economic engagement opens up the space for competition and deepens the competition in the Pacific. It is also about the challenge that China represents in terms of trying to contain China in that area.

This week India celebrated 75 five years of independence. The Prime minister highlighted that the big South Asian Nation would become a developed country in 25 years.

According to Senusha, the statement made by Modi opens up the space of the economic trajectory Indians are looking at in terms of where they want to be in the next 25 years.

She says it follows what the Chinese had told in their independent celebrations in the past where you have these milestones.

In a similar kind of text, the PM has announced that India has to be creating milestones in terms of its development agenda.

Listen to the entire Asia Pacific Report on Radio Islam’s podcast below.