A few years ago it was the Eight, then it was the Seven - and now it's the magical Six: By only 6.0 percent, said the National Statistics Office in Beijing on Friday morning, the Chinese economy had grown between July and September. This is the lowest level since China began reporting on the state of its economy every three months in 1992.
Hardly any other economy attracts so much attention with its growth figures as the Chinese. The bigger China's economy became, the more important the figure seemed to be before the decimal point: If China's gross domestic product does not grow by at least eight percent, China's future is at stake - it was said after the global financial crisis. Then the seven prevailed as a new benchmark. Now the six-percent mark has been reached.
What does this number mean and how resilient is it? Why does it sink from year to year? What does it have to do with the US-China trade war? How does Beijing react - and what does that number mean for the rest of the world? The overview.
What does this number mean?
Economic growth of six percent is a high value, even for an emerging market, even more so for a large economy like China. The US economy, by comparison, is currently growing by a good two percent, the German by about half a percent. For the coming year, the federal government lowered its growth forecast on Thursday from 1.5 to 1.0 percent.
At six percent, however, the Chinese quarterly earnings are below expectations. A group of experts interviewed by Reuters news agency had projected 6.1 percent growth for the third quarter. At just one-tenth, the deviation is not dramatic, but China also counts tenths of a point. Prime Minister Li Keqiang warned in September that it would be "very difficult" to reach his government's forecast of "6.0% to 6.5%" for the year as a whole.
It is also still debatable how reliable China's "harmonized" growth figures are. For his part, Premier Li himself admitted years ago that he is more concerned with energy consumption, disbursed bank loans, and the volume of Chinese rail transport than with the official figures on gross domestic product.
Why is China's growth going down for years?
That China's growth rate is falling in the long term is inevitable. Many of the major infrastructure projects that have been ramped up over decades have been largely completed, building the main power plants, roads, ports and railways. "In the construction industry, the Wilhelminian era is over," said the Beijing real estate magnate Zhang Xin the SPIEGEL three years ago; most Chinese cities are practically "finished".
What's more, with a volume of $ 13 trillion, China's economy is now so large that even with just six percent growth, it's growing almost every year around Spain's gross domestic product. Double-digit growth rates, such as ten or twelve years ago, would be neither realistic on this scale nor reasonable for the Chinese. The enormous growth of recent years has caused massive damage, not least to China's environment.
Is the declining growth also a consequence of the trade war ?
Yes - but not only. The tariff dispute between Beijing and Washington clearly has an impact on China's exports, as the trade figures announced earlier in the week show: China's exports to the United States have fallen by almost 10 percent compared to last year, and imports from America have fallen by more than 26 percent.
However, fears about the duration and potential outcome of the trade dispute seem to depress sentiment more than these concrete numbers: many entrepreneurs are currently reluctant to invest, and many consumers are also practicing the art of "Xiao Fei Jiang Ji," subdued spending ": They postpone major purchases, prefer not to buy a new car first and prefer to shop at the local vegetable market rather than in an expensive shopping mall.
How much of the tariff dispute is contributing to the subdued atmosphere and how much the long-standing problems of the Chinese economy - especially the rising debt of businesses and households - is difficult to assess.
How does Beijing react - and what could that mean for other economies?
If the economic data were worse than expected, Beijing has almost always responded in a similar way. At first, signals of reassurance were spread - as was the case on Friday morning, when the statistics office spokesman, referring to the tariff dispute, said: "We should focus on our own affairs, putting the country first and ensuring stable growth put the next spot. "
As a rule, the government then boosted the flow of money - either by investing in itself, facilitating credit terms, or raising banks' minimum capital reserves. But the higher the indebtedness of the provinces and the state-owned enterprises, the more cautious Beijing used these funds last.
China's leadership seems determined to slow the rise in the debt mountain and accept less economic growth. In the long term, all companies and sectors for which the Chinese market is so important, such as those for the German automobile or French fashion industry, will have to adjust to this. In the foreseeable future, the Chinese will not be able to buy as many cars and luxury goods as in previous decades ,