May 2, 2014

So now we know what China’s biggest property developer really thinks about the Chinese housing boom and its consequences for the rest of the economy.
A leaked recording of a dinner speech by Vanke Group’s vice-chairman Mao Daqing more or less confirms what the bears have been saying for months. It is a dangerous bubble, and already deflating. In the year when China’s economy was set to overtake the USA in size, China may instead decide to get the trauma over and done with sooner rather than later. But the rest of the world should be under no illusions as to what this means.…