Chinese exports surged 22% in February. Imports fell 15%. This is exactly what pessimists feared. For all the talk of a great shift by China away from export-led growth to internal demand, the reality is that the Politburo is still propping up the same old system, subsidizing loss-making firms and state behemoths to keeps factories open.
Investment is still 49% of GDP. Consumption is still 36%. China is still a massively deformed economy, and the global effects of its imbalances are getting bigger every year as the economy grows at far higher rates than the West.
The trade surplus with the US is the highest in four years. The US Treasury may well have been right to warn in its annual report on currencies that the recent fall in China's current deficit to 2.6% of GDP is temporary, to be followed by a rise back to 4% or more by mid-decade. Meanwhile youth unemployment in Greece is near 60% and above 55% in Spain.
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