Wagner's Prigozhin accuses Russian top brass of 'treason' (source reuters)

https://www.yahoo.com/news/1-wagners-prigozhin-accuses-russian-085848964.html

In short: That's a great way to say you want to commit suicide by falling off of a tall building.

Is China's real estate bubble about to burst?

Yes and no. Let me give you a background.
My Team recently met with a top Govt guy in the South Area to discuss work.
The government's income for the next up and coming 3 to 5 years is going to come from Tax to fuel their overseas foreign policy etc etc .

China moved from some poor rural backwards country to what it is now too fast too quick. The era of Jiang have ushered in corruption in an unprecedented manner. Xi has been trying to correct that for the past couple of years.
He has some success. But I can assure anyone that a country with no corruption is impossible , even in a squeaky clean country like mine ( Singapore ). But Singapore is easier to control because of a small land size and population.

So what is happening in regards to ( property ). The middle and middle lower class cannot afford housing unless they move 20 to 30 km away from main cities like Shenzhen, Xiamen, Beijing , Shanghai etc etc and into second or third tier cities.
The government is taxing Chinese National businessman , middle upper and upper class and HNWI in an unprecedented manner. They are back tracking your tax and business and trade up to 30 years back.

So for example if they find a transaction funny and if you can't explain it. They will first fine you and tax you. So that is a double whammy.
I moved about xxx million Euro of worth of RMB out for the past few months for clients because they are trying to avoid such situations which is extremely unfair, they feel they shouldn't pay in such a brazen manner for the incompetence of the previous ruling leaders.

Majority of the funds went to Singapore and Canada mostly. To a lesser extent New Zealand , Australia and Portugal. But there are also similar amount of funds moving into China for investment.
However when the government and " trade war " stabilize, such funds will move back in because China is still considered a good investment environment if such restrictions and laws are being laxed in future.

This is worrying for everyone. And the Chinese government due to her current trajectory of foreign policy have written off a lot of debt from Africa or lowered their interest rates or extent their loans.
All these are funded by the Chinese citizens via the current tax restructuring.

Long story short people are pissed.

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Feb 21 2023 08:59am

Thanks for the interesting insight!

I have to wonder, though, if Xi's geopolitical initiatives and foreign investment are the only reason for this sudden crackdown on taxation. I have a hard time believing that some blown projects in Africa or Central Asia can explain your government being in such (seemingly?) urgent need of new tax revenue.

China no money..... at least from the government perspective. Like the Americans, they are making a significant mistake. Over Stretching. But they have no choice, this is the best time to do it in their point of view because of the Ukraine / Russia war.

Not my government.
Me from Singapore

The Chinese government is going to sell off a lot of American Debt by the way. On one hand the United States is trying to screw the Chinese over , but on the other hand they are bugging the Chinese to increase their debt buying and not decreasing.
Yellen have been " begging " Chinese not to sell off American Debt.

One might think that Blinken's meeting in Munich is all about Ukraine / Human Rights / Supply Chain / Business practices etc etc ...
No.... the main thing is China US Debt selling. That is the most or one of the most important issue...

Been reading a bit about the one belt, one road initiative, seems very ambitious to say the least, but if they manage to do it they will be a lot more inoculated against US sanctions and interference.

Do you think that might be why they are so desperate to round up the tax revenue? That's what it seems like to me but I know very little about China

it is very ambitious indeed and yes they will have a protective cover from the US if it succeed. If the US never got involved with the Ukraine situation and Euro Maiden and now the Proxy war.
China's Belt and Road dream would have never been able to materialize.

Also if US never left Afghanistan or in the first place bombed the crap out of them to look for Osama.

This post was edited by Hamsterbaby on Feb 21 2023 10:44am

One thing to consider is if China or anyone choose to sell a large amount of US government bonds, those bonds instantly decrease in value, eg supply and demand.

If China chose to "dump" US government bonds, it wouldn't be a an effective strategy/ Also harm China.

If they don't sell it , it will harm China even more.
The three major holders of US Debt in the World is China, Japan and Saudi Arabia.

You should see what is happening now. Japan was selling her US Debt until recently when they are being coerced to buy back some.

Their foreign policy has seemed backwards for decades now, I'm sure there is more going on than I'm aware of but they seem to be playing checkers while China is playing chess.

My assumption is that they already considered Russia as more aligned with China so they view the current conflict as a chance to weaken and destabilize Russia to a point where they can be largely ignored or even used against China.

Whatever the case, there seems to be a lot more at play than just concern for Ukraines sovereignty lol