China’s Economic Paradox - Uptake
Term
China’s Economic Paradox
Definition
China’s Economic Paradox, as identified by Yuen Yuen Ang (2024), refers to the coexistence of an impressive tech boom and a broad growth slowdown in post-pandemic China. President Xi’s tech-centered priorities and clear mandates push officials overwhelmingly toward high-tech sectors, while weakening incentives to revive the old economy. More broadly, Ang’s term is a critique of collapse-or-dominance narratives—especially the “peak China” meme—as one-sided, Western-centric takes on China: they reflect Western self-perception more than Chinese reality, and they selectively amplify either problems in China or the threats it poses, rather than explaining the coexistence of weaknesses and strengths.
For more context, see glossary entry.
Read the original article at Project Syndicate
Caution Against Counterfeit
A counterfeit version of China’s Economic Paradox, using a nearly identical title and reproducing its argument is circulating online. Readers should verify that they are consulting the original publication.
Media Quote in The Economist (2026)
The Economist quotes Yuen Yuen Ang on China’s Economic Paradox
“At no time in modern history has a large country gone all in on investment in high-end technology while also navigating a slowing economy and a local government debt crisis, notes Yuen Yuen Ang of Johns Hopkins University. Although the drag from the property crash will lessen over the next few years, and eventually disappear, it would not take much to choke the new growth engine. It is already being stress-tested by weakening demand for Chinese EVs, a prolonged trade war and an energy crisis. China’s paramount leader, Xi Jinping, is nevertheless betting that the new model of growth kicks in faster than the old one, driven by land sales and construction, collapses. It is a high-stakes gamble.”
Read the original article: The Economist. "China is innovative. Its economy is a mess. Which will win out?” 8 June 2026.
Interview at SCMP (2025)
At South China Morning Post (2025), Ang explains China’s economic paradox, contrasting it with the “peak China” meme
“American commentary swings from one extreme to another, sometimes within days. In 2024, the talk of the town was ‘peak China’… Only a few months later in 2025, do you hear anyone talking about it any more? Suddenly, it has disappeared… Did the Chinese economy dramatically perk up within five months? No. It has nothing to do with China’s reality. It is only a reflection of America’s self-perception.”
“I’ve argued that we’re seeing an unprecedented economic paradox in China: a persistent growth slowdown alongside an impressive tech boom. The big question for China is, can it transition away from its old growth model and into a new one? China is now in an intermediate zone between the two. That is why we are seeing the strange coexistence of weaknesses and strengths at the same time.”
“In a broader context, this intermediate zone that China is facing is also what the entire world is facing. In the West, everyone is talking about the transition from an old economic order to an emerging economic order whose shape and form we are not sure of.”
