NEW YORK—Gordon Chang was a bit ahead of the time when he wrote the book “The Coming Collapse of China” in 2001.
He predicted the collapse of the Chinese economy and the downfall of the Communist Party within ten years. As of 2015 his prediction is four years overdue.
However, many of his arguments are still accurate today. And with China’s political economy becoming ever more volatile Epoch Times spoke to Chang about China’s past and increasingly uncertain future.
EPOCH TIMES: You wrote your book “The Coming Collapse of China” in 2001. Where are we now?
Gordon Chang: In 2001, I said it would take ten years for the Communist Party to fail. So I’m about four years out of time. But what we’re seeing right now really are the early stages of the collapse not only of the economy but also the political system.
Right now they’ve got an economy which isn’t growing at the 7.0 percent, it’s more like 1 or 2 percent. In Beijing they’re even saying privately 2.2 percent.
The most important thing: Money is coming out of the country at unprecedented rates. Bloomberg, which tracks this stuff, talked about $144 billion coming out of China in August. Goldman Sachs said, no, it was $178 Billion. That’s a real sign of the way things are going in China.
The problem for China’s leaders right now is that they cannot stop the descent of their economy. They can maybe slow the pace of decline, but they can’t change direction because everything that they’ve been using up to now—monetary stimulus, fiscal stimulus, the stock market boom, devaluations—all of these tactics have failed.
