In late December 2025, a group of economists and data analysts specializing in China’s structural macroeconomic risks concluded—based on a cross-sector quantitative indicator framework—that 2026 may become a critical window in which seven major crises could erupt simultaneously.
The warning signs span seven key indicator clusters:
- Worsening pension contribution and payout gaps;
- Collapsing local government fiscal self-sufficiency alongside shrinking land-sale revenues and mounting hidden-debt pressure;
- Synchronized reversals in new-home sales, second-hand listings, and inventory digestion in major cities;
- Rising stress in small and mid-sized banks reflected in non-performing loans, interbank funding strain, and delayed wealth-management redemptions;
- Prolonged contraction in industrial profits, output growth, and employment indicators;
- Accelerating demographic decline marked by falling births, a shrinking working-age population, and slowing preschool enrollment; and
- A broad downturn in external demand signaled by weakening export orders, slowing shipments to major markets, reduced coastal electricity consumption, and declining container throughput.
Historically, these seven core indicator groups have rarely deteriorated together within a 12–18 month period. By the second half of 2025, however, most had already breached critical warning thresholds and were worsening in tandem—raising the risk of an unusually dangerous system-wide “resonance of disappointment” across China’s fiscal, financial, demographic, and economic foundations.
Source: 51 News, December 30, 2025
https://info.51.ca/articles/1500070?wyacs=info-article-list