Reportedly, China's national debt hit a new record, amounting to $4.2 trillion last year, putting a heavy burden on the economy. The Chinese government said that the accumulated government debt amounted to 30.03 trillion yuan by the end of last year. At the same time, the amount of outstanding local government debt rose to 40.737 trillion yuan ($5.756 trillion). Analysts estimate that government debt has climbed by 12% through 2023. At the moment, this figure is about 25% of the country's GDP. Notably, the state debt has been constantly growing since 2005. Almost 20 years ago, its size was $400 billion, experts emphasize. Earlier, economists predicted that the world would face an influx of Chinese imports for the second time. This phenomenon was called the "China trade shock," which refers to the boom in imports of cheap Chinese-made goods in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The reason for the repetition of the "China shock" is the active increase in the output of goods in China, the volume of which exceeds domestic demand. According to David Autor, professor of economics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the situation will be different because China competes with developed countries in the output of high-tech products. The economist summarizes that Western countries have cause for alarm in such a situation.
