Ian Explains: Why China’s era of high growth is over

Ian Explains: Why China’s era of high growth is over | GZERO World

Is China still on track to becoming the world’s largest economy? Ian Bremmer breaks down China’s great economic slowdown.

Between 1978 and 2017, China averaged almost 10% year-over-year GDP growth. Decades of pro-investment policies transformed China from a closed, centrally-planned economy to an economic powerhouse that could rival the US.

But President Xi Xinping has been moving China away from the pro-investment policies of his predecessors and back to its socialist roots. In recent years, the government has cracked down on everything from technology to finance to entertainment to foreign investment.

At the same time, 3 years of Zero-Covid policies sapped domestic spending and production. Decades of infrastructure investment have left local governments drowning in debt. China’s once-hot real estate market is in a massive slump. And youth unemployment is surging to record highs, threatening the very social pact that gives the Chinese Communist Party legitimacy in widespread support.

Can China’s communist ideology and capitalist ambition sustain growth into the future? Or does what goes up eventually have to come down?

For more on China’s lagging economy, watch the upcoming episode of GZERO World with Ian Bremmer on US public television and at gzeromedia.com/gzeroworld.

More from GZERO Media

African National Congress (ANC) members of parliament react after South African lawmakers passed the budget's fiscal framework in Cape Town, South Africa, April 2, 2025.
REUTERS/Esa Alexander

The second largest party in South Africa’s coalition, the business-friendly Democratic Alliance, launched a legal challenge on Thursday to block a 0.5% VAT increase in the country’s new budget, raising concerns that the fragile government could collapse.

The Israeli Air Force launched an airstrike on Thursday, targeting a building in the Mashrou Dummar area of Damascus. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant confirmed Israel's responsibility for the attack, which resulted in one fatality.
Rami Alsayed via Reuters Connect
A man leaves the U.S. headquarters of the social media company TikTok in Culver City, California, U.S. January 17, 2025.
REUTERS/David Swanson

Remember the TikTok ban? The new deadline President Donald Trump set for the app to find an American buyer or be banned from US app stores, midnight Saturday, is rapidly approaching.

National Security Advisor Mike Waltz looks on as he sits next to US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in the Oval Office on March 13, 2025.

REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein

Someone needs to take National Security Advisor Michael Waltz’s phone out of his hand.

President Donald Trump holds a "Foreign Trade Barriers" document as he delivers remarks on tariffs in the Rose Garden at the White House on April 2, 2025.

REUTERS/Carlos Barria

Donald Trump’s much-anticipated “liberation day” tariff announcement on Wednesday is the biggest disruption to global trade in decades, so the political, diplomatic, and economic impacts will take time to become clear.

Elon Musk waves to the crowd as he exits the stage during a town hall on Sunday, March 30, 2025, at the KI Convention Center in Green Bay, Wis.

Tork Mason/USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin via Reuters

Donald Trump is reportedly telling people that he and Elon Musk have agreed that Musk’s work in the US government will soon be done. Politico’s story broke just as Musk seems to have discovered the electoral limits of his charm.

- YouTube

What's going to be the reaction to the Trump trade war against Europe but also against the rest of the world? Carl Bildt, former prime minister of Sweden and co-chair of the European Council on Foreign Relations, shares his perspective on European politics from Stockholm, Sweden.