Dinny McMahon is head of China Markets Research at the advisory Trivium China. Dinny spent a decade working as a financial journalist in Beijing and Shanghai, including as the Wall Street Journal’s finance correspondent, where he tracked closely the evolution of China’s shadow banking system and the rapid expansion in corporate debt that followed the global financial crisis. Dinny is also the author of “China’s Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banking, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of Chinese Miracle.” He was also a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., and specialized on analyzing China’s financial sector at MacroPolo, the Paulson Institute’s Chicago-based think tank.
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Episode 451
Dinny McMahon
China Shock 2.0: State Capitalism at the Frontier | Dinny McMahon
Dinny McMahon is head of China Markets Research at the advisory Trivium China. Dinny spent a decade working as a financial journalist in Beijing and Shanghai, including as the Wall Street Journal’s finance correspondent, where he tracked closely the evolution of China’s shadow banking system and the rapid expansion in corporate debt that followed the global financial crisis. Dinny is also the author of “China’s Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banking, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of Chinese Miracle.” He was also a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., and specialized on analyzing China’s financial sector at MacroPolo, the Paulson Institute’s Chicago-based think tank.
In Episode 451 of Hidden Forces, Demetri Kofinas speaks with author and long-time China analyst Dinny McMahon about the Chinese leadership’s efforts to redesign China’s economic model in the face of structural headwinds to growth, mounting trade barriers, and growing concerns in Western capitals about Chinese economic and military domination.
The first hour is spent exploring why McMahon believes that China is at a transformational moment. He details the kind of economy that Beijing intends to build by 2035 and the internal debate over whether China should rebalance toward household consumption through welfare and redistribution or double down on its investment-driven growth model as the primary mechanism for raising household living standards.
The second hour is devoted to understanding China’s evolving industrial strategy that Dinny describes as a potential “China Shock 2.0” driven by legacy industry upgrading, innovation at the technological frontier in sectors like batteries and electric vehicles, flying cars, and humanoid robots, and import substitution in areas like machine tools and semiconductors all while pushing intermediate manufacturing offshore to circumvent Western trade barriers.
McMahon lays out his best and worst case scenarios, as well as what China’s economy is most likely to look like by the middle of the next decade; he and Demetri examine the risks of further deindustrialization and strategic dependency by the United States and Europe on Chinese manufacturing; and discuss how all of this collides with global climate goals, the energy transition, and a world in which China’s state-driven capitalist model is increasingly setting the pace for innovation, growth, and material abundance.
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Dinny McMahon is head of China Markets Research at the advisory Trivium China. Dinny spent a decade working as a financial journalist in Beijing and Shanghai, including as the Wall Street Journal’s finance correspondent, where he tracked closely the evolution of China’s shadow banking system and the rapid expansion in corporate debt that followed the global financial crisis. Dinny is also the author of “China’s Great Wall of Debt: Shadow Banking, Ghost Cities, Massive Loans, and the End of Chinese Miracle.” He was also a Fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars in Washington, D.C., and specialized on analyzing China’s financial sector at MacroPolo, the Paulson Institute’s Chicago-based think tank.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
Demetri Kofinas is a media entrepreneur and financial analyst whose mission is to help uncover the hidden forces and pivotal patterns shaping our lives. His contrarian perspective and critical-thinking approach has helped hundreds of thousands of people make smarter, informed decisions. This same methodology has helped guide Demetri’s decision-making as an early-stage investor and as a creator of several innovative media properties and live events.
