• empireOfLove2@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    24 minutes ago

    Sort of wrong metric. It gets weird in China because of the blurred lines between their government and private enterprise.

    China’s official government debt is only 98% of GDP so slightly lower than the US right now and a lot less than the US is projected to be by end of 2026 (125%).
    However China’s total debt, which includes both public-private enterprise (which their government effectively controls), and household debt, is around 330% of GDP. A lot of people use the total debt figure since it makes more sense for their economic structure but it’s not really “right”.

    If we want to take the USA by the same metric, the government debt of 124% pales in comparison to the US total debt of… 719%.
    Except that’s 600% of private enterprise and household/consumer debt which is not really government controlled and does not have a direct impact on the government’s solvency.

    • EvergreenGuru@lemmy.world
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      6 minutes ago

      Chinese debt is largely domestic, so the government can pay it when it’s convenient or choose not to pay it at all.