A shower thought on "Chinese vassalage":
The DPRK, whose dependence on China is extensive and extremely well-documented, still has an absurd amount of flexibility, self-determination, and independence from Chinese policy. It's essentially the "worst case scenario" in terms of Chinese influence... And the DPRK was still allowed to develop it's own nuclear weapons despite Chinese opposition. What are the odds that Canada would be allowed to develop an independent nuclear weapons program today? Cuba? Mexico?
Zero.
China’s economy grew 5.3% in the first quarter, beating expectations
Real estate continues deleveraging, and yet 5.3% GDP growth YoY.
Retail sales growth continues to be sluggish (3.1% vs. 4.6% predicted) and CPI is coming in cool (0.1% vs. 0.3% predicted). My theory for this is that China is actually seeing costs drop more quickly than CPI metrics can keep up. Traditional big-ticket household spending categories are housing, transportation, and education. Housing prices are obviously on the decline, but transportation costs are also decreasing due to the combination of cheaper EVs and an expanding HSR network. Education costs have been clamped down on after the crackdown on private tutoring, while average education outcomes have been raised by the crackdown on gaming. Meanwhile, traditional recurring costs like food and energy have been pushed downward by increasing trade with Russia as well as the rise of cheap solar.
It may be time to revisit the notion of ever-increasing consumption value as being important for economic growth. In this case, you can get the same quality of life with substantially less money. Why spend more to pad the top line retail sales number?