The latest issue of Beijing's 'Qiushi' magazine has published an article titled 'How to View the "Temperature Gap" Between Macroeconomic Data and Micro-level Perceptions.' This reflects the official Chinese acknowledgment of a real contrast in the economy: although the overall economy has maintained roughly 5% growth, the reality is that business is hard, competition is fierce, unemployment is rising, incomes are shrinking, and grievances are widespread.
On Tuesday, Ming Pao published a commentary noting that, over the past few years, the mainland's GDP growth rate has held at around 5%. For an economy of China's massive scale, such a growth rate should be considered quite impressive.
However, in everyday life on the mainland, business remains tough, competition is intense, effective unemployment is rising, incomes are declining, and complaints abound. For example, in the first half of this year, the mainland's GDP grew by 4.7%, but total retail sales of consumer goods rose by only 1.3%. This shows weak consumption, with the gap widening further.
The commentary highlighted that, at the end of last year, Caixin published an article by Xijing Institute director Zhao Jian called 'The Mystery of the Economic Temperature Gap,' noting that China's economy showed an extreme 'world of ice and fire,' with a pronounced difference in perceived conditions. The main reasons cited were three consecutive years of property price adjustment, household wealth shrinking by 200 trillion yuan (around 121.28 trillion ringgit), an average household decline of 500,000 yuan (about 300,000 ringgit), and three years of 20 trillion yuan (about 12.13 trillion ringgit) in cumulative GDP growth, which could not make up for the 200 trillion yuan shrinkage.
Reportedly, Zhao Jian's article became a hot topic for a time but was quickly deleted.
However, the commentary states that the recent article published by 'Qiushi' has been viewed as an official acknowledgment from China of the economic 'temperature gap,' with the issue now being confronted directly.
The 'Qiushi' article noted that macroeconomic data is the economy's 'thermometer,' while micro-level perceptions are the public's 'felt temperature.' Both are real, but they're measured from different perspectives; only by dialectically assessing the 'temperature difference' from multiple dimensions can we accurately grasp the full economic picture and avoid amplifying anxieties or skewing expectations based on partial perceptions.