Is China’s economy starting to take some hits?
Are the Chinese starting to lose their cool and does it signal trouble for the world's second largest economy?
On Monday, Chinese state media, the Communist Party's People's Daily newspaper, took a personal swipe at President Trump, saying he was starring in his own “street fighter-style deceitful drama of extortion and intimidation".
The criticism comes as Chinese stocks and the yuan continue to take a beating raising questions about whether the ongoing tariff tit-for-tat with the U.S. is taking a toll.
“The Chinese economy is slipping across the board. That is one reason their currency is falling,” said National Economic Council Director Larry Kudlow, during an interview on FOX Business’ “Varney & Co.” on Friday.
The yuan’s beat down has pushed the currency down about 8% against the U.S. dollar from its 52-week high reached back in February of this year, as tracked by Dow Jones Market Data. For the year it has lost nearly 5%.
Chinese stocks are also taking a drubbing with the market now in third place behind the U.S. and Japan as of this week. The Shanghai Composite, the country’s benchmark stock index, fell to the lowest closing value since February 2016 this year on Monday and is down 18 percent. These losses have taken the cumulative value of Chinese stocks down to $6.09 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg, below the $6.17 trillion value of Japanese equities.
And China’s service sector, which includes small business owners and accounts for about 60% of China’s economic growth, slowed in July, according to the purchasing managers survey published in Caixin magazine on Friday. Many of the survey’s respondents are concerned about an escalating trade war with the U.S., according to Reuters.
And while China’s economy is growing, the pace of growth has been slowing. Second-quarter GDP, released in July, rose 6.7%, the weakest in about two years.
The basket of weaker economic data points is not lost on the White House.
“China is increasingly isolated with a weak economy,” noted Kudlow, “and a trade war could cause even more problems for the world’s most populous nation.
“China better take Trump’s efforts to solve the unfair and illegal trade, their tariff problem, their lack of reciprocity, their IP theft. They better take President Trump seriously,” warned Kudlow, while taking questions from reporters.
Suzanne O'Halloran is Managing Editor of FOXBusiness.com and is a graduate of Boston College. Follow her on Twitter @suzohalloran
*This article was originally published on 8/3/18 and updated on 8/6/18.