No Money to Pay Salaries! China’s Local Government Is $14 Trillion in Debt, Borrowing From Temples

Recent years have seen a surge in news stories about financial crises in local governments across China, especially during the three years of implementation of the “zero-COVID“ policy by CCP leader Xi Jinping. With a large number of businesses closed, community lockdowns, and massive expenditures on nucleic acid tests and the construction of quarantine facilities, the financial situation of already-struggling local governments has further deteriorated. As a multitude of real estate companies default on their debts, the land-based fiscal model, which heavily relies on “land sales revenue,“ is coming to an end. Amid an increasingly severe financial crisis that can no longer be concealed, local governments are drowning in debt, salaries for civil servants are being cut, and there are even reports of already-disbursed bonuses being clawed back. #localgovernment #chinadebt #chinaeconomy #chinaobserver All rights reserved.