Chinas credit and trade dynamics as part of rebalancing

China's M2 growth slowed to 9.2% YoY. M2 is similar to total loans. Sounds good as part of a rebalancing. Unfortunately M2 is 163Tn CNY vs a 2016 economy of 74.4Tn, so credit growth is worth roughly 20% of GDP.

This level of credit creation is underwriting a 6-7% growth in industrial production and 10-11% growth in retail sales, so clearly unprofitable businesses/ local government debts, bad debts and asset speculation related finance are absorbing a lot of credit growth and its frankly deflationary. The government seems to be restricting access to credit for at least some asset speculation areas which is probably the easiest area to rein in.

With the BAT tax shelved, Trump is pursuing targetted trade wars to resolve the CA deficit and China has to rapidly look for another finished goods customer. Populous Sub Saharan Africa and ASEAN countries are the obvious destinations. The main goods they can sell China are commodity related hence the one belt one road strategy.