The Coming Collapse of China

The Coming Collapse of China is a book by Gordon G. Chang, published in 2001, in which he argued for the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) to be the root cause of many of the China's problems and would cause the country's collapse in the near future. His book also made specific forecasts on the year that the party would collapse since Chang insisted that it would occur by 2011. When 2011 was almost over, Chang admitted that his prediction was wrong but said it was off by only a year. On 29 December 2011, Chang asserted in the Foreign Policy magazine, "Instead of 2011, the mighty Communist Party of China will fall in 2012. Bet on it." Consequently he made the magazine's "10 worst predictions of the year" twice when his prediction proved wrong again.[1][2][3]

The Coming Collapse of China
AuthorGordon G. Chang
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
SubjectChina
Publication date
2001
ISBN978-0812977561
OCLC45636911

Summary

In the introduction of his first edition published in 2001, Gordon G. Chang, an American lawyer, predicted the following scenario:

The end of the modern Chinese state is near. The People's Republic has five years, perhaps ten, before it falls. This book tells why.[4]

Based on the perceived inefficiency of state-run enterprises and the inability of the Chinese Communist Party to build an open democratic society, Chang argued that the hidden non-performing loans of the "Big Four" Chinese state banks would likely bring down China's financial system and its communist government, along with the entire country. He prediced specifically that the party would collapse by 2011.[5]

Reception

Dexter Roberts of Bloomberg Businessweek described the book as "Pessimism on a grand scale."[3]

In 2002, Julia Lovell of The Observer noted that although China's entry to the World Trade Organization could provide Western investors with many new opportunities, Chang's book "marshalled ample evidence to dampen such expectations."[6] In 2001, Patrick Tyler of The New York Times wrote:

As Chang discovered, China is a nation of contradictions. Many of its state industries are virtually bankrupt; its banking system sits on a mountain of unrecognized bad debts; its agriculture is primitive; pollution is out of control; and government interference and corruption are killing off a number of new business ventures...

— The New York Times, September 9, 2001[7]

Updates

In 2010, Chang wrote in The Christian Science Monitor that "China could fail soon" and predicted an economic crash.[8] In an article, "The Coming Collapse of China: 2012 Edition," published by the Foreign Policy magazine website, Gordon G. Chang admitted that his prediction was wrong but arguing that he was off only by one year: "Instead of 2011, the mighty communist party of China will fall in 2012. Bet on it."[9] On May 21, 2016, The National Interest published another article by Chang, "China's Coming Revolution." In it, he argued that the ruling class in China is divided and that cannot deal with its economic problems. Chang claimed that would lead to a revolution, which would overthrow the Communist Party. Unlike for his other predictions, he did not give the exact year that those events would take place.[10]

See also

References
  1. "Survival of China's Communist Party". m.koreatimes.co.kr. January 2, 2013. Retrieved November 19, 2021.
  2. Tao, Xie. "Why Do People Keep Predicting China's Collapse?". thediplomat.com. Retrieved November 19, 2021.
  3. Dexter Roberts. "Pessimism on a Grand Scale". Bloomberg Businessweek. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
  4. "The coming collapse of China". WorldCat. Retrieved October 22, 2013.
  5. "The Coming Collapse of China". www.gordonchang.com. Retrieved November 19, 2021.
  6. Julia Lovell (March 10, 2002). "Observer review: The China Dream and The Coming Collapse of China". The Guardian.
  7. Patrick E. Tyler (September 9, 2001). "'The Coming Collapse of China': Reckoning With a 'Paper Dragon'". The New York Times.
  8. "China: the world's next great economic crash". Christian Science Monitor. January 21, 2010. ISSN 0882-7729. Retrieved August 30, 2021.
  9. Gordon G. Chang, The Coming Collapse of China: 2012 Edition, Foreign Policy, December 29, 2011.
  10. Chang, Gordon G. (May 21, 2016). "China's Coming Revolution". The National Interest.
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