China’s economy is slowing. Who wins and loses?

Welcome to Grid Today, bringing the best of Grid to your inbox. I'm Cameron Hood .

In this issue:

• China’s economic slowdown is impacting the world. Who wins and who loses??
• More doctors are speaking out against abortion bans ahead of the midterms?
• Why Adnan Syed’s case from “Serial” became a national phenomenon?
• New oil and gas discoveries fuel debate over growth vs. climate change?

Some Grid news: Our Executive Editor Laura McGann has been named AdWeek’s Media Editor of the Year! Read AdWeek’s profile of Laura and what we’re doing at Grid.?

On the Grid

China’s economic slowdown is impacting the rest of the world. Which countries will be winners and losers??

The news

“China and growth have been synonymous for so long it’s hard to imagine a world in which they part ways,” Special Contributor Brian Klein writes.?

After two decades of growth, China’s economy is slowing down. China is facing multiple challenges that are having a negative impact on economic growth – from a shrinking population to the domestic effects of climate change to a simmering real estate crisis and the consequences of its?notoriously strict zero-covid policy.?

And “as much as centralized planning has traditionally helped China avoid the worst of major global recessions, this time the scale of the problems far outpaces the policies that might fix them,” Klein writes. “Massive infrastructure investment and real estate development, China’s preferred boosts for much of the last decade, look ill-equipped to deal with the current slowdown.”?

China’s GDP is forecast to grow by 2.8 percent for 2022, according to the World Bank?– a significant decrease compared to?the country’s 8.1 percent growth in 2021 and to the Chinese government’s forecast of 5.5 percent. ?

What this could mean

The effects of this economic slowdown will be different across countries, Klein notes – especially based on a given country’s trade relationship with China. ?

For the U.S., although China is its third-largest export market, after Canada and Mexico, the impact on its economy “will be blunted by the fact that sales to China represent only 0.65 percent of the roughly $23 trillion U.S. gross domestic product,” he writes.?

But “for other major economies, the effects are likely to be more dramatic.” Germany, Japan, South Korea and Taiwan all have sizable exports to China, and some poorer countries in particular depend on China as an export destination for their own growth. And countries that have depended on Chinese development loans will also feel the crunch.?

What does an era of slowed Chinese growth mean for countries around the world? And which countries stand to lose and gain the most??

Read more:?

• China’s economic slowdown is impacting the rest of the world. Which countries will be winners and losers??
• Millions of people under lockdown for 1,100 cases. When will China’s zero-covid policy end??

News in Context

Fossil fuel discoveries in poorer nations could unlock a windfall — but they are also fanning climate concerns?

“Don’t make the same mistakes that we’ve already made in the past,” U.S. Climate Envoy John Kerry said last month to African nations considering investing in oil and gas projects. ?

But, as my colleague Nikhil Kumar underscores, “What Kerry calls mistakes helped power the West’s growth. So why not ours? That’s the question being asked by many poorer countries with newly discovered energy resources in Africa and beyond.”?

Even as climate change threatens to disproportionately affect poorer countries – which also contribute less to global emissions – the tension in this debate “between the imperatives of growth and the global push to fight an ever more urgent climate crisis” isn’t going away, he notes.?

Many countries face climate risks – but also the urgent need to grow their economies and wealth. ?

How can wealthy countries tell poorer nations how to develop? Is there a way to balance both development and climate?concerns? ?

Read Nikhil’s full report.

More From Grid

• Today, prosecutors in Baltimore decided to drop charges against Adnan Syed, who was spotlighted in?the popular true crime podcast “Serial,” weeks after a judge vacated his conviction for murder in September. Syed spent 23 years in prison for the murder of his girlfriend, Hae Min Lee, when he was 17. The city attorney’s decision is “based on a review of DNA evidence,” Laura McGann notes. “The trajectory of Syed’s story – from 1999 when Syed was arrested, to 2014 when his case aired on ‘Serial,’ to now – shows how much cultural norms have changed since the rise of Black Lives Matter, digital-first news and the #MeToo movement.”?Read her 360 on how Syed’s case became a national phenomenon, from our Legal, Media, Religion and Gender lenses. ?
• ?The Supreme Court’s 6-3 decision in June overturning Roe v. Wade has led to abortion bans in more than a dozen states and litigation over bans in others. It’s also driven doctors in multiple states to become vocal and even protest against bans in a “wave of physician activism,” Dan Vergano reports. “People are speaking out because the stakes have changed,” one Wisconsin doctor told Grid. As abortion rights are on the ballot in five states in the upcoming midterms in November, more doctors are speaking out against abortion bans. ?
• ?This week marked a new wave of violence and political unrest in Haiti, which has been “racked by horrible gang violence since mercenaries assassinated President Jovenel Mo?se last year,” Mark Bauman and Mariana Labbate write. Prime Minister Ariel Henry has asked for help from international forces – leading to new violent protests calling for his resignation in response. See photos from demonstrations in Haiti.?
• Russia continued with airstrikes against targets across Ukraine today, following?its missile strikes that hit Kyiv and more than a dozen other areas yesterday. (For more context, see yesterday’s newsletter.) Follow all of our Ukraine war coverage here.?

Listening Grid

?? Don’t miss Grid’s new podcast, Bad Takes! Each week, Executive Editor Laura McGann and Editor-at-Large Matthew Yglesias discuss a take that’s gotten under their skin, peeling back its layers to figure out what it tells us about American politics and society.??

Catch up on all of the episodes here.?

New episodes will come out each Wednesday. Have a bad take for Laura and Matt to review in a future episode? Send it to us.??

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