The Spectator Podcast

** This episode of Chinese Whispers with Cindy Yu was recorded in front of a live audience as a part of the Battle of Ideas Festival 2024. **Is China in decline?I was born in China in the 90s, and growing up it felt like the future was always going to be brighter. My parents were wealthier, more educated, better travelled than their parents, and it seemed assured that my generation would only have even better life chances.But in the 2020s, China’s economic growth has slowed down. Some of the once-bright spots in its economy, like real estate, are in slow motion meltdown. In the last couple of years foreign direct investment into the country has been falling at a record pace. The youth unemployment rate from this summer shows that just under a fifth of people under 24 are jobless.So how much of this is a considerable decline in the progress that China has made in the last miraculous half century, or is it just perhaps 'western bias' that’s blinding us to what is still a very positive picture?On this live podca