China's economic growth for the past few decades has been extraordinary. And much of that growth was fueled by real estate – it was like this miraculous economic engine for the country. But recently, that engine seems to have stopped working. And that has raised all kinds of questions not just for China but also for the global economy. Today on the show, we look at what's happening inside China's real estate market. And we try to answer the question: how did we get here? Help support Planet Money and get bonus episodes by subscribing to Planet Money+ in Apple Podcasts or at plus.npr.org/planetmoney. Learn more about sponsor message choices: podcastchoices.com/adchoices NPR Privacy Policy
This is planet money from NPR.
There is a real estate crisis in China right now, and it's a big deal because China's real estate market is really big.
It's the largest asset class in the world.
All in all, property in China is worth, according to some estimates, something like $60 trillion.
But over the past couple of years, that number has been shrinking.
And it's the property developers in China that are having the most obvious troubles right now.
They've started to miss payments on loans.
They've even been defaulting.
Of course, these things didn't just happen.
There's a long story behind how China's real estate got into this mess, a story I asked NPR international correspondent Emily Fang to help me tell.
Here we go.
Ah, there you are.
Yep.
Cool.
No one does it better than Emily.
No one can combine the on the ground China reporting with the deep historical knowledge that Emily has.
Stop it.
If I could blush, I'd blush.
I mean it.
And Emily, why don't we start here?