Chinese leader Xi Jinping is expected to bargain from a position of strength in his meeting with US President Donald Trump this week, even as Beijing battles mounting economic headwinds at home.
As youth unemployment hovers near 20%, many graduates are now “pretending to go to work,” clogging up public spaces to avoid worrying their families about their joblessness.
Contending with weak consumption and slower growth figures, China is betting that advanced technologies will spur new growth, steering more investment toward competing with the US in semiconductors and AI, which creates relatively few jobs. “That’s one of the reasons that Chinese people aren’t seeing their pocketbooks grow in ways that their fathers’ did,” one expert told The Washington Post.