China's belt may be slipping.

"China's consumer prices fell the fastest in three years in November while factory-gate deflation deepened, indicating rising deflationary pressures as weak domestic demand casts doubt over the economic recovery." "Consumer price index (CPI) dropped 0.5% both from a year earlier and compared with October, data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) showed." However, "Year-on-year core inflation, excluding food and fuel prices, was 0.6%, the same as October." Reuters. Japan's lost decade from 1991 to 2003 was caused by a huge bubble in housing and stock prices, excessive debt levels, a falling birth rate and a rapidly aging population. wikipedia. "Even China's population of 1.4 billion would not be enough to fill all the empty apartments littered across the country, a former official said." "As of the end of August, the combined floor area of unsold homes stood at 648 million square meters (7 billion square feet), the latest data from NBS showed." Reuters. "Ratings agency Moody's cut its outlook on China's government credit ratings to negative from stable..., in the latest sign of mounting global concern over the impact of surging local government debt and a deepening property crisis in the world's second-largest economy." Reuters. "We have been expecting downward pressure on the sovereign rating after the PBOC finally acknowledged earlier this year that China's debt to GDP ratio was approaching 300%," said Win Thin. "China's population has fallen for the first time in 60 years, with the national birth rate hitting a record low - 6.77 births per 1,000 people. The population in 2022 - 1.4118 billion - fell by 850,000 from 2021." BBC. "China's fertility rate is estimated to have dropped to a record low of 1.09 in 2022, the National Business Daily said." Reuters. This is way below China's BFF North Korea, whose leader Kim Jong Un wiped away tears while imploring his country's women to have more children and bring them up as communists. The total fertility rate in North Korea was 1.79 in 2022, lower than 1.88 in 2014. The Replacement Level of Fertility is estimated at 2.1 births per woman in developed countries but is higher in poor countries where families need more children to augment family income by working and as caregivers in old age. wikipedia. "Affluent Chinese have moved hundreds of billions of dollars out of the country this year," and "They are using their savings to buy overseas apartments, stocks and insurance policies." To get round government controls "They have bought gold bars small enough to be scattered unobtrusively through carry-on luggage, as well as large stacks of foreign currency." BS. "China recorded a deficit of $11.8 billion in foreign investment in three months to the end of September - the first time since records began in 1998." BBC. "Italy will pull out of China's flagship Belt and Road Initiative (BRI)," as "Prime Minister Georgia Meloni's administration notified Beijing that it would cease participating in the BRI ahead of a deadline at the year's end." BBC. With so much national debt can China afford the BRI? Italy could be the beginning of an exodus. No money, no Belt.