If the leaks and rumors are true, Beijing stands ready to launch a new and radical solution to the economy’s property crisis – a government takeover. What the authorities refer to as “a new model” would replace the old emphasis on ownership with more rentals and use government funds to buy up bankrupt properties so that in time the government’s role in real estate would rise from 5% of the market at present to 30%. Such an act would surely take the nation back to its communist roots if not quite the days of Mao Zedong. If it would veil the property crisis for a time, it would in the long run do tremendous damage to China’s economic prospects.
Well, they are leaving out how demand fell off a cliff after Beijing locked everyone in their high rise apartments for a year or more.
Imagine the government listening to the science and using public health measures to save millions of lives instead of demanding everybody go die so the quarterly profits aren’t interrupted.