Report
A Diversification Framework for China
Although diversification is already underway, it proves difficult even in economies that have better security alignment with the US and the same attributes that made China attractive.
Services
Rhodium Group provides research, data, and insights that help clients understand and respond to new challenges and opportunities in China. Our teams have solutions for companies, investors, and governments that operate in or do business with China.
Corporate advisory services
Global businesses face a new set of challenges and opportunities in China, and Rhodium Group is uniquely suited to help. We provide strategic planning support for world-leading tech, industrial, retail, and services companies. With Rhodium’s help, clients can develop robust China+ strategies, uncover new revenue and investment opportunities, map out risks, build mitigation plans, optimize cross-border operations, and stress-test internal assumptions.
We engage in tailored client relationships combining advisory support, access to Rhodium expertise, client-only data and research, and executive briefings on economic and policy dynamics in China, the US, and Europe, with a laser focus on implications for business strategy. We also support clients through forward-looking custom projects including supply chain and technology risk reviews, strategy red-teaming, scenario-planning, tabletop strategy exercises, and diversification planning.
Recent work from our corporate advisory team
Note
US-China Trade War, Volume 2
In deploying a fresh wave of duties on a short list of strategic products, the Biden administration is highlighting the China dependencies that it wants to break while also inadvertently providing China with a target list for retaliation.
Note
Shut Out: Data Security and Cybersecurity Converge in Next Wave of US Tech Controls
New US tech controls will force a mindset shift for a wide range of industries on how their products could be national security risks.
Markets research for institutional investors
The direction of China’s economy is of massive importance for investors. Our team provides an independent and unbiased view of China’s macroeconomy and policy choices that institutional investors need. Our highly experienced analysts take a credit-driven, “follow the money” approach to gauging the inflection points in China’s economic outlook. We have a track record of predicting where China’s economy will go well before it gets there, providing huge value for institutional investors.
Our team provides clients with seven to ten research notes per month that cut through the noise of China-related news and provide meaningful signals of China-related trends as they impact major asset markets. Clients can also engage in active and open conversation with our experts, bolstering their own in-house research capabilities.
Recent work from our markets research team
Report
No Quick Fixes: China’s Long-Term Consumption Growth
We explain what is holding back household consumption in China and examine the policy debate over how to catalyze consumer spending.
Note
Beijing’s Silence is Deafening
China's economic policymaking process appears broken, or at the very least impaired.
Note
Through the Looking Glass: China’s 2023 GDP and the Year Ahead
China may see a cyclical recovery to perhaps 3.0-3.5% growth in 2024 as the property sector bottoms out, but structural slowdown will remain the dominant story for years to come.
Applied public policy research
Our team combines data-driven China macroeconomic analysis with deep knowledge of its global context to support decision-making in policy and commerce. Our team provides best in class written and visual analysis to help public and private sector clients better understand key questions about China and its relation to the world. Is Xi Jinping shifting the country toward a reform path? How does China’s slowdown impact its R&D spending and competitiveness? And how can other governments compare industrial competitiveness in leading-edge technology with Chinese counterparts?
By engaging actively in the public debate about China’s interactions with the world, we constantly test our analysis against real world experience with leader-level audiences. Our analysis—and the feedback it gets from practitioners—improves public and private understanding of China’s outlook.
Recent work from our applied public policy research team
Note
China Pathfinder: Q2 2024 Update
The Third Plenum included laudable goals that would align with market norms under the Pathfinder framework. But with few exceptions, the decisions do not answer how these goals will be accomplished.
Note
How China’s Overcapacity Holds Back Emerging Economies
Unless Beijing implements serious demand reforms, developing nations will be crowded out of manufacturing by Chinese overcapacity, leaving them dependent and without export opportunities.
Note
China Pathfinder Update: Lack of Policy Solutions in Second Half of 2023 Belies Official Data
In the second half of 2023, Beijing's efforts on market policy reorientation were limited.
Proprietary data services
Good policy and business decisions require transparency. Combining cutting-edge technology with deep analytical China expertise, we create data solutions that help public and private sector clients manage risks and seize opportunities connected to China’s development and emerging global footprint.
Our proprietary datasets combine official statistics, open source intelligence and China expertise to provide transparency in key areas of public policy interest, such as China’s domestic financial flows, its global investment footprint or the trajectory of China de-risking. Our data solutions for clients combine proprietary datasets with analytics and bespoke advisory tailored to their needs.
See examples of our data services
MPER
Helping investors manage their systemic China portfolio risk.
US-China Investment Monitor
A multiyear initiative that aims to provide greater transparency on capital flows between China and the United States.
Footnotes
1.
One of the primary proponents of this view is Michael Pettis, who has outlined the problems of rebalancing toward China’s consumption in The Great Rebalancing (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2013) and Trade Wars are Class Wars (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2020), with Matthew Klein, among other publications.
2.
Scott Rozelle et al, “Moving Beyond Lewis: Employment and Wage Trends in China’s High‑ and Low‑Skilled Industries and the Emergence of an Era of Polarization,” Comparative Economic Studies vol. 62 (2020), p. 555-589.
3.
Manufacturing goods are defined following the World Bank’s definition: Commodities in SITC sections 5 (chemicals), 6 (basic manufactures), 7 (machinery and transport equipment), and 8 (miscellaneous manufactured goods), excluding division 68 (non-ferrous metals), to which we re-added the manufactured product categories within division 68. South Asia includes Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, and Sri Lanka.
4.
According to the latest release of TiVA data, OECD.
5.
We use the IMF definition of developing countries. See https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WEO/weo-database/2023/April/groups-and-aggregates.